Virtualization inside a virtualizer, discussions

[Matei]

This is an old thread, but I wanted to point out for reference what seems to me a legitimate use case of virtualization inside virtualization not mentioned in here, which is: running Docker inside a Windows VM (which, I understand, uses VBox under the hood). The motivation would be using a purely Linux host to test the deployment of Linux-based software to Windows indirectly via Docker. Is this currently possible?

[scottgus1]

To the extent that one stays within the available capabilities. VT-x/AMD-V does not get through the first guest to be used in the second guest. So any 2nd-layer guest that requires VT-x/AMD-V will not run. Single processors only, no 64-bit, no 32-bit-requiring-VT-x. Older 32-bit may run but may (will?) be slow. Suitability for testing may be slim.

[AnrDaemon]

This is an old thread, but I wanted to point out for reference what seems to me a legitimate use case of virtualization inside virtualization not mentioned in here, which is: running Docker inside a Windows VM (which, I understand, uses VBox under the hood). The motivation would be using a purely Linux host to test the deployment of Linux-based software to Windows indirectly via Docker. Is this currently possible?

Docker is NOT A VIRTUALIZATION. It is an ISOLATION. See the note above about LXC.

[IAX]

I can't believe this hasn't been issued. A use case is to have a Guest Linux VM and you want to test with vagrant some configurations with multiple machines, and test ansible playbooks.

This feature works perfect in VMWare:

VMWare

VMWare VM.jpg (103.06 KiB) Viewed 2498 times

Not In VirtualBox:

VirtualBox

VirtualBox VM.jpg (117.2 KiB) Viewed 2498 times

[Martin]

So what's new? We already know that this feature doesn't exist in Vbox.

[sej7278]

So what's new? We already know that this feature doesn't exist in Vbox.

well it kind of did in 4.x (i ran esxi under vbox until 5.0) and as it seems like the only logical feature left to implement, it would seem like a nice thing for vbox 5.2, actual functionality rather than copy'n'paste or broken audio like 5.1 has focused on

[Martin]

Features are added when a commercial customer pays for them, or when volunteers donate the code...