Anyone use KVM in a production environment?

[Red Squirrel]

I am currently using VirtualBox, and there's a few things I don't like about it from a server perspective, considering it's aimed more at being a workstation virtualization platform as opposed to server.

I've been reading up on KVM and it really sounds promising. I will be giving it a try on a server I retired, but just wondering if anyone is currently running it in a production environment (home, or work) and what do you think of it?

Does it run in the background like VMware Server / ESX and you connect to it with a client?

Also are the VM files/disks easy to organize in their own folders without any issues? I find this is one major flaw of VirtualBox. It kinda throws everything where it wants and it's very hard to organize it properly. i

 

[stimpyman77]

RedSquirrel, might want to take a look at Proxmox. It runs KVM as a standalone hypervisor similar to ESX. I had it running in less than an hour with multiple VM's the performance has been great. Nice web interface for management. You will find information and download here http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page. Give it a look see..

 

[Red Squirrel]

That sounds pretty nice, though for now I rather something that goes on top of the OS. Reason being is I'm using Linux software raid. Eventually I might create a NAS/SAN then switch to hypervisors, hopefully at least two servers for redundancy/load balancing.

I found virt-manage which seems pretty nice.

Now only thing I can't seem to figure out is, where are the VM files located? I was asked to select a location for the disk which is great, but what about the other files? Or is the disk the only file involved? I like organizing everything in one folder so it makes it easier to manage and organize. I really don't like how virtualbox throws files all over the system and makes it hard to manage. Once something is put somewhere you can't move it without headaches. I'm hoping KVM is more liberal with this, is it? I am already impressed at it's speed though. Seems very quick, installing Windows XP right now as a test.

 

[Brazen]

Incidentally, I had a server running KVM in production for the last year and a half. But just last week I replaced it with VirtualBox, which I had been wanting to do for some time. You might check out vboxtool if your problem is just with running machines in the background: http://vboxtool.sourceforge.net/ .

Also, you should not be having "files all over the system" with VirtualBox. Everything should be kept in the .Virtualbox folder under the user account that you run VirtualBox with.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Also, you should not be having "files all over the system" with VirtualBox. Everything should be kept in the .Virtualbox folder under the user account that you run VirtualBox with.

That's what I don't like, I like keeping everything on my raid drive in my "vms" folder, not in home folders. There is also a few other "system" files such as virtualbox.xml. not a HUGE deal, but i just like keeping all the vm files together and being able to freely move them wherever I want such as another server.

I'll try vboxtool though and see how that goes. Really if i can find a way to move VM files around without breaking everything then I can just write scripts to move and organize them. I'm just anal about where files are stored, I hate not having control, as it makes scripting backup jobs a nightmare.

 

[Brazen]

That's what I don't like, I like keeping everything on my raid drive in my "vms" folder, not in home folders. There is also a few other "system" files such as virtualbox.xml. not a HUGE deal, but i just like keeping all the vm files together and being able to freely move them wherever I want such as another server.

I'll try vboxtool though and see how that goes. Really if i can find a way to move VM files around without breaking everything then I can just write scripts to move and organize them. I'm just anal about where files are stored, I hate not having control, as it makes scripting backup jobs a nightmare.

I would just create a folder where ever you want the files stored and then symlink it to .Virtualbox in the home folder. Also, I've moved virtual machine files between computers and never had an issue.