How can I get nested virtualization working on e2-micro GCP VM

Question

I've been attempting to use the Google Cloud Platform's (GCP) layered virtualization capability, but I've had no luck. As per the GCP documentation, this is the process I followed:

Make a fresh disc using the Ubuntu 18 LTS image.
Apply the vmx license to a new image you create using the disc.
From the image, create a fresh VM instance.
Utilize the Ubuntu cpu-checker software to see if nested virtualization is supported.

gcloud compute disks create disk1 --image-project ubuntu-os-cloud --image-family ubuntu-1804-lts --zone us-central1-a
gcloud compute images create nested-vm-image --source-disk disk1 --source-disk-zone us-central1-a --licenses "https://compute.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/vm-options/global/licenses/enable-vmx"
gcloud compute instances create firecracker --description firecracker --image nested-vm-image --zone us-central1-a --preemptible --machine-type e2-micro

Upon running the sudo kvm-ok command, I received this message:

INFO: Your CPU does not support KVM extensions

KVM acceleration can NOT be used

Troubleshooting

Ensure I am Using Haswell CPU

I used the gcloud compute instances describe command to confirm that my e2-micro VM was utilizing the Intel Haswell CPU, which is the minimum required for nested virtualization to work, according to the GCP documentation.

(base) ➜  ~ gcloud compute instances describe firecracker
No zone specified. Using zone [us-central1-a] for instance: [firecracker].
canIpForward: false
cpuPlatform: Intel Haswell
creationTimestamp: 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
deletionProtection: false
description: firecracker
disks:
- autoDelete: true
  boot: true
  deviceName: persistent-disk-0
  guestOsFeatures:
  - type: VIRTIO_SCSI_MULTIQUEUE
  index: 0
  interface: SCSI
  kind: compute#attachedDisk
  licenses:
  - https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/ubuntu-os-cloud/global/licenses/ubuntu-1804-lts
  - https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/vm-options/global/licenses/enable-vmx
  mode: READ_WRITE
  source: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/xxxxxxxx/zones/us-central1-a/disks/firecracker
  type: PERSISTENT
id: 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
kind: compute#instance
labelFingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
machineType: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/xxxxxxxx/zones/us-central1-a/machineTypes/e2-micro
metadata:
  fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  kind: compute#metadata
name: firecracker
networkInterfaces:
- accessConfigs:
  - kind: compute#accessConfig
    name: external-nat
    natIP: xxxxxxxxxxx
    networkTier: PREMIUM
    type: ONE_TO_ONE_NAT
  fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  kind: compute#networkInterface
  name: nic0
  network: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/xxxxxxxx/global/networks/default
  networkIP: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  subnetwork: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/xxxxxxxx/regions/us-central1/subnetworks/default
scheduling:
  automaticRestart: false
  onHostMaintenance: TERMINATE
  preemptible: true
selfLink: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/xxxxxxxx/zones/us-central1-a/instances/firecracker
serviceAccounts:
- email: xxxxxxxx@developer.gserviceaccount.com
  scopes:
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/devstorage.read_only
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/logging.write
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/monitoring.write
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/pubsub
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/service.management.readonly
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/servicecontrol
  - https://www.googleapis.com/auth/trace.append
startRestricted: false
status: RUNNING
tags:
  fingerprint: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
zone: https://www.googleapis.com/compute/v1/projects/xxxxxxxx/zones/us-central1-a

Tried Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

I also tried the same process with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, according to the documentation, and received the same result as with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Question

Question: How can I successfully spin up a GCP VM that supports nested virtualization? As far as I can tell, I followed the documentation's requirements, but couldn't get it to work.

I realize that the documentation doesn't explicitly indicate that they test nested virtualization with Ubuntu 18 LTS, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't work.

Answer 1

This is a speculative response. If a comment is incorrect, it will be removed.

Here, under "Machine Types," we may get the following information:

There are shared-core computer types in the N1 and E2 families. These computer configurations share a physical core. Running small, low-resource applications using this technique can be economical.

N1: The shared-core machine types f1-micro and g1-small have up to 1 vCPU available for brief bursts of use.

E2: The shared-core machine types e2-micro, e2-small, and e2-medium each include two vCPUs that can be used for brief bursts of processing power.

You claimed to be using the e2-micro machine type in your article. Taking everything into account, we can observe that you have opted for a sort of machine that seems to execute shared-core processing and are attempting to