>>> Actually, it isn't - virtualizing virtualization solutions doesn't tend
>>> to work very well at all.
>>
>> QEMU doesn't use hardware virtualisation. It does software emulation
>> only. This is why it's trivial to do what I described.
>
> Even for software-based virtualization (emulation is different), it
> wouldn't work so well, to the best of my knowledge.

My understanding is that QEMU does full software emulation of the guest 
system. (It can even emulate an architecture different than the one it's 
running on.) Assuming it emulates the full capabilities of the guest, I 
don't see why you can't run QEMU inside QEMU.

If it's using the host hardware to accelerate things, then that of 
course is a different matter. Generally the scheme only supports one 
layer of virtualisation, not two.

>> For stuff that uses real hardware virtualisation... yeah, that tends not
>> to work. Although I have successfully run VirtualBox inside VMware
>> Workstation. (Had to tweak some options though, turning off some of the
>> hardware acceleration...)
>
> It can be done, sure; it's not very stable.

I'm sure it's not a very "supported" route, but I managed to get Windows 
XP running inside Windows XP (running inside Windows XP). I only 
actually wanted to see what VirtualBox is like, without installing it 
for real. (Isn't that the point of desktop virtualisation? To test 
things without "really" installing them?) I wouldn't recommend using 
such a configuration "for real", no.

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