KVM Server?
- Thread starter hambleto
- Start date
I am using two Xeon Quad-Core X5410s just fine with Proxmox VE. Yours would just be the same core/generation at a higher clock speed.
I am currently running Win2k Server in production in a KVM and I have also started up WinXP numerous times just to jack around with it and it has always been insanely fast and never had any problems installing windows updates, rebooting, browsing web, etc.
I am also running a little 512M-of-RAM FreeBSD 6.3/i386 server in production in a KVM, this 8-core Proxmox VE box has been incredibly useful. I needed a FreeBSD 6/i386 box real quick because I had an ancient piece of software that wouldn't run under FreeBSD 7/amd64 and I was migrating the entire existing box over. So.. I magicked up a free "legacy server" out of thin air, no extra electricity or heat or rack space.
Just be careful to manually change the MAC address of your virtual NIC for each new KVM you create by changing /etc/qemu-server/NNN.conf like so:
...and the next one would be macaddr=52:54:00:12:34:58 and so on.
I am currently running Win2k Server in production in a KVM and I have also started up WinXP numerous times just to jack around with it and it has always been insanely fast and never had any problems installing windows updates, rebooting, browsing web, etc.
I am also running a little 512M-of-RAM FreeBSD 6.3/i386 server in production in a KVM, this 8-core Proxmox VE box has been incredibly useful. I needed a FreeBSD 6/i386 box real quick because I had an ancient piece of software that wouldn't run under FreeBSD 7/amd64 and I was migrating the entire existing box over. So.. I magicked up a free "legacy server" out of thin air, no extra electricity or heat or rack space.
Just be careful to manually change the MAC address of your virtual NIC for each new KVM you create by changing /etc/qemu-server/NNN.conf like so:
Code:
network: macaddr=52:54:00:12:34:57,model=e1000,tap...and the next one would be macaddr=52:54:00:12:34:58 and so on.
Proxmox VE is a first release so it is a work in progress... what they've got already is VERY nice, and it sounds like the v1.0 release is going to fix most of the current deficiencies and missing things except for the extremely difficult bits like auto-failover clustering. For now I am more than happy to simply do nightly backups of my VMs to my two backup servers and be able to restore to a new Proxmox VE box in case of catastrophic failure. It puts me more than on par with the existing catastrophe-recovery situation with a normal non-virtualized server anyway.
So, that having been said, when you create multiple KVMs right now their virtual network adapters inside the VMs all get the same MAC address. This is bad; When you turn more than one KVM on simultaneously, they'll collide with each other and only one will get to communicate over the network at a time, the other one will be cut off. The fix is simple, like I just described. Just make sure each KVM is manually assigned a unique MAC and you are good to go.
Running an Exchange server under Win2003/Win2008 in a KVM shouldn't be any issue. I am currently running some nasty IIS/CF stuff under Win2k server at the same time as Plesk in an OpenVZ container and an apache server under FreeBSD 6.3/i386 in yet another KVM.
Migration between nodes isn't working yet in 0.9, but hopefully for 1.0. You can still manually migrate KVMs and OpenVZ containers yourself.
Hi Tog,
I totally agree, I don't need all the fancy stuff but rather have a solid platform that I can easily oversee and manage. I have backup servers so as long as there is a good way to make backups and (more important) do quick restores I'm totally fine.
The mix of being able to run best of both worlds on one platform without a scary monthly 'license fee' and being able of doing migrations between nodes without the need for expensive fiberchannel stuff is more than I could ask for
I totally agree, I don't need all the fancy stuff but rather have a solid platform that I can easily oversee and manage. I have backup servers so as long as there is a good way to make backups and (more important) do quick restores I'm totally fine.
The mix of being able to run best of both worlds on one platform without a scary monthly 'license fee' and being able of doing migrations between nodes without the need for expensive fiberchannel stuff is more than I could ask for
Yep. With a normal fairly cheap gigabit ethernet network you can move VMs from one box to another manually or restore from a backup server quickly enough.
In the unlikely event of a water landing, take ten minutes to install Proxmox VE on another 64-bit-capable server from CD and grab last night's backups of your .qcow2 files and vzdump tar files off the Solaris/ZFS backup server.
By the way, be sure to use an LVM2 snapshot when making a backup copy of your KVM .qcow2 files. Don't just copy them live.
In the unlikely event of a water landing, take ten minutes to install Proxmox VE on another 64-bit-capable server from CD and grab last night's backups of your .qcow2 files and vzdump tar files off the Solaris/ZFS backup server.
By the way, be sure to use an LVM2 snapshot when making a backup copy of your KVM .qcow2 files. Don't just copy them live.