Advice needed

[Helio Mendonça]

Hi
Before wasting time and money on this, I would like to know if what I wanted to do is possible using Proxmox.

Is it possible to have a Proxmox installation where:
- one of the VM is running Windows 10 so I can use it as a normal PC (using the GPU+monitor+keyboard+mouse connected on that server)
- and at same time running a Linux VM connected to a DVB-S PCIe card (for satellite TV transcoding and streaming)?

I found something about "Passthrough on Proxmox", but my doubt is if it is possible to do that simultaneously on two different VMs (for instance the GPU in a Windows 10 VM, and a DVB-S PCIe card in a Linux VM).

Regards and Thanks already for your verdicts
Hélio

 

[Helio Mendonça]

Judging for the number of answers I got, it seems the answer to my question is NO, right?

Thanks any way...
Hélio

 

[alexskysilk]

possible- probably. will it work with your hardware? search the forums. Lastly, no one is asking you for money, and no one owes you anything. you'd be better served without the snark.

 

[Helio Mendonça]

Dear alexskysilk
I did not wanted to be rude!
When I wrote "before wasting time and money" I meant "before buying the hardware and read all the posts about this issue".
Gotcha?
I thought that the experts on Proxmox could rapidly say no, yes or maybe as you did.
At least your "probably" give me some hope.
Regards and thanks once again!

 

[Quintin Cardinal]

You can pass devices through to VMs. I would say that the answer to the first part, using the physical Proxmox host but passing through the GPU to the guest, and getting video output from the GPU to a monitor to see the guest OS, and passing through keyboard/mouse to the guest os... I'm not sure if this is for gaming, but I'm guessing there will be an amount of latency there that makes that less than ideal. If your goal isn't gaming, I would probably get a Rasberry Pi and RDP to your Windows guest or something like that. This does make kind of want to test whether your idea is possible or not!

 

[Helio Mendonça]

Dear Quintin Cardinal

Thanks for your reply!

Let me tell the all story...
I have at home several servers located on Raspberry Pis:
- one for Home automation holding Home Assistant, MQTT broker, Node-RED, Grafana, etc.
- one having a OpenVPN server plus a dnsmasq server
- one with MotionEye for serving my IP cams
- one with RasPBX (Asterisk + FreePBX) to connect my voip phones and door intercom
Using Raspberry Pis for all this is interesting because is cheap and low power but some times I have corruption of their microSD cards and in the case of the MotionEye the hardware performance is not enough for more then 3 cams.

Recently I saw a YouTube video about Proxmox and the possibility of having several VMs running different servers.
At the same time I have a PC running Ubuntu 14.04 that basically streams TV satellite channels received by a DVB-S PCIe card to some media devices using Tvheadend.
So I thought in buying a new PC capable of implementing all the servers in Proxmox VMs.

But I also have another desktop PC (i7 7700K + 16GB DDR4 + NVIDIA GTX 1080) running Windows 10 where I do my daily work (very rarely gaming). So, I wonder (since my main desktop PC have reasonable performance) if I could install the Proxmox on it (running all the servers) and at the same time having a VM running Windows 10 so I could still use it in my daily work. In that case I could do all in my current hardware without the need to buy a new PC and therefore save some money. That was the reason of my initial post that seems to had been misunderstood!

Regards

 

[jim.bond.9862]

Well, setup like you want is not possible with Proxmox and with most hipervisor.
This systems are designed to do one thing and do it well. That is this systems are designed to do virtualization.
Now there is only one hypervisor I know that can do setup like you are looking for. And that is Windows server 2016
And even that have some limits. Also the cost is very prohibitive.

Now what you can do is built out a nice server with dual cpu and 64gb ram. Plug in your video card in it and use Proxmox or exi to run all your servers on it.
Also setup a win10 vm with passthrough gpa


OR. You can load hyper-v on your desktop and see how many servers you can run on it alongside win10 before you run out if resorses. For a strictly vm server running linux based systems your pc is good. Running windows and more needs more power. At least 64gb ram

 

[dcsapak]

But I also have another desktop PC (i7 7700K + 16GB DDR4 + NVIDIA GTX 1080) running Windows 10 where I do my daily work (very rarely gaming). So, I wonder (since my main desktop PC have reasonable performance) if I could install the Proxmox on it (running all the servers) and at the same time having a VM running Windows 10 so I could still use it in my daily work. In that case I could do all in my current hardware without the need to buy a new PC and therefore save some money. That was the reason of my initial post that seems to had been misunderstood!

in general this is possible, but it depends mostly on hardware support, and what you expect from such a system

i, for example, have my workstation pc at home running with linux as the host, and a windows gaming vm which i start when i want to play games (that require windows),
i have passed through my gfx and a usb controller, and can change the input of my monitor

but you also mention a dvb card so you have to have at least 3 pci devices ( 1 host gpu, 1 guest gpu, dvb card) and i am quite sure that your mainboard either does not have enough pcie slots, or it is not possible to
pass through 2/3 of them when all 3 are in use (with server hardware this would probably work ok)

also your 7700k is a 4core8thread system, which you would then share between your gaming vm and your servers and this can have bad impact on either

 

[Helio Mendonça]

Hi

Thanks for the advises!

I confess that the problem here is I do not know exactly what Proxmox's capabilities are.
In the videos I saw, the VMs are accessed through a web page interface where we can open a window console to show its desktop.
In the case of the Linux VMs I mentioned that is more than enough (in fact a simple SSH terminal would be enough).
But in the case of the Windows 10 VM I need a truly desktop experience, that is, full screen and with reasonable graphics performance (for seeing video for instance). That is why I though that using "passthrough" would enable to have the desktop being delivered (not through a webpage window) but through the graphics card output directly to the monitor.

But from what I saw in your replies, I think it is already possible to say that my system is not enough to do all what I wanted, and therefore I need to buy a new PC. And in that case I could keep my current PC for Windows 10 and use the new one just for the Linux VMs where the single "passthrough" I would need to implement would be the DVB-S PCIe card.

In that case the graphics performance I need are minimal and therefore an Intel CPU with integrated GPU or a AMD Ryzen plus a simple graphics card would be enough, right? All my PCs till now have Intel CPUs, but from what I saw in this forum the Ryzen also give very good results with Proxmox and are much cheaper. Do you think that for implementing a server for the Linux VMs I mentioned in post #6 a Ryzen 7 1700 with 32GB is enough?

Regards and thanks once again for your help!

 

[jim.bond.9862]

Hellio,
Let me just clarify a few points before you run out and spend some cash.
As i said before most hipervisors are not designed to do what you want. I.e. run a set of VMs and being a desktop.
Now it is absolutely possible to have a setup line you want using Windows hyper-v
But you may want to plan a bit in advance to do it as the overhead involved may pose a big issue.
Here is why,
1. What ever you do on the desktop side affects the performance of all VMs as the main system takes precedence when it comes to resources. Also windows is a resource hog.
2. If you go this route your pc will have to be run 24/7. Most consumer grade hardware can not do this reliably.
3. Like it or not you will need to reboot the system more often when used as desktop than if it is a dedicated server.

That said, if you ok with all of this, than all you really need to do is bump up the ram to max your mb can handle.
Setup a good backup strategy for all your VMs.
Load a hyper-v role , this is win10 pro only option so calculate the cost of licence , and build out your VMs for everything but win10 machines is you need any.
You do not need any licencing for linux VMs
But you need a dedicated licence for any windows vm you want to run past 2. I think with win pro you get 2 vm licences included any more you have to buy.

As described you will get the setup you want.

Keep in mind though I personally , and I am sure many people here will agree, would not run this as what you would call production system. This setup would be a test rig or emergency only.
For a safe and reliable config a dedicated server is the only viable solution.

 

[Helio Mendonça]

Dear jim.bond.9862

But now that I took out of the equation the Windows 10 VM I believe the rest is possible!
I found here a guy that did something like I wanted with a DVB-S board similar with mine.
He even mention an old thread from Proxmox forums.
And my other VMs are a bunch of Linux servers that just need a net connection.

It is curious that the setup of that guy is similar with the one I was thinking:
GA-AX370-Gaming K5 Motherboard
AMD Ryzen™ 7 1700X Processor
OS Proxmox 5.3-5 - kernel 4.15.18-9
I just do not know the amount of RAM he used but I would say that 32GB is enough, right?

Regards

 

[jim.bond.9862]

Dear jim.bond.9862

But now that I took out of the equation the Windows 10 VM I believe the rest is possible!
I found here a guy that did something like I wanted with a DVB-S board similar with mine.
He even mention an old thread from Proxmox forums.
And my other VMs are a bunch of Linux servers that just need a net connection.

It is curious that the setup of that guy is similar with the one I was thinking:
GA-AX370-Gaming K5 Motherboard
AMD Ryzen™ 7 1700X Processor
OS Proxmox 5.3-5 - kernel 4.15.18-9
I just do not know the amount of RAM he used but I would say that 32GB is enough, right?

Regards

With windows vm out of equation a nice 4 to 6 core cpu with 16gb should be more than enough to run at very least 6-7 VMs at light load or 4-5 at moderate load.
And .If you can use the DVB-S .Card in lxc you may even have more resources left than with full VMs. Or do a full vm for video recording and use other setup in lxc.
Thus 16gb ram to start and add later if needed or get a full 32gb now if budget allows it.

 

[Helio Mendonça]

Dear jim.bond.9862

Yes, I think I have budget for 32GB right now!

Now, I just need to choose the CPU and Motherboard!
As I wrote, will be the first time that I will bet in a AMD solution but from what I read it works fine with Proxmox also!
The difficulty is where to put the red line! 1700, 1700X, 2700, 2700X?
The first one seems to have the "best value for money" and since it is already above your advice (4 to 6 core) I think I will go for it.

Since Ryzen7 1700 do not include GPU, and even this server do not require a great graphical performance I still need a minimal external GPU for using it in Proxmox, right? Any suggestion?
What about the motherboard?

Sorry for so many ???

Regards

 

[jim.bond.9862]

I am sorry but I have no suggestions here.
I use AMD exclusively if I can. I just like them. Have been using their cpu for the last 20+ years if I could help it.

Don't know your budget or location, but you maybe able to pickup a nice used server on eBay with everything you need for a reasonable price.
I got a nice supermicro box 10 years ago for under 400$ I just did a major revamp with new mb and cpu on it. But I run it as is for 10 years. The only mod I did right away was dump the psu for a regular atx type and swap all the fans