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I'm trying to configure an application to run on Google Cloud. I was able to start a VM running Windows 2008 Server (64bit) and install VMWare Player inside it. Then I tried to install and boot a second VM within VMWare Player, and Windows crashed.

So, my question is, does Google Cloud support "nesting" VMs in this fashion?

In case it matters, the "inner" VM's operating system was Linux (also 64-bit).

zwol
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Ken Jung
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  • I've revised your question to make it less rambly. But I don't understand why you are trying to do this. Why don't you run the Linux VM directly inside Google Cloud Platform? Is the "outer" Windows VM doing anything besides hosting VMWare? – zwol Mar 10 '15 at 20:22
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    Also, this question belongs on [ServerFault](http://serverfault.com/), being much more about system administration than programming. – zwol Mar 10 '15 at 20:22
  • Thanks for all your feedbacks. I think I got the answer and your suggestion to run the linux VM directly would be a better idea. I appreciate it. – Ken Jung Mar 13 '15 at 01:32

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You cannot run Virtual Machine inside the GCE VM, as Virtualization is not enabled in any of the machines which are created under GCE. Currently Google doesn't have this functionality in its VMs.

Even if you tried to enable the Hyper-V in the Windows Sever GCE instance it will not allow you to do this because the processor should support the version of hardware assisted Virtualization.

I would suggest to create another Linux VM on Google Cloud Services, if you still need another machine.

George
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Shobhit
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    I see. Thanks for sharing technical details. I probably need to try different public cloud which might support this type. Thanks a lot for your great feedback. Cheers. – Ken Jung Mar 13 '15 at 01:34
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    For anyone reading this, "Currently" has changed. https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/enable-nested-virtualization-vm-instances. It's only KVM on Linux at the moment though. – nelsonjchen Oct 08 '17 at 18:08
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Nested support in GCE is now in Beta (as of September 2017):

Documentation: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/instances/enable-nested-virtualization-vm-instances

Blog posting: https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/09/introducing-nested-virtualization-for.html

Disclosure: I work at Google on GCE.

Caleb Raitto
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  • Awesome! One thing we're not clear on: we know (or at least assume) that the nested virtualization is NOT supported on Windows *hosts*. However, if the host is linux (eg debian), can the kvm guest machine be a Windows kvm vm? I can't see why not. The docuemtnation says "windows instances are not supported, but we assume that means that Windows HOST machines are not supported" – Jonathan Sylvester Oct 25 '17 at 14:33