[ubuntu-za] Virtual Machine Server

[Michael]

Greetings

  Is there an idiots guide to building a KVM virtualisation server?
Looking at building one at home to limited the number of physical
boxes standing in the study and allow me to play more :)

R e g a r d s
M i c h a e l  L  G r i f f i n
michael at griffin.co.za
http://www.griffin.za.net
Fax : +27 86 670 8945
Cell : +27 83 462 0462
Please consider the environment before printing this email

He who play in root,
           eventually kill tree.

2009/10/22 Charl Wentzel <charl.wentzel at vodamail.co.za>:
> On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 23:23 +0200, Deon Spengler wrote:
>> > > > He was given the following spec for the machine:
>> > > >   Mecer Omega Server
>> > > >   Intel Xeon 3000 Dual Core CPU
>> > > >   2GB PC 800 DDR2 Module X2
>> > > >   Adaptec Raid 5405 SATA/SAT 256mb
>> > > >   147GB Fujitsu SCSI (SAT) HDD X4
>
>> I would recommend nothing less than 8GB of ram (with room for later
>> upgrade), quad core xeon cpu and a dual socket mother board. By the
>> looks of the amount of disc's I assume that you will be using raid 10.
>> If it is raid 10 that you are going to be using the adaptec raid card
>> will not benefit you much compared to mdadm in conjunction with lvm.
>> One can get a mother board with sas onboard, then one can use mdadm
>> and lvm to achieve the same and more compared to what one would have
>> gotten from the adaptec card.
>
> Are you saying that mdadm ("software RAID") is faster than this
> particular RAID card or that the speed difference is not significant?
>
> Looking at the spec again I see it's a SATA card, which probably
> eliminates hot-swapping of hard drives, which is probably one of the
> main benefits of having hardware RAID.
>
> Luckily I'm familiar both mdadm and lvm, so going this route won't be a
> problem for me.
>
>> KVM virtualization in conjunction with libvirt is what I would
>> recommend. The other important part is that one should use "virtio"
>> for both network and disk I/O to improve performance.
>
> Is there anything else I need to install from ubuntu server edition
> other than KVM (from tasksel) for the above?  i.e. Do I have to add
> libvirt after installation?
>
>> Just a heads up, if you are going to be installing Windows 2008 R2
>> 64-bit server as a guest and you decide to use virtio, there is quiet
>> a bit of work envolved to sign the drivers.
>
> Just when I thought it was going to be easy!!  Any documentation/links
> you can refer me to so I can start preparing myself?
>
>> Just some points that might be of interest or help, use ubuntu server
>> 64-bit server for all above suggestions and install snmp on the ubuntu
>> server so that one can monitor the server with something like zenoss.
>
> This is going to get interesting.  Granted this is a single server,
> there's probably lighter-weight free applications I could use.
>
>> If you need any further info or help I will be more than willing to
>> help you.
>
> Thanks, I just might.
>
>
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