Ideas on VM server set up

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ALF__ · Post by **ALF__** » Wed Mar 02, 2022 8:45 pm

Hello!

So I recently acquired a nice and decommissioned Dell Poweredge r630.

I have been playing around with it and just setup a base Gentoo install..

Then I came to the conclusion that it would be nice to maybe set it up as a form of virtual machine host for some home server tasks.

I have currently two different small home servers that I could move to this.

The Idea would be to host maybe two or three VMs to run these servers separately from each other. This is just to add an extra layer to when i screw something up on one of them.

What software / setup would you guys recommend?

pingtoo · Post by **pingtoo** » Wed Mar 02, 2022 8:59 pm

May be consider using container(docer) as opposite to VM. Not sure what function(s) you need, As far as I know today's docker container can do everything VM can do without the extra layer of process scheduling.

szatox · Post by **szatox** » Wed Mar 02, 2022 10:16 pm

Qemu + virt-manager.
There are also ready-made solutions like proxmox (debian-based), which make managing your guests (vms and containers) and resources easy with a web interface. It's debian-based though.

salahx · Post by **salahx** » Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:17 pm

Another vote for qemu + virt-manager. I have 2 VM's. I can't use a container (note that libvirt can support LXC though) because I proxy maintain a few packages I don't have native hardware for and have to emulate it, and the other VM is for Windows.

figueroa · Post by **figueroa** » Thu Mar 03, 2022 5:43 am

I have done this in VirtualBox with a mail server in one virtual machine and a LAMP server in another (the LAMP server running a school administration system.) After 10 or so years, I moved the mail server into the host machine and still run the LAMP server vm. A year or so ago, I had to migrate the LAMP virtual machine (VDI) from it's 32 bit host to a 64 bit host because VirtualBox stopped supporting 32 bit though 32 bit guest are OK. The LAMP server remains a 32 bit Gentoo system and works fine.

Irre · Post by **Irre** » Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:08 am

An interesting option is Xen. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Xen

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Thu Mar 03, 2022 8:24 am

ALF__,

Qemu + virt-manager.

Install the bare minimum on the bare metal host to support your KVMs and probably some debug. :)
Put everything else into KVMs

There is a small trick to KVMs. The the first one with software you want everywhere. When it works, clone it,.
Keep the original around for next time you need to clone, it only costs HDD space.

Dr.Willy · Post by **Dr.Willy** » Thu Mar 03, 2022 4:53 pm

ALF__ wrote:The Idea would be to host maybe two or three VMs to run these servers separately from each other. This is just to add an extra layer to when i screw something up on one of them.

What software / setup would you guys recommend?

That really depends on what you want to do with these uh …servers.
From what I gather, you want to run just one or two applications, so I would really use docker/podman containers.
Keep in mind that if you pick VMs you will also need to run updates, make configuration changes etc. on each VM individually. Sure you can share configuration, distfiles and whatnot with the host system, but then you really should've used docker in the first place.

Ideas on VM server set up

Ideas on VM server set up

Re: Ideas on VM server set up