Intergrating virtualbox into proxmox webinterface?

[eislon]

I have read some threads about people wanting to use proxmox on a non KVM capable machine. I can understand those people cause not all BIOSes (we can say a whole lot of them) are not able to use the virtualisation technology in the cpu!

And then we have the cpu's like the intel ATOM which could be great for openvz machines. Why? Well if I look at my AMD Athlon X2 my openvz containers are doing thier thing with low processor need, I run a asterisk and mail server as openvz (production) enviroments, futhermore serveral webservers and the X2 is really eating out of his nose.
Only when the Windows machine is kicking in, the cpu has some load (more then I want;-)

Wo it is not a bad idea to maybe (didn't read the license yet) to be able to install virtualbox with a proxmox installation and use it through the proxmox webinterface. So it look like a intergrated piece and has the simplicity of proxmox. Using this technology would make a windows virtualmachine possibale on say an Intel Atom. Ok, the migration part and some other things will not be available for that vm.

Is something like this possible (to intergrate it into the installation and webinterface) or is it a idea for the trashcan? I don't know yet what the status of openvz is for the new kernels (2.6.32 --> ) cause this is something I won't like to loose.

 

[tom]

I have read some threads about people wanting to use proxmox on a non KVM capable machine. I can understand those people cause not all BIOSes (we can say a whole lot of them) are not able to use the virtualisation technology in the cpu!

And then we have the cpu's like the intel ATOM which could be great for openvz machines. Why? Well if I look at my AMD Athlon X2 my openvz containers are doing thier thing with low processor need, I run a asterisk and mail server as openvz (production) enviroments, futhermore serveral webservers and the X2 is really eating out of his nose.
Only when the Windows machine is kicking in, the cpu has some load (more then I want;-)

Wo it is not a bad idea to maybe (didn't read the license yet) to be able to install virtualbox with a proxmox installation and use it through the proxmox webinterface. So it look like a intergrated piece and has the simplicity of proxmox. Using this technology would make a windows virtualmachine possibale on say an Intel Atom. Ok, the migration part and some other things will not be available for that vm.

Is something like this possible (to intergrate it into the installation and webinterface) or is it a idea for the trashcan? I don't know yet what the status of openvz is for the new kernels (2.6.32 --> ) cause this is something I won't like to loose.

virtualbox is a different technology, also it is not GPL - therefore it makes no sense for Proxmox.

atom cpu:
I do not think that this cpu is a good candidate for a virtualization host. you should only use atom for basic operations, for OpenVZ is quite ok - but never perfect for full virtualization like KVM or virtualbox.

 

[eislon]

virtualbox is a different technology, also it is not GPL - therefore it makes no sense for Proxmox.

atom cpu:
I do not think that this cpu is a good candidate for a virtualization host. you should only use atom for basic operations, for OpenVZ is quite ok - but never perfect for full virtualization like KVM or virtualbox.

Well I thought there were two versions of Virtualbox, one which is free (OSE), on the virtualbox site it says:
"
The VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) is the one that has been released under the GPL and comes with complete source code. It is functionally equivalent to the full VirtualBox package, except for a few features that primarily target enterprise customers. This gives us a chance to generate revenue to fund further development of VirtualBox.
"

So this part could be used if it would be a good addition to proxmox.

I know the Atom is maybe not the best cpu to use virtualmachines on, but as you said it runs great with openvz containers. I have tested it with an Atom 230 cpu and it works nicely with proxmox and fine for linux openvz containers. There are also serveral webhosters which are using Atom based systems for providing webspace to lower the costs for customers (and thier energy). The most use vserver, but I think proxmox would be great for this too. But perhaps full virtualization on these cpu's isn't the best thing. On my "workstation Atom 230" virtualbox is running fine for one vm at the same time, which is clear why.

At the moment I use an Intel Pentium D (master) and an AMD X2 (node) as a proxmox cluster which runs and runs (thanks for that).

I am always looking for new things which might make a product better for general use, that's why I talked about virtualbox cause it has a free version, also because the openvz issue, which I hope will be solved so that we can stay using it with the new kernels (any news about this yet?).

With the virtualbox OSE there are less features, but perhaps an idea to look at again?

 

[tom]

Well I thought there were two versions of Virtualbox, one which is free (OSE), on the virtualbox site it says:
"
The VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) is the one that has been released under the GPL and comes with complete source code. It is functionally equivalent to the full VirtualBox package, except for a few features that primarily target enterprise customers. This gives us a chance to generate revenue to fund further development of VirtualBox.
"

So this part could be used if it would be a good addition to proxmox.

I know the Atom is maybe not the best cpu to use virtualmachines on, but as you said it runs great with openvz containers. I have tested it with an Atom 230 cpu and it works nicely with proxmox and fine for linux openvz containers. There are also serveral webhosters which are using Atom based systems for providing webspace to lower the costs for customers (and thier energy). The most use vserver, but I think proxmox would be great for this too. But perhaps full virtualization on these cpu's isn't the best thing. On my "workstation Atom 230" virtualbox is running fine for one vm at the same time, which is clear why.

At the moment I use an Intel Pentium D (master) and an AMD X2 (node) as a proxmox cluster which runs and runs (thanks for that).

I am always looking for new things which might make a product better for general use, that's why I talked about virtualbox cause it has a free version, also because the openvz issue, which I hope will be solved so that we can stay using it with the new kernels (any news about this yet?).

With the virtualbox OSE there are less features, but perhaps an idea to look at again?

atom cpu works with Proxmox VE fine, only containers - what do you miss?

virtualbox: Proxmox VE uses KVM and OpenVZ as this is GPL - virtualbox is NOT 100 % free software. but feel free to use virtualbox, its not bad in functionality but as long as (important) parts are not free software I just recommend everybody to think twice to move to this mixed licensed software.

 

[eislon]

atom cpu works with Proxmox VE fine, only containers - what do you miss?

virtualbox: Proxmox VE uses KVM and OpenVZ as this is GPL - virtualbox is NOT 100 % free software. but feel free to use virtualbox, its not bad in functionality but as long as (important) parts are not free software I just recommend everybody to think twice to move to this mixed licensed software.

Tom,

What I miss is ofcourse the Virtualisation technology in the cpu, but this is not a proxmox problem ;-) That's why I got the idea why not intergrate the GPL code of virtualbox, but what I understand from you the GPL virtualbox is missing things to make it run say windows vms? I have the OSE version of virtualbox running on my sidux (debian sid) linux installation, which also just implements GPL software, and I can make and run windows vm's with it. When I look at the vritualbox.org site it says that the OSE version is licensed under GPL, so the code should be free or able to use with/in other application. I agree with you not to use mixed licensed software, that is why the OSE edition should be fine for use in proxmox. Can you specify which part is not free in the OSE version of Virtualbox?

I just thought if it is free and you could combine it also into proxmox, you have a new user group which can use proxmox on there systems where the BIOS doesn't allow to enable the virtualisation technology (but the processor can do it). And I like to have just one interface to manage the virtual machines. And the webinterface of proxmox is ideal for that.

BTW: The OpenVZ containers are running very good on a Atom (230/330) cpu. So I hope that OpenVZ will support the new linux kernels. Any news on that ?

 

[tom]

Tom,

What I miss is ofcourse the Virtualisation technology in the cpu, but this is not a proxmox problem ;-) That's why I got the idea why not intergrate the GPL code of virtualbox, but what I understand from you the GPL virtualbox is missing things to make it run say windows vms? I have the OSE version of virtualbox running on my sidux (debian sid) linux installation, which also just implements GPL software, and I can make and run windows vm's with it. When I look at the vritualbox.org site it says that the OSE version is licensed under GPL, so the code should be free or able to use with/in other application. I agree with you not to use mixed licensed software, that is why the OSE edition should be fine for use in proxmox. Can you specify which part is not free in the OSE version of Virtualbox?

I just thought if it is free and you could combine it also into proxmox, you have a new user group which can use proxmox on there systems where the BIOS doesn't allow to enable the virtualisation technology (but the processor can do it). And I like to have just one interface to manage the virtual machines. And the webinterface of proxmox is ideal for that.

BTW: The OpenVZ containers are running very good on a Atom (230/330) cpu. So I hope that OpenVZ will support the new linux kernels. Any news on that ?

OpenVZ is still the same. We recommend to use the new 2.6.18 Proxmox VE Kernel if you need OpenVZ (currently in the pvetest repository, testing)

 

[eislon]

OpenVZ is still the same. We recommend to use the new 2.6.18 Proxmox VE Kernel if you need OpenVZ (currently in the pvetest repository, testing)

I think that currently my installations runs on 2.6.24 with openvz... have to check this.. I know I got OpenVZ containers (many). But thanks for the recommandation.

BTW: If I can help with translating the webpage into dutch you can contact me.