If you install an OS in a VM that has KVM acceleration turned off because VT-D is not available on the node, but later on add a node where it is available, can you migrate the VM over and then turn KVM acceleration on, or will the guest OS need to be reinstalled? I have a temporary cluster setup on as VMs on ESXi 5.5 which doesn't seem to have a way to pass VT-D over to the VMs, but I did order newer hardware so I can run it bare metal but it will be a while due to the Canada Post strike and I'm kind of itching to build some new VMs on the temporary environment or even migrate some stuff from the existing ESXi setup, which I plan to phase out. I'm wondering if I can start building new VMs on this setup then migrate them over, enable KVM acceleration then, and still boot fine? I can't see why not... but just want to check if someone knows for sure.
KVM acceleration question
- Thread starter Red Squirrel
- Start date
Ok so I only thought of doing this now, but tested it in Virtualbox. I installed proxmox in a VM, as Virtualbox does support passing VT-D, while my current ESXi setup doesn't. So I installed an OS without KVM acceleration, then proceeded to turn it on, and the OS still boots. So I think I am good to start creating VMs in my temporary environment and once I get my hardware I can migrate the VMs over and then turn KVM acceleration on.
hi,
so there is some confusion about terminology here. VT-d is related to pci passthrough and not virtualization itself (e.g. see here: https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/Overview_of_the_Intel_VT_Virtualization_Features )
generally you don't have to reinstall guests when something like this changes, maybe there is some cpu feature that is not supported with kvm acceleration off, but that should not have an influence on whether the guest boots or not.
so there is some confusion about terminology here. VT-d is related to pci passthrough and not virtualization itself (e.g. see here: https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/Overview_of_the_Intel_VT_Virtualization_Features )
generally you don't have to reinstall guests when something like this changes, maybe there is some cpu feature that is not supported with kvm acceleration off, but that should not have an influence on whether the guest boots or not.