CML installation VT-X error

[iancalderbank]

I am evaluating CML for my customer, a large financial. I have trouble installing CML at the first stage, I get an error from within the CML VM when it boots up into the gui "KVM not present, please enable VT-X extensions and restart". I have tried it on 3 different ESX hosts which are all happily running multiple other corporate VM's. I don't understand this message - my interpretation from a bit of googling is that its telling me virtualisation is not turned on on the host - but it must be because the host  is running ESXi and supporting lots of VMs already.

 I am a routing guy (CCIE) but not expert at vmware, I can get by but no guru. Is there some specific requirement to run CML on ESX that I have missed?

I have RTFM the install guide and release notes.

Thanks

Ian

[David Martin]

Ian,

Thanks for stopping by the community and welcome!  There are a number of people who stop by this forum a couple of times a day from our CML support areas.  I'm sure that they will respond to you shortly.  In the meantime, there are also a number of videos located in this group that may give you some additional useful information while you are evaluating the product.  Check out the videos tab to see them.

Cheers,

David Martin

Community Manager

[Wes Smith · Accepted solution]

Ian

Check out the release notes and systems administrator guides.

There are a number of manual setup steps your need to make after installing the CML OVF into ESX.

In particular, You need to edit the vmx file for CML to enable virtualization within the guest OS.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/cloud_services/cisco_modeling_labs/v100/installation/guide/administrator/b_cml_install_sys_admin.html

[venus_grc]

hi Wes Smith . i have followed the cml install guide step by step but still having the VT-X error. Dell PowerEdge R300 has VT - enabled on BIOS. have you faced the same issue and have figured out how to solve this?

[iancalderbank]

yes I can see that in the documentation now. Before I had no idea what that was talking about (I am not a vmware expert as I said!). I will try that - however  getting access to the root level of the host to edit the file is not going to be easy, I just have an account that lets me make limited VM changes. The vmware admins are not going be happy to give me root access.

this raises one important question to me. Why is cisco shipping an OVA, for which the whole point is that its going to be installed on an ESX host in a virtual environment, that doesn't have the ESX virtualisation features turned on and they have to be done so by hand in a difficult manner afterwards?

If you shipped IOS with routing or CEF not turned on by default - and you had to hand edit some file inside the OS to turn it on instead of just a CLI command - the users would be pretty unhappy.

[Craig Brown]

Hi Ian,

That's a fair question and I will pursue with the Development and Product team to make this installation smoother as we move forward.

Craig

[venus_grc]

Hi iancalderbank - was this resolved on your side? we are facing the same issue

[iancalderbank]

Hi

I am afraid we gave up on CML. Found it too buggy and awkward to use and not worth it.

I now have a large ESX host with router VM's (IOS-XE, IOS-XR, regular IOS, these can all be had from CCO), each installed into its own VM. I then use regular vmware network connectivity to join them together , and configure them by hand. It doesn't give me the magic of stopping and restarting  "projects" or autoconfiguring addressing etc, but it works, and its free and stable. and with a big enough esx host you can simulate a massive network, I have a 40 router node network running. 

there is a lot of discussion of this kind of thing in CCIE study forums that can give you the pointers on how to start. what I've done is the same idea but made XXL.

ta

Ian

[venus_grc]

we might eventually follow your track if this doesnt work on our side . By the way, have you tried opening a Tac Case or Vmware case before giving up on CML VT-X error?

[iancalderbank]

I didn't go down the TAC route. Fortunately I have a tame vmware genius to hand (lead engineer for the vmware estate for the large financial that I work for), he hacked at the CML vm files until they worked . I don't fully understand what he did (in the same way that he doesnt understand what I do when I need to make the routing/switch dance a new tune..)

my point to cisco was that CML should be a tool for routing engineers, not vmware engineers, the vmware bit should "just work" you shouldn't need vmware hacking-level skills to install it. I actually found installing the routers as individual ESX VM's considerably easier (and is well documented).

[venus_grc]

Thanks iancalderbank - hopefully you could update the forum on as to how the vmware genius guy resolve this issue

[Joshua Loveless]

I have followed all of the steps according to the guide, including updating (via vi) the .vmx file.  However, I continue to receive the same error about VT-X not being supported.  This is a C220 and I have double checked support in the BIOS.  I have also hit the local mob page for VSphere and it shows that VHV Enabled = True. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Josh

[Craig Brown]

If you have gone through the steps and the problem still exists, then raise a case with the TAC.