Where to begin with virtualization?

[markr54632]

Can anyone recommend some reading for a complete noob?

 

I have a dell r610. I basically just want to set it up for lab purposes.

[Thunderzzu]

2 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

Can anyone recommend some reading for a complete noob?

 

I have a dell r610. I basically just want to set it up for lab purposes.

The way i started was downloading a vmware ESXi image from vmware.com and learning on the way. It's not hard, plus, the vmware documentation is great

[Swealteek]

with the os...... or els it wont boot 

What do you one run  esxi or a linux distro with VMware or some somting like that ?

[MedievalMatt]

8 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

Can anyone recommend some reading for a complete noob?

 

I have a dell r610. I basically just want to set it up for lab purposes.

Im a virtual box guy myself.  and i sort of just taught myself by trial and error.

 

VMs are pretty straightforward to setup and use.

[markr54632]

I have windows 2016 and hyperv server.

 

Linux is fine. I'm not super comfortable with it, but learning.

 

I keep seeing esxi and I recognize VMware from way back in the windows xp days. Do they still do education or trial licenses?

[Thunderzzu]

1 hour ago, markr54632 said:

I have windows 2016 and hyperv server.

 

Linux is fine. I'm not super comfortable with it, but learning.

 

I keep seeing esxi and I recognize VMware from way back in the windows xp days. Do they still do education or trial licenses?

You're not quoting anyone so we don't get reply notifications. I accidentally opened this topic again and saw your reply.

 

Vmware is currently leading in virtualization technology. ESXi is still free, you just need to make an account on vmware.com.

It has some silly limitations like max. 8 cores per VM and others i can't remember right now

[markr54632]

2 minutes ago, Thunderzzu said:

You're not quoting anyone so we don't get reply notifications. I accidentally opened this topic again and saw your reply.

 

Vmware is currently leading in virtualization technology. ESXi is still free, you just need to make an account on vmware.com.

It has some silly limitations like max. 8 cores per VM and others i can't remember right now

I'll start reading their documentation next week. My entire goal is to have 4 independent clients with their own nic to use with my cisco lab.

[Thunderzzu]

2 minutes ago, markr54632 said:

I'll start reading their documentation next week. My entire goal is to have 4 independent clients with their own nic to use with my cisco lab.

My tip would be, as i said in the first post, to try to get ESXi and a couple of VMs running on your own and then using the documentation as a plan B when stumbling upon an issue. It's really simple to get it running. Register an account, download ESXi, use rufus to burn it to a usb stick and pop it in and install it with the guided installer (take note that a lot of servers have custom ESXi images available on their product pages with included drivers for that specific server).

 

Once it's installed, set up an IP and VLAN if you have a vlan tagged network cable coming into ur server, check if it's pingable and you're ready to use the super simple UI that esxi includes 

[beersykins]

What hardware is in your r610?  I also have one of those 

 

As per others you basically install the hypervisor, roll whatever direct storage you want as a data store and can slice off resources.

 

Proxmox is a decent free alternative, VMware ESXi free is also pretty easy to use.

[markr54632]

H700 sas controller, 64gb of ram, 2 x5650s, internal usb module. I'm gonna try to add a cheap graphics card for hdmi out.

[markr54632]

1 hour ago, beersykins said:

What hardware is in your r610?  I also have one of those 

 

As per others you basically install the hypervisor, roll whatever direct storage you want as a data store and can slice off resources.

 

Proxmox is a decent free alternative, VMware ESXi free is also pretty easy to use.

H700 sas controller 64gb of ram, 2 x5650, and internal usb module

[Gophyr]

I would recommend QEMU/KVM on Linux for virtualization.  I usually either configure VMs straight from the command line, or I use virt-manager as a graphical alternative.  It's a good way to learn about the powerful virtualization software that comes baked into most modern Linux distributions, and it lends itself to extreme customization/scripting to control creation and management of VMs.  That said, it may take some reading/getting used to and all the control interfaces won't be present "out of box" as you may want, so if you want something that "just works" as soon as the OS is installed I would recommend going with something like Proxmox.

[Pixel5]

what will you use as a client to connect to the VM´s

[markr54632]

 

9 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

what will you use as a client to connect to the VM´s

I want virtual clients for my lab. Literally just something capable of being assigned an ipv4 and ipv6 address pinging and traceroute.

[Pixel5]

10 hours ago, markr54632 said:

 

I want virtual clients for my lab. Literally just something capable of being assigned an ipv4 and ipv6 address pinging and traceroute.

so these clients are not actually something someone will work on and that will have a monitor and keyboard connected but just some platform where something will run on?

[Dusty.P]

If you want to get into server virtualization then you need to go with either ESXi or HyperV. They are the only type 2 hypervisors that are any good that I am aware of. The main benefit of ESXi over HyperV is it supports Linux VMs a lot better and HyperV is hard to configure if you are not working locally on the server or are not in the same domain as the HyperV server. Like others have said ESXi is very easy to configure and get up and running fast. Once it is installed you don't even need a keyboard and mouse connected locally to the server, you just connect to the web interface over your network to create new VMs and turn them on and off. You can even access the GUI of each VM from inside the web interface.

I currently have 3 servers running ESXi (all slightly older hardware than your r610) and between them they are running about 10 different VMs, 8 Linux and 2 Windows Server 2016. I'm probably going to add another Windows VM just so I can play around with Active Directory. (If you are in school you can get Windows Server 2016 for free for educational purposes)

 

Oh and adding a graphics card as video output is way overkill.

[Gophyr]

14 hours ago, Dusty.P said:

They are the only type 2 hypervisors that are any good that I am aware of.

ESXi and HyperV are type-1 hypervisors, according to Wikipedia.

 

KVM on Linux is described as "effectively converting the host operating system to a type-1 hypervisor."  I've had really good experiences with KVM-base virtual machines.

[beyonddc]

I am not sure how much of a difference between VMWare ESXI and the Dell customized version of VMWare ESXI for their hardware but since you have a R610 then I might suggest you to use the Dell customized version of VMWare ESXI that you can download from https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/us/en/04/vmware-esxi-6.x/esxi_6.7_image_custom_pub/esxi-67-image-customization-details?guid=guid-c8beb702-2053-4fd9-88c3-322400b06791&lang=en-us

 

I have a R410 at home and I am running the Dell customized version of VMWare ESXI 6.7

[markr54632]

15 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

so these clients are not actually something someone will work on and that will have a monitor and keyboard connected but just some platform where something will run on?

Exactly. I just need 4 clients that can ping each other. I'm going through the ccna courses right now and it would be handy not to have old laptops strewn around. Extra awesome if I can manage it from another room. All of my cisco equipment can be managed via wifi anywhere. 

 

This will not be production, I do not need a gui for the clients. For my purposes freedos should work well, a small linux distro, or windows, but free is better. It literally only needs to be able to run a ping and traceroute command, have a physical lan interface, and take a static ipv4 and ipv6 address.

 

 

 

I would prefer a gui for the hypervisor or really just the simplest one to set up. This is to make my homework easier lol. The only reason I'm using this server is I got it for next to nothing.