[ubuntu-za] To virtualise or not to virtualise

[Lee Sharp]

Charl Wentzel wrote:
> One more thing.  How should one partition in this case?  I'm planning on
> using LVM to make things flexible, but which partitions are required?

I would not use LVM on the bas system.  If you have hardware RAID, it 
will all appear as one disk anyway.  If software RAID, you do not want 
two layers of abstraction.

> I'm thinking at least the following:
> 
> 1. Base installation
> 2. Virtual machine images.

I would stop here...  Run a minimum of services on the "real" system, 
and put your file server on the virtual Linux box.  I would install KVM, 
ssh, fail2ban, and gnome (no gdm), but that is just me.

> 3. SAMBA
> 
> The idea is to keep at least your virtual machine images and file server
> data separate in case you need to reinstall/upgrade the base
> installation.  This way it won't be removed by accident.

More than that...  You can back up the server images very quickly, and 
have snapshots if something goes very wrong.  Your file server will be 
inside an image.  Instant backup.  For offline backups, you can toss 
something together in old hardware with FreeNAS as well...  Hard drives 
are cheap, so get lots.