Re: ESX on KVM requirements

[Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>]

Ben Sanders wrote:
> I'm looking to reproduce the results of Alexander Graf earlier this
> year when he said that he was able to get ESX to run a ReactOS guest
> all on top of KVM.  More information on that can be found here:
> http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kvm/2009/1/5/4600354/thread
>
> So far, I can only boot esx into service console mode, not regular
> mode or debug mode without a kernel panic (in ESX).  I've enabled
> nesting, both in the module and in the kvm command on v86, using the
> -cpu phenom option as well.
>
> First question is about cpu type.  I've been using some dual core AMD
> cpu's with svm enabled, but I'm wondering if I actually need a phenom
> cpu for all of this to work.  I was under the impression that KVM/QEMU
> could emulate a different CPU if the features didn't exist.
>
>   

No, kvm (mostly) doesn't emulate cpu features.  I don't know why -cpu 
phenom is required.  Copying Alex.

> Second question is about the host OS.  Are the nesting features in KVM
> only supported in an x86 OS? or should x86_64 work as well?  I've
> tried each (in varying degrees), but if one implementation wouldn't
> work (like emulating a phenom, an x86_64 processor on an x86 host OS),
> I'd like to know so I can stay away from that.  Also, I've been using
> Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04, but if there's some reason I should switch to a
> different distribution, I'd like to know that as well.
>   

x86 generally means i386 and x86_64.  Both should work, and x86_64 is 
recommended.


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