Das Werkstatt

PROBLEM
I just imported/exported a Virtualbox virtual machine, using the ".ova" file format.
When I tried to start the virtual client on the new host machine, I got the following error message:

VT-x features locked or unavailable in MSR
(VERR_VMX_MSR_LOCKED_OR_DISABLED).

Sounds like my hardware doesn't support hardware virtualization.

One option would be to disable the "Enable VT-x/AMD-V" option in Virtualbox, but that doesn't work for 64bit client VMs (The option is always re-enabled automatically in that case).

So I tried to load the "kvm-intel" module manually, to see what that says. Well, doesn't look too good either:

FATAL: Error inserting kvm_intel (/lib/modules/3.2.0-75-generic/kernel/arch/x86/kvm/kvm-intel.ko): Operation not supported

However, my CPU seems to support it, though: Returns the following for all 4 cores:

flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt aes lahf_lm ida arat dtherm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid

So, I've rebooted, and checked the BIOS:
Yes, the virtualization features of the CPU were actually disabled by default.

After enabling them, everything worked fine!

Links:

• How to check if your hardware supports virtualization (virt-tools.org)
• VT-x features locked or unavailable in MSR (virtualbox.org)