Linux VM Server

Mad Professor · 17 Apr 2016 at 12:01

Hi All.

I am a Linux newbie looking for some help and advice.

I have been trying to find the required information by my self, but I don't know the right terminology and as such not getting the right information.

I need to run two isolated installs of Ubuntu 14.04.4 Server 64bit on the one system.
One install with be running Plesk 12.5, and the other install will be running other software.

I know that I could very easily build a 2nd system, but the current system has more than enough grunt to do the work of more than one system.

What is the correct terminology for what it is that I want to do?
And how do I got about doing so?

Thanks for your time.

Best Regards.

joeyjojo · 17 Apr 2016 at 12:39

You've got the right term: VM.

VM = virtual machine. It's software that emulates the hardware of a PC, so you can boot it up, install an OS, etc. all on a virtual filesystem. Great for testing as if it goes wrong just nuke it and make a new one.

The market leaders (IMO) are vmware and VirtualBox, take your pic. Set up a VM (choose number of CPU cores to offer, amount of memory, etc.) and mount a virtual CD drive of your Ubuntu install disk, and go from there.

Steveocee · 17 Apr 2016 at 14:18

VMware do the free esxi which runs on a usb stick, can have as many machines as you like simultaneous then.

I currently use a hp micro server with 16gb ram to run Ubuntu server and Windows 7 together on the same box, shortly adding Ubuntu 16.04lts desktop in as well.

Rroff · 17 Apr 2016 at 14:25

^^ Yeah think the first things is to decide whether you want to use the hypervisor type approach or having one or both as VMs inside a normal OS environment.

Mad Professor · 17 Apr 2016 at 15:20

Thank you for your replies.

I had not heard of the term "hypervisor" before. and from doing a quick google search it seems that this is what I am needing.

Now to do some more reading and research.

Thanks again for your time.

Best Regards.

Mr-White · 17 Apr 2016 at 15:52

joeyjojo said:
The market leaders (IMO) are vmware and VirtualBox.

So do I, although there's one guy on here who thinks Hyper-v is miles ahead, it still cracks me up years later.

Host = Physical hardware running the hypervisor.

I use Virtualbox for a couple of small VMs running on a desktop pc but also use Citrix XenServer and VMware at work in an enterprise environment. Although XenServer like most ****rix products is a little bit pap.

stewski · 17 Apr 2016 at 16:00

If you're after a minimal (bare metal style) hypervisor I've heard good things about proxmox.

https://www.proxmox.com/en/

lamboman · 17 Apr 2016 at 21:34

I'd also argue that KVM is a leader if we're talking about cloud. AWS/OpenStack/GCE etc.

All irrelevant really if we're talking about a couple of VMs, ease of use is priority. ESXi has a nice GUI interface you can use remotely making it a strong contender. virt-manager allows remote connectivity if you run a Linux desktop, and of course KVM is built-in to the kernel, so that would be my primary choice if the system is already up and you can't be bothered to migrate installs.

Proxmox is KVM based, never used but seems pretty good. Clear Foundation have ClearVM too, however I'm not a huge fan of ClearOS (we use it at work, sparse GUI and an app for everything) so I'm not sure if that'd be my primary choice.

Conanius · 23 Apr 2016 at 22:02

So at the beginning of March I took the plunge to buy a home server to play around with.

I've got Ubuntu 14.04LTS Desktop Build as my Host OS. I did this so I had a GUI to fall back on that would be a bit more friendly to me. I also then deployed Teamviewer on that box so I could do work on the box remotely in this fashion also.

For virtualisation, I use KVM, and the Virtual Machine Manager GUI. This is really easy to use - as easy as Virtualbox that I used on my Mac.

All my VMs are Server (Command line only) Ubuntu 14.04LTS boxes.... well, thats a bit of a lie.

I have 2 that are like that, one that does all my media management, and another that I call 'net services' (runs things like my UniFi management console for my WiFi, etc).

I then have pfsense VM which has PCI passthrough to a dual port network card so my firewall can sit within my host.

I learnt everything with a few pointers from the guys at work and simply reading articles and forums. If you are interesting in learning a new thing, the support you get for trying to attack a problem via command line is brilliant. Someone somewhere has always done it !

Mad Professor · 24 Apr 2016 at 19:22

Thanks for all your replies, and advice.

Before I get all carried away, and jump in the deep end with both lead feet, this is what I am hoping to try to do.

I hope you can make sense of my flow diagram.

Thanks again.

Uhtred · 24 Apr 2016 at 20:28

So if I'm reading that right you have two internet connections presented to pfsense for load balancing and lan0 will be shared to all vms. Wifi will be handled by pfsense.