@olivierlambert Thanks for the good news!

I've used VMware for years. ESXi as a server hypervisor and VMware Workstation Pro on the desktop. Even for some labs and test environments I got by with the free version of ESXi with limited APIs. The new licensing policy does not suit me and my companions at all and as a bonus Broadcom has cut the free version of ESXi. Bravo! I think Broadcom should get the award for best marketing of XCP-ng, H-V, Citrix etc. for 2024

On desktops, I need to keep VMware Workstation Pro for many reasons. That's why I was impressed by the videos @lawrencesystems made about XCP-ng & Xen Orchestra. The capabilities that are close to vSphere and vCentre, the ability to import and export VMDK so easily through XO blew me away. And to top it all off, transferring VMDK disks through XO works noticeably faster than migrating VMs between VMw WS and ESXi!

Great, it's working fine now

To conclude this: @florent and I discussed the issue in a private conversation. I provided the vmdk file that was causing the problem. It turned out that the problem was caused by the vmdk thin file from VMware Workstation Pro, which has a slightly different structure than the vmdk files on ESXi hypervisors. Currently XO imports these files fine and the problem can be considered solved. Thank you very much @florent for your cooperation and help.

That's exactly it, thank you

@stormi That's not quite what I meant. The point is that if the host is 8.3/4.17, then virtualization is not working on its guest and therefore no other nested guest can be started on this guest. And actually, yes, if 8.3/4.17 appears somewhere in the cascade of nested hosts, then nested virtualization will no longer work on its guest.

But I have a suspicion that it hasn't worked since the last or second to last batch of updates for XCP-ng, that it worked before.

Hello,
on XCP-ng host v. 8.3 (latest updates), I created an XCP-ng 8.3 virtual machine using the CentOS 7 template and enabled Nested virtualization. However, XO shows a "Hardware-assisted virtualization is not enabled on this host" alert and the nested virtual machine cannot be started on the virtualized host.

vm.start
{
  "id": "b2b6c96b-f6c8-a99c-5e72-d6cd1b123022",
  "bypassMacAddressesCheck": false,
  "force": false
}
{
  "errors": [
    "xcp-ng-brxbamkk: VM_HVM_REQUIRED(OpaqueRef:e0855019-e6dd-595d-648c-62872961b97f)"
  ],
  "code": "NO_HOSTS_AVAILABLE",
  "params": [],
  "message": "NO_HOSTS_AVAILABLE()",
  "name": "Error",
  "stack": "Error: NO_HOSTS_AVAILABLE()
    at Xapi._startVm (file:///opt/xo/xo-builds/xen-orchestra-202404302058/packages/xo-server/src/xapi/index.mjs:909:11)
    at Xapi.startVm (file:///opt/xo/xo-builds/xen-orchestra-202404302058/packages/xo-server/src/xapi/index.mjs:948:7)
    at Api.#callApiMethod (file:///opt/xo/xo-builds/xen-orchestra-202404302058/packages/xo-server/src/xo-mixins/api.mjs:366:20)"
}

@DustinB said in Cannot import ISO file:

What version number were you at before (while it wasn't working) and when you downgraded what version were you at?

Now I tried again and it still doesn't work in commit 1b5157e, but it works in 0ccfd4b. I didn't check which specific commit introduced the problem with the self signed certificate.

@Danp Yeah, that's exactly it! After downgrading to an older commit the import works just fine! Just like here: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/8618/restoring-from-backup-error-self-signed-certificate/23

@planedrop In general, the fact is that the current XCP-ng 8.3 RC1 and XenServer 8 simply do not support any kind of nested virtualization. For example, when I want to try a mock setup of say 5 hypervisors, I just don't buy or dedicate 5 hw servers and rather make virtualized hypervisors. And for the record, I'm referring to the lab environment for debugging configurations and scenarios, not production.

P. S.: In more legacy Xen, which is part of XCP-ng 8.2, nested virtualization works.

P. P. S.: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/8932/hardware-assisted-virtualization-is-not-enabled-on-this-host-even-though-platform-exp-nested-hvm-true-is-set

@abudef said in Managing disks and storage in the XO GUI:

create a RAID 5

Or rather ZFS, but I guess it doesn't matter, it's more about the GUI management option in general...

Sure, for example I have 4 disks in my host server ready for local storage. I would like to list them in the GUI and create a RAID 5 from them, without having to connect to the host server console and use the mdadm tool. And I would like to select this RAID to create local storage again by selecting it without having to specify the device path.

Hi, I would like to ask if there is any plan for more advanced GUI support for managing local storage on individual hosts. I mean a comfortable management of disk devices, so that the preparation for mounting local storage does not have to be done in the command line with Linux tools, for example preparing and managing disks connected to a raid etc.

@olivierlambert So there are basically no dramatic architectural differences in the individual hypervisors in this regard?

@olivierlambert Well, I guess that too, but I meant something else, whether it might be somehow related to the architecture of individual hypervisors in general, whether simply the way Xen is built is a complication for implementing nested virtualization.

As I'm waiting there, I'm wondering why is implementing nested virtualization so difficult and lengthy in the case of Xen? VMware, H-V, VirtualBox, KVM - they all support it, so I wonder what the reasons might be that Xen still doesn't...

To pass the time during a long wait

Nested Virtualization (X86) Part I - George Dunlap, Xen Server:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jKGYY1Bi_o

Nested Virtualization (X86) Part II - George Dunlap, Xen Server:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MxWvVTmY1s

@planedrop In general, the fact is that the current XCP-ng 8.3 RC1 and XenServer 8 simply do not support any kind of nested virtualization. For example, when I want to try a mock setup of say 5 hypervisors, I just don't buy or dedicate 5 hw servers and rather make virtualized hypervisors. And for the record, I'm referring to the lab environment for debugging configurations and scenarios, not production.

P. S.: In more legacy Xen, which is part of XCP-ng 8.2, nested virtualization works.

P. P. S.: https://xcp-ng.org/forum/topic/8932/hardware-assisted-virtualization-is-not-enabled-on-this-host-even-though-platform-exp-nested-hvm-true-is-set

@olivierlambert Yeah, I used that of course, it looks like milliseconds, I just wanted to be sure because I couldn't track it down anywhere.

@olivierlambert said in Automatic startup and shutdows VMs at the specified time:

Very likely seconds

Could someone please try this? I set it to 120, aka 2 minutes, and the VM practically immediately went into force shutdown.