[OmniOS-discuss] newbie virtualisation question

[Alex Wilson]

On 09/12/12 06:53, Michael Mounteney wrote:
> On Fri, 7 Dec 2012 23:04:50 -0800
> "Paul B. Henson" <henson at acm.org> wrote:
>
>>  From http://omnios.omniti.com/wiki.php/VirtualMachinesKVM
>>
>> # add_drv kvm
> Thanks Paul.  Now:
>
> 	root at world:~# add_drv kvm
> 	devfsadm: driver failed to attach: kvm
> 	Warning: Driver (kvm) successfully added to system but failed to attach
>
> That warning is a 'bad thing' and AFAICT from searching, means that there's something wrong with the hardware, or similar.  Any ideas ?
>

The E5405 is a Harpertown Xeon (based on Penryn), which only has VT-x 
and not the necessary EPT capabilities to be able to use illumos KVM. 
The Intel ARK website is a liar, and claims that all VT-x CPUs have EPT 
-- only Nehalem-based Xeons have this capability. There has been some 
work to enable illumos to use KVM with pre-EPT Intel chips, but it 
currently crashes at startup of a VM and is as yet unuseable. So I'm 
afraid you're stuck without KVM on your current hardware, at least for now.

Regards,
Alex.