WilliamLam.com

  • About
    • About
    • Privacy
  • VMware Cloud
  • Tanzu
    • Application Modernization
    • Tanzu services
    • Tanzu Community Edition
    • Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
    • vSphere with Tanzu
  • Home Lab
  • Nested Virtualization
  • Apple
You are here: Home / Uncategorized / Nested Virtualization APIs For vSphere & vCloud Director 5.1

Nested Virtualization APIs For vSphere & vCloud Director 5.1

10.18.2012 by William Lam // 2 Comments

Did you know with the release of vSphere 5.1 and vCloud Director 5.1, there are now APIs that allow you to enable/disable Nested Virtualization aka (Virtual Hardware Virtualization) on a Virtual Machine?

Disclaimer: Nested Virtualization is not officially supported by VMware.

In the vSphere 5.1 API, there are two new properties related to Nested Virtualization:

  • nestedHVSupported is a new capability property which indicates whether your physical ESXi 5.1 host supports Nested Virtualization. This property is only true IF your physical CPU supports BOTH Intel-VT/EPT OR AMD-V/RVI. For more details, please refer to this article.
  • nestedHVEnabled is new property on a Virtual Machine which allows you to enable or disable Nested Virtualization. You will need to ensure you are running a Virtual Machine with ESXi 5.1 Compatibility (e.g. virtual hardware 9) and your physical ESXi 5.1 host supports Nested Virtualization.

Here is a screenshot of performing the same operation manually using the new vSphere Web Client:

In the vCloud Director 5.1 REST API, there two new operations related to Nested Virtualization:

  • /action/enableNestedHypervisor is a new operation on a Virtual Machine that enables Nested Virtualization. Here is an example using the curl utility enable VHV:

    curl -i -k -H "Accept:application/*+xml;version=5.1" -H "x-vcloud-authorization: xX4IrWWi+Ofq77zOqPJaMEYHHJt4jxrwP+ntkO2tecQ=" -X POST https://vcd.primp-industries.com/api/vApp/vm-d9870545-a29a-4175-bff4-ae075f1c1bc0/action/enableNestedHypervisor

  •  /action/disableNestedHypervisor is a new operation on a Virtual Machine that disables Nested Virtualization. Here is an example using the curl utility to disable VHV:

    curl -i -k -H "Accept:application/*+xml;version=5.1" -H "x-vcloud-authorization: xX4IrWWi+Ofq77zOqPJaMEYHHJt4jxrwP+ntkO2tecQ=" -X POST https://vcd.primp-industries.com/api/vApp/vm-d9870545-a29a-4175-bff4-ae075f1c1bc0/action/disableNestedHypervisor

Here is a screenshot of performing the same operation manually using the vCloud Director UI:

If you plan to leverage Nested Virtualization in your environment, you now have simple way of automating this feature for Virtual Machines that you wish to support Nested Virtualization.

More from my site

  • Having Difficulties Enabling Nested ESXi in vSphere 5.1?
  • How to Enable Nested ESXi & Other Hypervisors in vCloud Director 5.1
  • How to Enable Nested ESXi & Other Hypervisors in vSphere 5.1
  • How To Enable Nested ESXi Using VXLAN In vSphere & vCloud Director
  • Nested Virtualization Resources
Share this...
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Linkedin
  • Reddit
  • Pinterest

Categories // Uncategorized Tags // api, esxi5.1, nested, REST API, vcloud director 5.1, vesxi, vhv, vSphere 5.1

Comments

  1. Dominic Duncan says

    12/04/2012 at 7:54 pm

    App developer in Melbourne uses several kind of programs such as API and VPN to be able to address to whatever the public's need when it comes to their mobile services. And yes, it really is good to see blogs that explains how to make a software work.

    Reply
  2. Navin R. Thadani says

    03/03/2013 at 7:15 am

    Interesting post. Just ran into it. In fact its very closely related to something that Im working on. Its called Ravello Systems http://www.ravellosystems.com. We have developed some technology that we are very proud of and are offering a completely free beta. Its essentially a high performance nested hypervisor (we call it HVX) along with an IO overlay (SDN). It allows you to take a multi-VM application running on VMware (or KVM) in a datacenter and run it unmodified on AWS/Rackspace/HP Cloud - on both PV and HVM VMs. So you can simple upload your vmdk/vmx and deploy to any cloud. Thats it. Any users willing to give it a shot and provide some feedback?

    Reply

Leave a Reply to Dominic Duncan Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Search

Author

William Lam is a Senior Staff Solution Architect working in the VMware Cloud team within the Cloud Infrastructure Business Group (CIBG) at VMware. He focuses on Cloud Native technologies, Automation, Integration and Operation for the VMware Cloud based Software Defined Datacenters (SDDC)

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Connect

  • Email
  • GitHub
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo

Support

Recent

  • Quick Tip - Adding a vTPM (Virtual Trusted Platform Module) to a Nested ESXi VM 05/13/2022
  • vSphere Event-Driven Automation using VMware Event Router on VMware Cloud on AWS with Knative or AWS EventBridge 05/10/2022
  • Integrating VMware Event Broker Appliance (VEBA) with Zapier 04/28/2022
  • Using Terraform to activate Tanzu Kubernetes Grid Service on VMware Cloud on AWS 04/27/2022
  • DFI GHF51 - Worlds smallest AMD Ryzen SBC 04/19/2022

Advertisment

Copyright WilliamLam.com © 2022