Virtual environments are more popular than ever these days. With so many different options to choose from you must choose wisely. In the past I wrote a guide on How to Install VirtualBox from Sun. From a desktop point of view, I still believe that VirtualBox is a more powerful and faster solution. But from a server standpoint, VMware holds the crown.
There are many reasons for this that I really won’t go into in this guide. I always try to provide a snippet on my views, but like to focus more on getting to the point and how to get things done. Gotta stick to the scope of what you are writing!
In any case, VMware Server 2.0 is what we are here for. VMware Server 2.0 is the free to use solution that installs on Windows and just about any (if not all) distributions of Linux! Being very flexible it can fit into any IT environment. They’ve even included a versatile web based interface to manage your virtual machines without having to log into them. It is fairly resource hungry in my opinion, but is definitely handy. It even includes support for the VIX API, which allows for custom written applications to interface for automating virtual machine and guest operations. I’ve not personally used the API, but I like the fact that there is an option to interface with your own stuff. More features can be found here on the VMware home page.
Stuff to think about
When putting together a VM server, no matter what solution you use you must carefully choose your hardware. Number one factor being your storage. Disk I/O is the arch enemy when it comes to virtual machines on any platform. It will make or break your virtual environment. RAID is obviously highly recommended if you plan to run several guest operating systems. On that same note, isolating your virtual machine storage (aka. datastore) from your host operating system. VM’s like to use swap memory, and if your host shares the same spindle with your guests you have just shot yourself in the foot as virtual machine’s make their own “swap” file. Doubling the load right there before you’ve really even started. And obviously, running out of Hard drive space will obviously limit you to how many and how big your VM’s can grow.
Memory is your number two factor. Like mentioned above, you could have several Tera-bytes of storage but without enough memory to allocate you are stuck! Sure you could give each of your VM’s 256MB of ram, but you’ll then be depending on your virtual machine’s virtual memory slowing you down to a grinding halt. With how cheap memory is these days it should not be overlooked. But don’t forget, to use any memory over 3 gigs you must have a 64 bit operating system. 32bit just won’t cut it for a VMWare host machine.
Next would be the CPU(s). As mentioned above, 64bit is a necessity. If you don’t have 64bit support, you can kiss all that extra memory goodbye. You might have 8gigs of memory, but if you are running 32bit, nothing over 3gigs (give or take) will be usable. The overall processing power is also a factor as each guest OS will have it’s toll on the CPU, so naturally multi-core SMP is a huge help.
Below I’ll list the hardware I use for a small production server used in my families home business.
- AMD Phenom Quad Core CPU
- 6 gigs of DDR2 Memory
- 3Ware 9650SE SATAII PCIe Hardware RAID Controller
- 4 – 250 Gigabyte Western Digital Caviar SATAII Hard Drives running in RAID 5 (64KB stripe)
- 2 – 80 Gigabyte Western Digital Caviar SATAII Hard Drives running in RAID 1
- Ubuntu Server 9.04 64bit (Host OS)
- Windows Server 2003 Standard (Guest OS)
- Windows XP (Guest OS)
- FreeNAS (Guest OS)
To review, your hardware selection is critical. A VM Host machine should always be carefully planned and executed. It will save you a tremendous amount of time, headaches, and possibly your career as well!
Now that I’ve said my 2 cents, lets get to the fun stuff.
- Stuff to think about (Page 1)
- Prepare your server for the install (Page 2)
- Installing VMWare Server 2.0 on Ubuntu Linux (Page 3)
- Configuring VMware Server (Page 4)
Nice website. I ubuntu and the arras theme. Great Job here. Tks
Translation: Russian » English
Мне нравятся Ваши посты
I like your posts
Hi
Thanks for an awesome guide!
But about the FreeNas, how do you use it in a VM?
I was going to use two machines but perhaps you can give me a hint or a link to guide on Freenas in a VM.
My plan is to use two disks with linux and vmware, ext3, and two already existing UFS disks direktly with Freenas. The disks not even being mounted in Ubuntu. But can the VM r/w directly to the disks?
Thankful for any answer. (I have googled but not really gotten any straight answers.)
Again, superb guide.
//Ricco
Thanks for your comments. But before making the decision to use FreeNAS in a VM, There is a significant speed decrease that can happen depending on your hardware on your VM Host. The VMware virtual NIC adapters are definitely not equal performance wise. So if speed is your main objective for your file server I would suggest testing it out before migrating all of your data.
As far as your existing disks, the only way I know of allowing the VM to access them directly would be if they were external USB drives. I believe that you cannot isolate a physical drive to a specific VM. Maybe with the full version of VMware Server (non free) you could, but I don’t know for certain.
So if your drives are internal you would have to mount them on your host operating system, add them as a new datastore in VMware and then add a new virtual disk via the FreeNAS VM system preferences.
As a suggestion, I would advise using a different filesystem other than EXT3. EXT3 is tried and true, but performance wise EXT4, or XFS are a better option for a datastore filesystem. Even better yet, RAID0, 10, 5, or 6 are highly suggested as well.
I know this is a bit vague, but the “out of box” configuration for VMware Server is not optimized very well. There are a ton of different things you can do to tweak VM performance. I hope to write a guide on this very shortly. But a google search should prove worthwhile on this topic.
Feel free to reply if you have anymore questions and I’ll do my best to help ya out.
-Scott
Thanks for your quick reply.
I have googled some more and still your answer is about the same as what I have finally concluded. And your answer reminded me that I wanted a simple NAS from the beginning :)
I will now treat myeslf to build an itx-box for server and use my big atx-chassi with freenas.
And I have read your other guides and you have done an excellent job! Looking forward to read them all. Your straight to the point reasoning is really useful instead of only commands.
One more question though, wmware server or virtualbox headless?
I have used vmware some and know the basics and some more. Have tested some of Xtravirt’s guides. But vBox headless seems a bit complicated when creating vm’s for example. And will I be able to connect fast enough to enter vm bios or win xp install “press enter”?
Is the vware easyness and webgui perhaps preferable over speed and commandline?
I was planning on creating and running the vm’s from the server but also share them with samba or nfs and use vmPlayer on my desktop if need be. not running on both computers at the same time ofcourse :) can that be done with vBox also?
To answer your first question, there are options you can configure to manipulate the boot order before a vboxheadless vm comes online. So simply choosing a bootable CD at install time will allow you to do what you want in that regards.
As far as choosing which to use, I would determine that by how many VM’s you plan to run? VirtualBox I think is faster “out of the box”, but much more difficult to manage several headless VM’s. Where as VMware Server has a web interface to control everything nicely. However the web interface is on the heavy side if you only have a few VM’s.
Ultimately VirtualBox is ideal for running VM’s on a desktop computer, with the potential for managing them via the command line. But if you have VM’s running on a headless server, it is much easier to manage them via the web interface. I personally use both with this in mind. If it’s something I’m just playing with I use VirtualBox. If it’s something I plan to set and forget, I use my VMware Server.
And yes, it is possible to used a network mounted drive as a datastore for a VM on either of the two. Once again, VMware Server has built in options to achieve this in the webgui. Where as VirtualBox (headless) would be done completely through the command line.
I hope that answers your questions
-Scott
Perfectly answered questions. Many thanks.
I have now installed Ubuntu 9.04 on my mini-itx box with Vmware 2 up and running. I’m gonna have perhaps 5-6 vms but only 2-3 running at the same time. Mostly for testing before I apply the changes to my real computers.
To get around the problem with Firefox and e-ID, repeatedly getting promted for password, I used the solution commented by Arturo at the bootom of this post:
http://blogger.ziesemer.com/2008/11/vmware-server-20-under-ubuntu-intrepid.html
Again many thanks for all awesome guides!
Translation: Russian » English
Респект.
Respect.
Translation: Russian » English
Портал просто замечательный, буду рекомендовать всем знакомым!
Portal just wonderful, I will recommend to all friends!
Translation: Russian » English
У меня скоро в bookmarks место закончится, но я рад добавлять с вашего блога и далее ссылки на интересные темы
I will soon place finish in the bookmarks, but I am glad to add to your blog, and more links to interesting topics
Статья написана по всем правилам и критериям за, что автору ставлю 5+!
Thanks for this substantial how-to guide.