When using vagrant Stderr: VBoxManage: error: VT-x is not available (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX)

Question

I am trying to install open edx with ubunty 16.04 and I get this error

There was an error while executing `VBoxManage`, a CLI used by Vagrant
for controlling VirtualBox. The command and stderr is shown below.
Command: ["startvm", "c60f0594-d584-4e0b-b863-2801168e641e", "--type", "headless"]
Stderr: VBoxManage: error: VT-x is not available (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX)
VBoxManage: error: Details: code NS_ERROR_FAILURE (0x80004005), component ConsoleWrap, interface IConsole

this occurs when using vagrant up

Solution

This is typically because you don't have VT-x or AMD-V enabled in your BIOS. Or worse yet, your CPU doesn't support virtualization.

You can test further by installing cpu-checker.

sudo apt-get install cpu-checker

Follow that with.

sudo kvm-ok

The output should be able to tell you what you need.

Keep in mind, vt-x can't be nested, so for instance, say you're trying to run vagrant on a cloud instance, in my experience that wont work. Atleast, for a 64 bit OS. You'll be able to run 32bit, however, that would be a single core and horrible performance.

Comments

[Admin]

I have a windows 10 machine with virtualbox 5.0 and on the host VT-X is enabled, also on virtual box VT-X is enabled, any idea? I got this when I ran the second command:

[Admin]

INFO: Your CPU does not support KVM extensions KVM acceleration can NOT be used

[Admin]

then I cant install OpenEDX on Ubuntu ever? I have i7 4970k its a very new processor. :(

[Admin]

So Ubuntu is running inside virtualbox inside Windows? That would be the problem, is so. VTx flags won't be passed again and again using virtualization. If Ubuntu were a full install you'd have no issue with that processor. There should be a way to load the vagrant image with virtualbox. That will be out of scope here. Or build openedx without using vagrant.

[Admin]

I have installed Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS 64-bit in my machine. also get the same reply from the last command, $ sudo kvm-ok INFO: Your CPU does not support KVM extensions KVM acceleration can NOT be used