Input on and experience with different VM host OS

[JoeBleed]

I've been trying to toy with and teach myself a little about some VM host OS options. Currently I’ve only barely started with ESXi 5x. I started here due to it's what they've settled on at work. My requirements are the Host OS be free. What I’m not sure of is how well they work for different situations. They probably all have pros and cons, I’m just not sure what they are. I'm doing some research now, but figured I'd post here and see what others have to add/say.

My top goal is to set up a VM host machine to host:
-my router (pfsense)
-a general use server for file storage, scheduled downloads, ftp/https server for personal use and maybe anything else I find I might want to mess with on that server
-If possible some sort of portable VM that maybe I could use on the host machine normally, but transfer to a laptop and run on a software VM host (VirtualPC or such)
-aside from that other things i'd like to mess with depends on features of hardware and software I suppose.
-and of course testing environment for other operating systems. (windows, linux, bsd)


In my first attempt for hardware cobbled together I used an extra second gen i3 processor and an itx board I was screwing around with. I didn't realize at the time for IO passthrough the processor needed to support certain extensions. Lesson learned about that one. Hoping to avoid other mistakes like this.

Second goal is low power usage and low temps. For CPU I've been considering certain i5 or even some of the UP LV Xeons. I think I only really need one CPU with multiple cores. How does the host OS handle assigning cores when some of them are virtual cores (hyper threaded)?

Given this will be for my own personal use, I don't see hard drive IO being too big of an issue. Figure a SSD or two for the main OS portion of the VMs and what ever hard drives for the file storage portion.

Any input and advice about the Host OS and or hardware is welcome. Thanks.

Edit: An additional question, in terms of the IO passthrough options, my main use for this is to give pfsense direct access the the nics it will be using. But cold i also do this for GPU (onboard cpu or add-in card) passthrough to possibly aid in any video compressing or to a DVR card to record OTA tv signals?

Edit2: Trying to be a little more clear, I'm talking about a Type 1 hyper visor / bare metal hyper-visor.

 

[yinan]

For the firewall you do not need to present a NIC directly to the VM. Just create a port group on a vSwitch and do it that way.

As far as directly passing through hardware to a VM you need a really specific MOBO and proc to do it. Both need to support the VT-xd extensions, and even then it is hard to get working.

 

[JoeBleed]

for the firewall, i was planning on doing direct passthrough for the nics as I've ready that is a more secure method. Even though a lot of people are against vitalization of a firewall/router/endpoint device at all.

I'm now aware that vt-d/x is needed for passthrough. the board i have supports it, the spare i3 cpu i had laying around doesn't I learned this when trying to set it up in esxi a little while ago. the board is an intel itx board with a c206 chipset. I got it when i was planning on building a stand alone router to replace one i have now running on an old p4; but have put that on hold for now while i look into a VM option.

 

[Ketchup]

Just a few thoughts from my experience:

As far as power goes, if you get a cpu and mobo that is vmware friendly, your only other concern is what OS you want to run. If you are going Intel, you won't have a problem with this. All the modern chipsets and i5 or higher (including Xeon) will support this.

As far as cores, you can assign your VM more than one core, just don't choose them all or it will kill your host.

VM's still don't support graphics very well, so if you are doing anything graphics intensive, do it on the host machine. All the VM's I have used just pass the work to the CPU.

Pretty much by definition, a VM is portable. When I received my new work laptop, I just saved my VM's on the server, copied them back to the new laptop, and they never missed a beat.

Also on the power front, you would want a newer OS on the vm, especially if you assign it more than one core. I have two XP VM's, and while they run fine one core a piece, sometimes the CPU usage spikes a good bit.

As far as software, I am sure everybody has their favorites, but I have had the best success with VMware products.

 

[JoeBleed]

for portable VM image, i'm thinking a bit different and normal images where you'd move from desktop to desktop/laptop for say VMware player or virtual PC.

I'm wondering about an image from esxi, MS Hyper-V or something like that being shutdown, then moved over to my laptop and taken with me an run in VMware player, virtualPC or whatever. Is there a difference?

 

[Ketchup]

Are you talking about creating a VM on one computer and pulling it up on a different computer with a different VM application?

 

[JoeBleed]

Creating a VM on a dedicated VM machine with the host OS being esxi, Microsoft hyper-v, or something similar as long as it's free.

Shutting down one of the running VMs and transferring it to my laptop to take with me and use in a (client) VM player/viewer application such as vmware player or virtualPC or similar. then returning the VM to the main host when i return home if any significant changes took place.

I know this isn't the same as taking a VM created with say vmware player and shuffling it between other computers running vmware player. This is why i'm not sure if it's possible. I should add it's not important, just wondering. I'll find out when i get to that point anyway i'm sure.

 

[yinan]

As far as the directpath NIC, yes it is more secure, but it also more difficult to manage, with not much benefit.

 

[Ketchup]

As I stated above, if you create a VM, and use the same program to run the VM on each machine, this will work without issue. The only problem I could see if if you leave the VM files on a flash drive and the computer isn't consistent with the drive letter it assigns.

 

[JoeBleed]

Trying to be a little more clear, I'm talking about a Type 1 hyper-visor / bare metal hyper-visor.

Has/can anyone take(n) a vm from these and use them on a Type 2 hyper-visor? (vmware player/workstation, virtual PC, virtualbox, xen and so forth) Obviously they'd have to support the same image, but i'm not sure if they do/can. I've messed with type 2 hyper-visors before; this is my first time trying to work with and plan out a type 1 hyper-visor setup.

Thanks.

 

[yinan]

There is no problem moving an ESXi VM to VMWare workstation. Workstation to ESXi works most times, but there are times when it doesn't.