Can you do double or triple virtualizations in any OS?

[tom_mai78101]

Let's say you have at least:

1. Core-i7 Quad Core.
2. 500 GB SATA3 hard drive.
3. 16 GB of RAM.
4. VirtualBox / VMware Fusion / PearPC / etc. (I go with VirtualBox)
5. Any OS.

On a clean install of the OS, install VirtualBox, and install a OS in it.

Can you install a third OS within the virtualized OS? Are there any legal issues with this method? What is the maximum number of OSs can you virtualize in this setup?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ghan]

I don't think there are any "rules" against this other than the normal licensing issues with the OSes in question, however, I believe the general consensus is that VMs inside VMs "doesn't work" or at least "doesn't work well." Proceed at your own risk - it's not something I would attempt.

 

[Samuraid]

To answer the question: yes you can in some circumstances. For example: you could run a video game console emulator in a virtual machine.

Using paravirtualization or binary translation, you may also be able to virtualize full operating systems within each other, but the performance will likely be terrible.

If you are using hardware virtualization (AMD-V or VT-x), you can run only one VM level at a time. (i.e. no VMs within VMs)

Disclaimer: the preceding two statements might be wrong, as I am not a virtualization expert. They are merely stated based on what I understand now of how virtualization works.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Ok, thanks for the infos.

 

[Slapshot136]

I don't see any benefit to doing it that way as opposed to just running several VM's - or are you trying to re-create something from inception?

 

[tom_mai78101]

Actually no. This was something that got mentioned in class the other day.