[GRLUG] Virtual OS in Linux

[Bruce Smith]

> Are you running anything that uses attached storage or is it all
> contained in the vm's themselves?

All of my storage is directly attached storage, and fiber channel to
an external array.  I know of people using iSCSI too.

> I know the footprint is much
> smaller, is that a small partition to boot from and then remaining
> disk space is formatted for VM storage?

Yes.

> My project is to setup an
> archival system so I'm looking to be able to store files in a RAID5
> (external storage most likely).
>
> I also heard you could edit inetd.conf to get ssh running for console
> based configuration.

Yes, you can hack it to run ssh, although it's not very useful.

The command line configuration is extremely involved!  It's MUCH
easier to put the infrastructure client on a Windows box and configure
everything in the GUI.

http://www.virtualization.info/  has a lot of good info on the command
line stuff and hacking ESXi to run ssh.

 - BS


>>> Has anyone use VMWare ESXi in production yet?  I've got a few boxes
>>> running Ubuntu with VMWare server but I'm wondering what "real world"
>>> differences are.  I've also been tasked with proposing a method to
>>> use
>>> VMWare to sell my company's product so ESXi knowledge would be great.
>>
>> I have 3 ESXi boxes running production servers.  Stable, no
>> complaints.
>>
>> ESXi has a smaller footprint than VMware server, has a faster native
>> filesystem, making it faster overall.
>>
>> Check the HCL, as a limited amount of hardware is supported to run
>> ESXi.
>>
>> The major downside in a Linux environment is you can only manage ESXi
>> from a Windows box, as the VMware Infrastructure client is Windows
>> only.
>>
>> - BS