Question

I am currently taking an operating systems class and I need to use qemu to run a small operating system that my professor provided. I am trying to use qemu within an ubuntu 12.04 virtual machine on virtualbox on my macbook air 5.2. I know the problems I am having probably have to do with nested virtualization but the specific error I get when I try to run qemu is:

Could not access the KVM kernel module: No such file or directory

failed to initialize KVM: no such file or directory
Back to tcg accelerator.

qemu does start up the os but the window flickers quite a lot and I would like to fix the KVM problem if possible. I’ve done research but I can’t find a solution I can understand or that works so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also for the ubuntu virtual machine in virtualbox I have both Enable VT-x/AMD-V and Enable Nested Paging checked under Hardware Virtualization. I’ve also tried using

modprobe kvm-intel

and I get this error:

FATAL: Error inserting kvm_intel (/lib/modules.3.5.0-22-generic/kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm-intel.ko): Operation not permitted.

Answer 1

Try with sudo modprobe kvm-intel.

In order to have the module automatically loaded at the startup of the virtual machine, you can edit the file with any editor that allows you to edit files as root. You can use sudoedit, vscode, sudo -e or any other editor.

To keep the instructions straightforward, the following will work:

1. Edit the corresponding file from the shell with sudo vi /etc/modules.conf
2. Possibly enter your username password.
3. Press the key G to go to the end of the document and then o to begin inserting.
4. Write kvm-intel and press Enter, producing a new line.
5. Press Esc to return to the Normal mode of vim. "–INSERT–" will disappear from
   the bottom.
6. Save the file and exit vim by writing :wq.

You are done. Try to reboot and load the nested virtual machine.