Betr.: no Virtualization support for creating VM's on PE840

[de Munck Mortier]

Hi Odi,

This may not be very helpful if you have already purchased a Xen
license, but I know VMware doesn't require VT in order to run virtual
machines. If you have to use that particular machine as VM host, you're
probably best off using VMware.

I'd like to ask the other list members for their input. I'm not really
an expert on either Dells or virtualization, I've just run into a
similar issue recently.

Hope it helps,

Bart

>>> Odi Mbeledogu <oditm at hotmail.com> 22-03-08 16:16 >>>

Hello all, this is the 1st time i'm using this lists.us.dell site so
excuse me if i've made a mistake sending this to the wrong address and
if i have please advice me on the right site to have used.
 
what it is is that i recently purchased a Dell PowerEdge 840 after
carefully selecting the specs i required, on its arrival i noticed that
the BIOS does not support virtualization, as a result of this on
successfully installing Xen vm on Open Suse 10.2 which creates the vm
kernel and i try to start the vm i get the error message:
'Cannot start the virtual machine'
then it goes on to say :
command: /usr/sbin/xm create /etc/xen/vm/vm1 return
  Error: (22, 'Invalid argument')
  Using config file "/etc/xen/vm/vm2".
 
when i prompt for more details i get:
 
'Error: HVM guest support is unavailable: is VT/AMD-v supported by your
CPU and enabled in your BIOS'
 
i have had a word with dell support who confirmed that the that the BIOS
does not support virtualization for now and that that option in the bios
is defaultly set to disable and that the most recent release of my BIOS
software doesn't list this in the menu for me to toggle that option, and
that maybe a future release of the BIOS software will have accessibilty
to this option. I was adviced by the Dell Engineer to come this site and
seek for help on this site.
 
does anyone know what i can do to get around this problem please.
 
i was told by the Dell engineer to run a cat command on the cpuinfo file
to see if the flag will reflect xt or vt, i did this and the i got the
following:
 
odi at PE840Srv:/proc> cat cpuinfoprocessor       : 0vendor_id       :
GenuineIntelcpu family      : 6model           : 15model name      :
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X3210  @ 2.13GHzstepping        : 11cpu
MHz         : 2133.600cache size      : 4096 KBphysical id     :
0siblings        : 4core id         : 0cpu cores       : 4fdiv_bug      
 : nohlt_bug         : nof00f_bug        : nocoma_bug        : nofpu    
        : yesfpu_exception   : yescpuid level     : 10wp              :
yesflags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr
pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe
nx lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 cx16 xtpr
lahf_lmbogomips        : 4269.91
 
i badly need to create virtual machines on this server, its got 750 GB
HDD (mirroring support) and 8GB of RAM, i selected all this with
virtualization in mind obviously. 
 
any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
 
 
Odi
 
 
 
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