This short guide will walk you through installing another hypervisor (Harvester or ESXI) inside of an already configured Proxmox host. My usecase for this was to be able to demonstrate the ability to provision VMs directly from within Rancher without dedicating an entire server to Harvester/ESXI.
- A Proxmox node capable of Hardware Assisted Virtualization. (Intel: VT-x ; AMD: AMD-V) (Note: Harvester is only working on Intel-based cpus as of this writing)
- 4GB ram
- Understanding of how to use proxmox
Before we go creating virtual machine inception, we need to enable V-in-V support within our ProxMox host kernel. SSH into the Proxmox host and run the following commands:
## PROXMOX HOST CONSOLE
echo 'options kvm ignore_msrs=y' >> /etc/modprobe.d/kvm-intel.conf # Intel-only
echo 'options kvm-intel nested=Y ept=Y' >> /etc/modprobe.d/kvm-intel.conf # Intel-only
#echo 'options kvm-amd nested=Y ept=Y' >> /etc/modprobe.d/kvm-amd.conf # AMD/Ryzen-only. Note: Harvester is only supported on Intel-based CPUs as of this writing.
rebootNext we will create our virtual machine just like we always would, but you need to set a few specific parameters.
| Option | Required Value |
|---|---|
| OS Type | Other OS Types |
| CPU Type | Host |
| Network Type (Harvester) | e1000 |
| Network Type (ESXI) | VMWare vmxnet3 |
Before you start up your newly defined VM, you will need to go back to the console and tack on an additional configuration line. Run the following to enable nested-virtualization in the corresponding VM. Replace VM_ID with the numerical ID displayed in the proxmox UI.
## PROXMOX HOST CONSOLE
echo 'args: -machine vmport=off' >> /etc/pve/qemu-server/<VM_ID>.conf
qm start <VM_ID>That's it. You can now install Harvester or ESXI within Proxmox and create VM's in some weird Hypervirtualization Inception.
Is this even needed anymore? I'm running Proxmox 7.3.3 and I actually forgot this step, but it still worked.