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You are here: Home / Nested Virtualization / Heads Up - Nested ESXi crashes in ESXi 7.0 running on older CPUs

Heads Up - Nested ESXi crashes in ESXi 7.0 running on older CPUs

04.17.2020 by William Lam // 27 Comments

Thanks to Patrik Kernstock, who works in our Technical Support organization at VMware, for making me aware of an issue related to Nested ESXi running on an ESXi host that has been upgraded to ESXi 7.0. Several folks in the community have noticed after upgrading their Intel NUC 7th Gen and deploying a Nested ESXi VM and powering on an inner-guestOS would causes the Nested ESXi VM to crash.

Upon further investigation, it looks like this is not specific to the Intel NUC platform but rather with a specific generation of CPUs which are Intel Sky Lake-based and as a result, some customers are noticing this affect on their 7th Gen NUC.

UPDATE (06/23/20) - ESXi 7.0b has just been released and contains the fix for the Nested ESXi VM crash. If you are using an Intel NUC 10, do not just apply the patch as the updated ne1000 VIB within the patch will override existing Intel NIC driver causing the network adapter to no longer function.Β It is recommended that you download the patch and replace the default ne1000 VIB using Image Builder with the Intel NIC version before applying the update.Β To download the patch, please visit VMware Patch Portal site.

The good news is that this issue has already been reported and we should have a fix in a future update of ESXi. In the meantime, you can still run Nested ESXi and Nested Virtualization on these affected CPUs, you just will not be able to power on inner-guest VMs. Big thanks to Patrik for helping out with the testing and triaging this internally.

More from my site

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Categories // Nested Virtualization, Not Supported, vSphere 7.0 Tags // ESXi 7.0, Kaby Lake, Nested ESXi, Sky Lake, vSphere 7.0

Comments

  1. Elan 😷 (@ElanHasson) says

    04/18/2020 at 6:34 am

    > you can still run Nested ESXi and Nested Virtualization on these affected CPUs, you just will not be able to power on inner-guest VMs.

    So you can't do anything when you have nested ESXi? πŸ˜‚

    Reply
    • William Lam says

      04/18/2020 at 6:56 am

      There's actually a large majority of folks that don't actually need to power on guests within the ESXi VM. They use it test and validated vSphere API/Automation before applying that code to physical infrastructure.

      Reply
      • Kenneth Ehmsen says

        05/15/2020 at 11:48 pm

        Exactly William, best way to test before going into produktion with any script.

        Reply
  2. andrewjmoser says

    04/21/2020 at 7:12 am

    I have 8th Gen NUC's, NUC8I7HVK's, and this is happening on this generation as well.

    Reply
    • andrewjmoser says

      04/21/2020 at 7:17 am

      Edit - Those are Kaby Lake CPU's that I have, now that I read your link further, just different NUC Gen.

      Reply
  3. Andreas Mensing says

    04/23/2020 at 4:19 am

    I have the same problem with Intel NUC NUC8i7BEH Let's hope that the update will come quickly. An environment where no VM can run does not make much sense πŸ˜‰

    Reply
  4. Jerry Hency says

    04/23/2020 at 12:24 pm

    This is happening to me on a brand new NUC 10! Maybe downgrading the base host ESXi back to 6.7 I can still run ESXi 7.0 Nested hosts? Will that work around the issue?

    Reply
    • cclancy45 says

      05/09/2020 at 11:05 am

      Did this work for you on 6.7? Same over here with NUC10 on 7?

      Reply
    • dilidoloChris Du says

      05/12/2020 at 10:02 pm

      I'm running Nested 7.0 on 6.7U3, and nested VMs on nested ESXi 7.0 without any issue.
      My CPU is old E5-2667 v2.

      Reply
    • cclancy45 says

      05/13/2020 at 6:59 am

      I just rebuilt everything on latest 6.7 on it works fine - must be some sort of CPU gremlin in the code *shrug*

      Reply
  5. Nick Scuola says

    05/01/2020 at 12:17 pm

    Seeing this on 6th-Gen NUC6i5SYH as well.

    Reply
  6. Raul says

    05/11/2020 at 8:50 am

    It happens also on 6th generation NUC, if you power on a VM the nested ESXi powers off ...

    Reply
  7. Shane says

    05/28/2020 at 5:13 am

    I am seeing this on nuc8i7hvk. I have a nuc10 as well but haven’t tested on that yet.

    Reply
  8. meraj khalid says

    05/29/2020 at 3:41 am

    I have a NUC NUC10i7FNH and my eve-ng crashes using esxi 7.0 when i try to ran nexus os. looks like ihave to reinstall 6.7 to test it again.

    Reply
  9. vmware33425 says

    06/07/2020 at 8:51 am

    Thanks for this post. I'm observing the same issue. Do you know if we have a fix/workaround yet?

    Reply
    • William Lam says

      06/08/2020 at 9:26 am

      There's no workaround currently but this will be resolved in a future update

      Reply
  10. Abhishek Kunal says

    06/10/2020 at 3:45 pm

    I faced same issue with NUC10i7FNH , nested ESXi hungs ... as well as EVE-NG too...

    Reply
  11. Ibrahim Quraishi says

    06/17/2020 at 8:36 pm

    Hi I just got a NUC10i5, nested ESXi crashes exactly the same way. has there been no fix yet since NUC7 to NOC10 ? No real value of running a nested Lab if we cant power on the guest OS.

    Reply
  12. David P. says

    06/23/2020 at 7:44 am

    Same on my new barebone "Hunsn BM14" with 10170U proc ... πŸ™ πŸ™ πŸ™

    Reply
  13. William Lam says

    06/23/2020 at 8:49 am

    FYI - ESXi 7.0b (Patch 01) has just GA'ed https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/rn/esxi70b.html and it contains the fix for the Nested ESXi Crash

    Reply
    • Ibrahim Quraishi (@ibrahimquraishi) says

      06/25/2020 at 1:21 am

      Hi William, I was so exited about the fix. So I just patched the Intel NUC to ESXi 7.0b (Patch 01) and Unfortunately it took off the network drivers which I had to install as a custom build.
      No Compatible Network adapter found. Please consult the products's Hardware Compatibility Guide ( HCG ) for a list of supported adapters.

      Reply
      • David P. says

        06/25/2020 at 2:00 am

        I try a answer πŸ™‚
        if you use intel nuc with ne1000 drivers here :
        https://download3.vmware.com/software/vmw-tools/ESXi670-NE1000-32543355-offline_bundle-15486963.zip
        ne1000.vib is update by the patch, so you have to re-install drivers for your network card

        Reply
      • killerzac says

        06/26/2020 at 12:56 pm

        nested vm is now working with the new patches

        Reply
  14. David P. says

    06/24/2020 at 3:19 am

    Hello
    I confirm, I just try patch and now I can launch VM with nested ESXi πŸ™‚
    esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/Local_DataStore/VMware-ESXi-7.0b-16324942-depot.zip

    Reply
    • Ibrahim Quraishi (@ibrahimquraishi) says

      06/26/2020 at 2:46 pm

      Hi David,
      Did you had to install NE1000 drivers after updating the patch. I cant find the ISO for 7.0b yet on VMware website I was thinking of doing a new custom build with the new patch with NE1000. Please advice or share the iso if you got it.

      Thanks

      Reply
      • David P. says

        06/28/2020 at 2:48 am

        Hello
        I don't use NE1000 drivers with my lab, so I don't need custom iso.
        My homelab has only usb nic (3) with flings drivers, must to do lot of trick because esxi7 doesn't want install if you have only usb nic, but it's possible, not easy but possible.

        just a idea for you...
        One thing you can do, maybe make a custom iso 7.0 with fling usb drivers, update your system with this custom iso, add usb network (so the system will boot), just for transfer ne1000 and install ?
        After you can re-update your esxi 7.0 to 7.0b, the fling drivers will stay, and for any other update, you will have a backup solution with your usb nic ?

        Reply
  15. keviin077 says

    12/14/2020 at 7:24 am

    Hello all,

    can anybody confirm that Ryzen 4750G will work with ESXi 7 ?

    Thanks

    Maros

    Reply

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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)

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