headless vm host

[CLIFFORD ILKAY]

On 05/13/2010 08:34 AM, Dave Cramer wrote:
> I'd like to setup a vm server to host a number of different vm's.
> This server will be in a colo, I'd prefer to run everything
> headless. VirtualBox can do this. KVM may be able to do it, but there
> are some indications that it won't.
>
> Looking for advice.

We use Debian stable for the bare metal installation and run OpenVZ for 
virtualization. OpenVZ is very lightweight and tuneable and it's similar 
in concept to Solaris Zones or FreeBSD Jails. We also use Xen but that's 
a bit heavier. Based on what I've been reading on various mailing lists, 
KVM still strikes me as less mature than OpenVZ or Xen, though it is 
improving rapidly because it's blessed by Red Hat and others. It's also 
uncharted territory for us. We've been using both OpenVZ and Xen since 
2005 and both have been rock-solid.

Creating a new OpenVZ VPS is as simple as:

vzctl create 1000 --ostemplate debian-5.0-amd64-dinamis
vzctl set 1000 --ipadd NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN --save
vzctl set 1000 --hostname bla.bla.com --save
vzctl set 1000 --nameserver NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN --save
vzctl set 1000 --diskspace 20G --save

Resource limits, IP addresses, etc. can all be changed without 
restarting the VPS. The VPS can even be migrated from one hardware node 
to another while it's running. The --ostemplate can be any Linux distro. 
I have no idea, nor do I care, if *BSD or Windows is supported with 
OpenVZ. Creating and updating OS templates is very easy. With Debian and 
derivatives, you can manually create one with debootstrap, or download 
one of the precreated templates < 
http://wiki.openvz.org/Download/template/precreated>. With other 
distros, you can do a local installation and create a tarball of the 
entire filesystem from / and down while excluding some directories, like 
/proc for instance. The "debian-5.0-amd64-dinamis" template above is one 
that we created by taking the minimal precreated Debian template, 
updating it, and adding a few packages that we like to have in all VPS, 
and putting things we want on each VPS in /etc/skel/.

If you'd like to use a web interface to do all this, you can use Proxmox 
VE <http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Main_Page>. I looked at it and decided 
against it because we already have scripts to do the various steps to 
create containers and I didn't want to introduce a layer that is used by 
a small minority of OpenVZ users into the mix.
-- 
Regards,

Clifford Ilkay
Dinamis
1419-3266 Yonge St.
Toronto, ON
Canada  M4N 3P6

<http://dinamis.com>
+1 416-410-3326
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