[TriLUG] Home Lab Recommendations, Part Deux

[Ron Kelley via TriLUG]

Vikram,

Odd, what type of NIC does your system use?  As for the ESXi image builder, I suspect the process was to add a driver for your NIC.  If Xen gives you issues, you can always get an inexpensive Intel GigE NIC from fleabay for $15 (+$5 shipping).  http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-Intel-PRO-1000-PT-PCI-E-Gigabit-Ethernet-Server-Adapter-EXPI9400PTBLK-/112033487569?hash=item1a15b75ad1:g:NbcAAOSwT4lWTNBj

Just a thought.



On Jan 10, 2017, at 7:59 AM, vikram sai balaji ulaganathan <tayirvadai.vikram at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Alan,
After Ron's suggestions, I tried type 1 VMware and failed to install it due to network card support issue. Though it recommends a lengthy and mostly Windows based solution of exsi image builder, it did not suite me. Xen was good, but wake on lan had issues. So for the time being, I switched to type 2 hypervisor with Ubuntu server. Still having issues with GPU passthrough. 

Bottom line try xen if VMware fails
Thanks 
Vikram

On Jan 10, 2017 7:41 AM, "Ron Kelley via TriLUG" <trilug at trilug.org <mailto:trilug at trilug.org>> wrote:
Alan,

Your CPU seems to be up to the task.  Personally, I would add more RAM (total 16G), add a second SSD (host one VMs on SSD-1 and other VMs on SSD-2), and install ESXi 6.0 on a USB thumb drive.  Use the web client to install/manage your VMS; you will be all set.  If you are still stuck with I/O issues, add a 3rd SSD and host VMs on that one.  If you need data storage protection (ie: no loss of data), grab an inexpensive RAID card off fleabay (LSI 9260-8i for $130) and create a RAID-5 array.  ESXi works just fine with LSI.

If you want to run Docker, LXD, etc; simply spin up a “heavy” VM (4-8G RAM, 2 vCPUs, etc) and start hosting containers.  I do this all the time.

-Ron


On Jan 9, 2017, at 11:51 PM, Alan Sterger via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org <mailto:trilug at trilug.org>> wrote:

Hello TriLugers,

Another lost soul looking for home lab recommendations.  I have an Intel Core2 Quad core Q9550 computer with 8 GB of ram, Gigabit ethernet running on a 256 GB SSD.  I can also add more SSDs and/or spinning rust as needed.

My requirements are to run Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) v6.x (RHEL w/mods) with Oracle Database 11i.  I also need to run Windows 7 (32-bit) Pro, Windows 7 (64-bit) Pro and possibly Windows 10 Pro.  Any VM not needed would be shutdown.

I've used two Type-2 hosted hypervisors, VMware Workstation and VirtualBox each hosted on Windows 7.  Both hypervisors running OEL VM environments seemed a little slow and I/O bound. Probably due to the underlying Windows host.

My thought was to implement a Type-1 hypervisor, headless and use VNC when an interactive session is required.  But I'm hearing other things like Docker, libvirt, containers...

With my mix of Linux and Windows requirements, let me know if I'm on the right track OR point me in a faster, better direction.

Cheers,

-- Alan Sterger


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