Error while trying to virtualise an ESX server as a virtual machine on a physical ESX

Recently there has been numerious blogposts about how to virtualise an ESX server as a virtual machine on top off a physical ESX server hosts. This is particular useful for mainly testing purposes.

Check some of these blogposts out:
VMware ESX 4 can even virtualize itself by Eric Gray at www.vcritical.com:
http://www.vcritical.com/2009/05/vmware-esx-4-can-even-virtualize-itself/

VMware vSphere in a box by Hany Michael at www.hypervizor.com:
http://www.hypervizor.com/2009/07/vsphere-in-a-box-a-virtual-private-cloud-blueprint/
http://www.hypervizor.com/2009/07/vsphere-in-a-box-part2-putting-the-pieces-all-together/
http://www.hypervizor.com/2009/07/vsphere-in-a-box-part-3-the-lab-manager-40-automation/

The last link above even shows how to utilize VMware Lab Manager to deploy multiple vSphere in a box LABs. That is exactly what I’m trying to achieve in this environment.

So moving forward I ran into problems with the virtualising ESX servers. I could’nt even install ESX or ESXi in the VM. I got the following error ”Kernel panic – not syncing: No supported microcode levels for this stepping of AMD Family….”:

I was quite sure my physical ESX hosts were running a newer processor, that can be used to run a virtual ESX. My setup is like this:
2x HP DL385G5 Servers with AMD Barcelona processors
2x HP DL385G5p Servers with AMD Barcelona processors

I verified the BIOS settings was enabled for AMD-V. I was trying out several of the .vmx tweeks in the past used for VMware Workstation or ESX3.5. Neither of them allowed me to install ESX in the VM.

So I am running different ESX hosts in my cluster and I had enabled EVC on the cluster to allow for VMotion between different CPU models. I tried to disable EVC and bingo, now it worked like a charm.

Installing vSphere 4 Update 1 works without any adjustments in the vmx file. Next step is to see if a VM can be run on top of the virtual ESX server.