[ale] Virtualization question

Sun Nov 7 13:24:35 EST 2010

Like Michael, I use KVM with LVM with the same naming convention although I use just the hostname and my platform is Fedora.  I created a template 20GB volume and installed my standard packages (configured), users, and SSH keys.  Just before I need a new VM, I will run update, then create a new empty LVM volume and clone the template VM.  One of my VMs has a variety of collaborative tools including Twiki and I maintain pages describing the setup and configuration of each VM as well as a network topology with links to each machine and device on the network.  Each entry has the hostname, IP, mac address, version/platform, its purpose, and in the case of device - its version and firmware release.  Someday I would like to learn how to create kickstart scripts to automatically recreate each type of VM.

I have used Xen, VMWare, and KVM.  So far I like KVM the best and it keeps getting better.  And it upgrades along with the OS.  I like the GUI and the command line capabilities.  virt-manager is nice.  The consoles are nice when your networking is messed up.  I like being able to dump the XML configuration to save, backup and modify.  I even ran into a problem once trying to get Asterisk to run as a VM (PIAF/Centos).  It was generating "lost some interrupts" errors that could be resolved using the HPET BIOS flag.  The KVM development team responded fairly quickly saying the beta release had introduced an HPET BIOS feature (using the XML configuration) that allowed resolving of the problem.

I have another VM running OpenVPN with a port forward from my firewall.  Some of my VMs mount LVM volumes (ext4) defined on the host.  This is easily done using the system-config-lvm and the virt-manager GUIs.  I am currently working (unsuccessfully so far) on a VM that uses Amanda and a mounted volume to backup all my other VMs :).  My problems however are related to understanding Amanda than KVM.

But as Brian mentioned you do need the new virtualization hardware.  The quad-core Phenom II are relatively inexpensive.  I run two with 8GB each (cheap memory).  The VMs do not need that much memory (256MB-512MB) unless you are running Java (1GB-2GB).

Fred

On 11/06/2010 12:10 PM, Michael Trausch wrote:
>
> I don't know if this will help you out at all, but I will describe what I use for virtualization on my home system.
>
> What I use is actually a combination of two things: LXC, for lightweight containers, and KVM for when I need a full VM.  I have the system setup with Ubuntu Server on the bare metal.  At the present moment in time, I only have LXC containers running.  I create them by hand for now, but I am in the process of creating a set of scripts to manage them to make my life easier. My goal is to be able to easily provision a new VM with just a single command, using either LXC or KVM, depending on what the underlying OS in the VM needs to be.
>
> For storage, my VMs are using filesystems stored in LVM logical volumes.  The LVM volumes are named after the systems that they are for, so that I don't have to remember things like mapping /dev/sdc42 to a particular VM. Instead, I can look at the name and know what it is for; for example, /dev/data/vm.spicerack.trausch.us <http://vm.spicerack.trausch.us> would be the volume for the filesystem for spicerack.trausch.us <http://spicerack.trausch.us>.
>
> Also, using LVM makes it possible to easily grow, shrink, and snapshot the volumes for various tasks.
>
> I also use logical volumes for whole VMs running in KVM. Though managing those can sometimes be more difficult since instead of housing a filesystem, they house what ends up being a whole drive from the VM's point of view.  That can make things a bit hairy depending on the OS installed in the VM.
>
> I have really liked using LXC.  Being that it is in the mainline kernel, and being that it is supported upstream and that it does things like namespace parts of the system (such as the network stack), it makes it more useful than something like OpenVZ (because you don't have to go outside the container to do things like set up IP tunnelling, each LXC container can do that in its own network stack), life is easier.  You can also use the Linux cgroup system to do things like limit which CPUs a VM (or group of VMs) run on, and limit resources like consumption of CPU cycles and memory and so forth.
>
> In any event, there are a great many systems out there... LXC and KVM are both in the vanilla kernel, though, and that is the main reason that I use them.
>
> --
> Sent from my Android-powered G2.
>
> On Nov 6, 2010 11:02 AM, "Joshua Kite" <jwkite at gmail.com <mailto:jwkite at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I am looking for advice on how to set up some virtual environments for use
> > at home.
> >
> > I have a server, and I want it to have two distinct functions. One is
> > network filtering, etc. using squid and some other applications. The other
> > is my basic web/file/print server. I may want to play with something else
> > in the future, so virtualization seems like the right choice.
> >
> > The hardware that I have available is a dual xeon hyperthreaded 32 bit
> > machine. And that's the problem. I would like to run a bare-metal
> > hypervisor, but all of the current ones seem to be for 64-bit only. That
> > makes sense, but it doesn't work for me. I actually installed the previous
> > version of VMWare's ESXi only to find out that the free license will only
> > allow me to make use of one of the processors once the trial period is up.
> >
> > So the next option appears to be a light OS for a host system with a
> > hypervisor running inside of it. I have run Ubuntu for both desktop and
> > server for the past 5 or so years, but I am willing to consider other
> > distributions for both host and guest for the network filtering OS. I'll
> > probably use Ubuntu for the web/file/print functionality since I'm most
> > familiar with it.
> >
> > I have been fighting with my home server for weeks after a crash, and I'm
> > kind of tired of playing with it, so I am looking for a very dumbed down,
> > easy solution with step by step instructions for installation and automatic
> > startup of guests.
> >
> > Do any of you have recommendations?
> >
> > Thank you very much,
> >
> > Josh Kite
>
>
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