[Pkg-libvirt-maintainers] Bug#1115469: virt-what: VirtualBox VM with modern Paravirtualization might report both virtualbox *and* kvm

[Michael Prokop]

Package: virt-what
Version: 1.27-1
Severity: normal

Hi,

this happens when running a Debian system[1] inside a VirtualBox VM:

  # virt-what
  virtualbox
  kvm

virt-what reads /sys/firmware/dmi/tables/DMI to properly identify
VirtualBox, but also executes /usr/libexec/virt-what-cpuid-helper,
which might report KVMKVMKVM, and therefore reports both of them.

FTR: The host system is also Debian/trixie with kernel 6.12.43+deb13-amd64,
booted with kvm.enable_virt_at_load=0 and running VirtualBox VM
v7.1.12-dfsg-2.

The Paravirtualization Interface configuration of the VM is set to
"KVM" (with "Hardware Virtualization: [x] Enable Nested Paging").
When changing this setting to "Legacy", virt-what no longer reports
both "virtualbox" *and* "kvm", but only "virtualbox".

I'm not sure that's really expected behavior, so maybe virt-what
should report only "virtualbox" in such a situation?
(Maybe execution of /usr/libexec/virt-what-cpuid-helper could get
skipped if e.g. VirtualBox was already identified via
/sys/firmware/dmi/tables/DMI?)

[1] It's reproducible for me with e.g. Grml live ISOs, versions
2025.05 and 2025.08 (see https://grml.org/).

regards
-mika-