Suitable Hardware

GarthK

Member
Feb 7, 2009
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I have a dual Quad-core Xeon box with 12GB and 3TB RAID-5 using a 3Ware 9550SXU card with battery backup. The box is currently running Ubuntu 8.04 and has the Linux software from 3Ware installed that allows me to administer/monitor the RAID card/disks via a browser. The box also runs Samba for SMB shares for a couple of XP boxes. The box also runs VMWare Server for six or seven (changes frequently) virtual boxes including 2003 Server, 2000 Server, XP, 2000, Ubuntu desktop and server.

I am trying to decide if I should just leave it alone (no fun:D) or if I should switch to Ubuntu w/KVM or Proxmox VE which, BTW, looks very impressive and is getting really good reviews. My main questions are: Will I be able to use the 3Ware drivers/software? Will I be able to use Samba?

Performance is not really an issue since I use this box for playing with various software development environments and just playing in general.

That's about it. Thoughts/comments welcome.

Thanx much for your time,
Garth
 
I have a dual Quad-core Xeon box with 12GB and 3TB RAID-5 using a 3Ware 9550SXU card with battery backup. The box is currently running Ubuntu 8.04 and has the Linux software from 3Ware installed that allows me to administer/monitor the RAID card/disks via a browser. The box also runs Samba for SMB shares for a couple of XP boxes. The box also runs VMWare Server for six or seven (changes frequently) virtual boxes including 2003 Server, 2000 Server, XP, 2000, Ubuntu desktop and server.

I am trying to decide if I should just leave it alone (no fun:D) or if I should switch to Ubuntu w/KVM or Proxmox VE which, BTW, looks very impressive and is getting really good reviews. My main questions are: Will I be able to use the 3Ware drivers/software? Will I be able to use Samba?

Performance is not really an issue since I use this box for playing with various software development environments and just playing in general.

That's about it. Thoughts/comments welcome.

Thanx much for your time,
Garth

you should move to Proxmox VE! ok, I assume you expect this answer from me :)

3Ware should work (but I personally did not tested it), also Samba is working. Proxmox VE is based on Debian Etch 64, so you can install additional packages - but generally take care what you change on the system to get not issues when it goes to updates of Proxmox VE. FYI, as soon as Debian Lenny got stable we will move as soon as possible to Lenny.
 
Thanx much for the quick response, and I can't blame you for recommending your own product! :) I'll give it a try and see what happens. As to Samba, that's no big deal. I can do a file share on another box.

Thanx again,
Garth
 
I would not expect any troubles running Proxmox VE on that hardware. It's similar to what I'm running Proxmox VE on, except my 3ware is a mere 2-disk mirror rather than a beefy 9550SXU. The 3ware 3dm2 software works fine and your 3ware RAID array should be useable immediately from the Proxmox VE installer, no messing around necessary. If you didn't already know, of course, keep in mind when you go to install Proxmox VE it's going to wipe your disks.

Samba should not be any problem on the host system, though nmbd (the netbios name part) will not work inside openvz using venet because venet doesn't present a network interface to the virtual environment with a normal IP/netmask/broadcast address and nmbd uses the subnet broadcast address.

You could setup the vz container that's intended for Samba using veth (bridged ethernet interface) instead of venet or use Samba on the host system not inside openvz or use venet and not care about netbios name resolution.
 
A couple of follow-up questions. First, given the 3TB RAID-5, will VE make all of that a single LVM partition? Using what filesystem? Can that be controlled other than by repartitioning via the hardware RAID card? Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm unfamiliar with what VE does when it installs other than that it "takes over the whole disk". Second, I read that Debian Lenny is scheduled to go official today (2/14). Should I wait for it to appear in Proxmox VE or is upgrading easy?

Thanx,
Garth
 
Proxmox VE will take over your entire disk, you can control the size of root and swap, though:
http://www.proxmox.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1029

Previous Proxmox VE upgrades have been quite painless (mostly apt-get update, apt-get dist-upgrade, reboot!) and I expect the etch to lenny update will be similar.

From what I've read, updating from etch to lenny normally without any Proxmox VE involved is a simple matter of editing your sources.list to replace all instances of "etch" with "lenny" and then doing an apt-get update/dist-upgrade.
 
A couple of follow-up questions. First, given the 3TB RAID-5, will VE make all of that a single LVM partition?

MBR has a 2TB limit, so you cant install on a 3 TB disk. You need to split that into smaller parts.

Using what filesystem?

ext3 on lvm2.

Can that be controlled other than by repartitioning via the hardware RAID card? Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm unfamiliar with what VE does when it installs other than that it "takes over the whole disk".

I dont really understand your question, We use LVM2, so you have a full featured volume management available.

Second, I read that Debian Lenny is scheduled to go official today (2/14). Should I wait for it to appear in Proxmox VE or is upgrading easy?

Upgrading should be easy.

- Dietmar
 
A couple of follow-up questions. First, given the 3TB RAID-5, will VE make all of that a single LVM partition? Using what filesystem? Can that be controlled other than by repartitioning via the hardware RAID card? Sorry if this is a dumb question but I'm unfamiliar with what VE does when it installs other than that it "takes over the whole disk". Second, I read that Debian Lenny is scheduled to go official today (2/14). Should I wait for it to appear in Proxmox VE or is upgrading easy?

Thanx,
Garth

I suggest to go for a Raid 10. (I assume you got 4 x 1 TB harddrives). Therefore you got much better write performance and you will have no problem with the 2 TB limit.
 
Again, sorry for the dumb Q abt partitioning :) Actually I have 6 500GB in RAID 5 for 2.5TB. I don't use much of it but losing half means less to play with. Remember, performance is not a big deal for me since I don't use this box for any production. It's a toy up in the upstairs of my house. This brings up another question. I normally configure VMWare VMs with a single, expandable file which I don't think is possible in VE. All files in VE are configured for their maximum size when building, right?

I'll think abt the RAID config and do something before I load VE. Maybe go with RAID 5 with a hot spare. That'll bring it down to 2 TB. Since drives are dirt cheap, I'll probably do the RAID 10 as y'all advise and upgrade if that should ever be necessary.

Thanx again,
Garth
 
Again, sorry for the dumb Q abt partitioning :) Actually I have 6 500GB in RAID 5 for 2.5TB. I don't use much of it but losing half means less to play with. Remember, performance is not a big deal for me since I don't use this box for any production. It's a toy up in the upstairs of my house. This brings up another question. I normally configure VMWare VMs with a single, expandable file which I don't think is possible in VE. All files in VE are configured for their maximum size when building, right?

I you use the web interface, qcow2 (single file, growable) is the default.

If you want to use others formats (e.g. raw format, you can create this on the console with qemu-img and add it on the web - all qemu formats can be used). In Proxmox VE 2.x (see roadmap), the storage model will be very flexible, including remote stroage.
 
I would not expect any troubles running Proxmox VE on that hardware. It's similar to what I'm running Proxmox VE on, except my 3ware is a mere 2-disk mirror rather than a beefy 9550SXU. The 3ware 3dm2 software works fine and your 3ware RAID array should be useable immediately from the Proxmox VE installer, no messing around necessary. If you didn't already know, of course, keep in mind when you go to install Proxmox VE it's going to wipe your disks.

Samba should not be any problem on the host system, though nmbd (the netbios name part) will not work inside openvz using venet because venet doesn't present a network interface to the virtual environment with a normal IP/netmask/broadcast address and nmbd uses the subnet broadcast address.

You could setup the vz container that's intended for Samba using veth (bridged ethernet interface) instead of venet or use Samba on the host system not inside openvz or use venet and not care about netbios name resolution.

I am using samba in a container usting veth for about 4 months now and noticed no problems what so ever. Till we removed open office on the clients and installed ms office on the clients (stupid, i know) but my colleages had problems with their clients .. etc.

using Microsoft Office opening and writing is a big problem, saving a document takes about 10 to 15 seconds. And it looks like it's only happening since samba is running as a proxmox (openvz) container.

I did read this thread about using veth instead of venet, but i am using bridged networking (veth).

Does anyone noticed this problem before or is it a known issue?

Thanks.
 
Dietmar,

i installed tcpdump in the samba container and see all samba messages and acknowledges, so nothin blocked there.

Wins enabled / disabled makes no difference.

But..... now i notice that it's only with Microsoft doc and xls end not docx and xlsx, so it not a openvz / proxmox issue.

It must be something MSOffice is doing. So it becomes than a bit off topic i'm afraid.

gr.
Conrad
 

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