VMware ESX 4 can even virtualize itself

Running VMware ESX inside a virtual machine is a great way to experiment with different configurations and features without building out a whole lab full of hardware and storage. It is pretty common to do this on VMware Workstation nowadays — the first public documentation of this process that I know of was published by Xtravirt a couple of years ago.

But what if you prefer to run ESX on ESX instead of Workstation?

You may be pleased to know that the GA build of ESX 4 allows installing ESX 4 as a virtual machine as well as powering on nested virtual machines — VMs running on the virtual ESX host.  You can even VMotion a running virtual machine from the physical ESX to a virtual ESX — on the same physical server!

VMware vSphere 4.1 UPDATE: VMware ESXi 4.1 has a keyboard issue when virtualized on an ESX 4.0 host.  In order to virtualize ESXi 4.1, the underlying host must be 4.1.  However, ESX 4.1 classic will work on ESX 4.0.

The extra tweaks to make it all work are minimal, and I will show you how without even opening up a text editor.

After installing ESX 4 onto your real hardware, configure as desired and enable promiscuous mode on a vSwitch:

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