Best completely free type 1 hypervisor and manager?

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, Laggger164 said:

So now I have a different problem.

 

I realized it would be very annoying and hard to use OMV as a VM Host, so I uninstalled it, wiped the drives, turned my Perc S100 from RAID to AHCI mode so I can use them independently by the ESXi host.

 

I downloaded and installed ESXi 5.5 Update 3b directly from DELL's website since I read there are some drivers inside of it that are used for the PowerEdge servers. So why not?

 

Now I am looking through the vSphere client at my 2 500GB harddrives (originally I had a 80GB one for storage of OMV but turned out it had many bad sectors, so I bought a 16GB flash drive for ESXi) and I have no friggin idea what to do now...

 

I mean, I want to install OMV... somewhere... (maybe on the flash drive that ESXi is sitting on? I don't know if that is possible...) and also I need to figure out how to get as much storage from those 2 drives as I can while being reliable and/or fast.

 

Then also, I don't know what file system to use since it is a virtual disk, although I could use a passthrough. I am thinking to just go with EXT4, but BTRFS has protection from data rot, checksums and other things while being well supported on Linux, unlike ZFS.

is there a reason why your using esxi? Id try out proxmox as it has a better storage system and you can do software raid with it.

 

is there a reason why you want omv, or can you use a nas on anouther os.

 

 

[Laggger164]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

is there a reason why your using esxi? Id try out proxmox as it has a better storage system and you can do software raid with it.

 

is there a reason why you want omv, or can you use a nas on anouther os.

 

 

OMV seemed like the best option to me. ESXi too since I wanted to learn how that works in the enterprise world.

 

Proxmox isn't officially supported by Dell, so not everything might work as I plan to get a LTO tape drive to archive some of my data.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

OMV seemed like the best option to me. ESXi too since I wanted to learn how that works in the enterprise world.

 

Proxmox isn't officially supported by Dell, so not everything might work as I plan to get a LTO tape drive to archive some of my data.

proxmox should work just fine, its just debian with some software preinstalled. LTO tapes will work fine

 

Id use proxmox here and install it on a raid 1 with zfs and share it, esxi isn't the best os here.

[Laggger164]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

proxmox should work just fine, its just debian with some software preinstalled. LTO tapes will work fine

 

Id use proxmox here and install it on a raid 1 with zfs and share it, esxi isn't the best os here.

I also want to convert an old Windows XP PC to a virtual machine to run on that server. From what I know Proxmox has KVM besides the containers right?

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Laggger164 said:

I also want to convert an old Windows XP PC to a virtual machine to run on that server. From what I know Proxmox has KVM besides the containers right?

yep, proxmox is kvm + lxc containers

 

converting that system to a vm can be a pain, but give it a shot.

[Laggger164]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

yep, proxmox is kvm + lxc containers

 

converting that system to a vm can be a pain, but give it a shot.

Thanks! So I will use OMV since it is based on debian. Freenas is based on FreeBSD from what I know and that wouldn't work that well with LXC containers. (or am I wrong?)

 

Then let's talk storage. Do I pass the hard drives through to OMV and set up RAID there (still don't know if RAID 0 or 1, 500GB is kind of small, but the reliability might be nice) or do I use the Perc S100 to set up RAID, or do I use ZFS RAID or BTRFS or EXT4 (losing my mind here, so many choices, I love and hate Linux for that...)

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

Thanks! So I will use OMV since it is based on debian. Freenas is based on FreeBSD from what I know and that wouldn't work that well with LXC containers. (or am I wrong?)

what are you using containers for? If you want a xp vm, something like proxmox is a much better option. You can then put anouther web gui on proxmox for storage if you want that.

 

1 minute ago, Laggger164 said:

Then let's talk storage. Do I pass the hard drives through to OMV and set up RAID there (still don't know if RAID 0 or 1, 500GB is kind of small, but the reliability might be nice) or do I use the Perc S100 to set up RAID, or do I use ZFS RAID or BTRFS or EXT4 (losing my mind here, so many choices, I love and hate Linux for that...)

Use the software raid in proxmox, it will use zfs with a mirror.

[Laggger164]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what are you using containers for? If you want a xp vm, something like proxmox is a much better option. You can then put anouther web gui on proxmox for storage if you want that.

 

Use the software raid in proxmox, it will use zfs with a mirror.

I want to run things like game servers, maybe some experiments or something. Nothing mission critical I assume.

 

Also, I wanted to make it a printer server (my printer is an old HP Laserjet 2100, works with Windows 10 surprisingly) would I do that under Proxmox directly or a VM? Since I would have that XP machine installed it wouldn't be a problem.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I want PLEX to run on it too.

Edited June 27, 2017 by Laggger164

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

I want to run things like game servers, maybe some experiments or something. Nothing mission critical I assume.

 

Also, I wanted to make it a printer server (my printer is an old HP Laserjet 2100, works with Windows 10 surprisingly) would I do that under Proxmox directly or a VM? Since I would have that XP machine installed it wouldn't be a problem.

Id do it all under a vm. Keeps things seprated and secure.

 

Id go proxmox, omv doesn't have container or vm support natively.

[Laggger164]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id do it all under a vm. Keeps things seprated and secure.

 

Id go proxmox, omv doesn't have container or vm support natively.

Alright, so I will install Proxmox. Where do I put the VMs? I read it is not a good idea to set up a NAS on Proxmox like OMV and run other VMs off of OMV's storage. Makes sense to me that it shouldn't be done.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

Alright, so I will install Proxmox. Where do I put the VMs? I read it is not a good idea to set up a NAS on Proxmox like OMV and run other VMs off of OMV's storage. Makes sense to me that it shouldn't be done.

you can run a nas just fine, where did you read that. 

 

 

[Laggger164]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

you can run a nas just fine, where did you read that. 

 

 

I mean, I would set up OMV as a NAS on already installed on Proxmox. Then when I would go create other VMs I would store them on OMV. Wouldnt it be better to just work with Proxmox's storage not affected by OMV?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

I mean, I would set up OMV as a NAS on already installed on Proxmox. Then when I would go create other VMs I would store them on OMV. Wouldnt it be better to just work with Proxmox's storage not affected by OMV?

Using ONW here just adds anouther layer of configureing that won't help anything. You can do all of the same storage setup on proxmox.

 

Then Share the storage with the turnkey samba container so you have a nice webgui for managing the shares.

[Laggger164]

6 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Using ONW here just adds anouther layer of configureing that won't help anything. You can do all of the same storage setup on proxmox.

 

Then Share the storage with the turnkey samba container so you have a nice webgui for managing the shares.

So I will use Samba as a NAS then right? And it runs on ZFS.

 

It does have software RAID though, right? I still don't know whether I should use RAID0 or RAID1. I guess the redundancy would be nice, but those drives are fine. Ran them through a full self test.

[Electronics Wizardy]

39 minutes ago, Laggger164 said:

So I will use Samba as a NAS then right? And it runs on ZFS.

 

It does have software RAID though, right? I still don't know whether I should use RAID0 or RAID1. I guess the redundancy would be nice, but those drives are fine. Ran them through a full self test.

zfs is software raid + filesystem. Id run raid 1. 

 

Samba handles the files sharing, and just shares files on the disk.

[Laggger164]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

zfs is software raid + filesystem. Id run raid 1. 

 

Samba handles the files sharing, and just shares files on the disk.

If I used compression, how much do you think it could possibly shrink the data down?

Will it be a gigantic performance impact if I have a nice processor or just a small one?

 

So... what is turnkey? Is that a Ready made VM or... Something else? 

I found Samba Turnkey file server, domain controller, media server and torrent server. Do I just install Samba Turnkey File server and then connect the Media and Torrent servers to the storage of the File server?

[Electronics Wizardy]

9 minutes ago, Laggger164 said:

If I used compression, how much do you think it could possibly shrink the data down?

Will it be a gigantic performance impact if I have a nice processor or just a small one?

 

So... what is turnkey? Is that a Ready made VM or... Something else? 

I found Samba Turnkey file server, domain controller, media server and torrent server. Do I just install Samba Turnkey File server and then connect the Media and Torrent servers to the storage of the File server?

compression depends on the type of files. For photos and videos it isn't any smaller. Games is about 30% smaller. Text files can be 6x smaller. Compression is faster as its quicker to compress the files and write the smaller files than to just write the whole file.

 

Turnkey are premade specialized linux distros that will work right out of the box. Promox makes it easy to make a container using one of them. Instead of installing debian, then installing samba and using the config files, with turnkey you have a web interface that you can just click a few options and you have a file share. Use the file server.

 

The others media servers will use the disks in proxmox directly, and not normally talk to the file server, but you can connect them to the file server if you want.

[Laggger164]

14 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

compression depends on the type of files. For photos and videos it isn't any smaller. Games is about 30% smaller. Text files can be 6x smaller. Compression is faster as its quicker to compress the files and write the smaller files than to just write the whole file.

 

Turnkey are premade specialized linux distros that will work right out of the box. Promox makes it easy to make a container using one of them. Instead of installing debian, then installing samba and using the config files, with turnkey you have a web interface that you can just click a few options and you have a file share. Use the file server.

 

The others media servers will use the disks in proxmox directly, and not normally talk to the file server, but you can connect them to the file server if you want.

Alright, so I installed Proxmox 4.4 on my new 16GB USB stick (2 times, the first time something didn't work, now it does, whatever it was, I couldn't connect to it) 

 

I logged in, ran through the interface a bit, found put that it was kind of annoying to use, but usable.

I then figured out that the ZFS zpool needs to be made through the command line, thanks to the console interface in the browser this was not a problem. I created a mirror array of the 2 whole harddrives and also enabled compression.

 

Then I went to the datastore tab and created a ZFS volume.

I tried to download the templates via the GUI, but the template button was greyed out. I chose another volume, this time of that USB drive and the button was there. I downloaded Turnkey Fileserver on it and proceeded to install it as a container.

 

Now I am a bit confused on how the storage system works. When I was creating it, it requested some storage for the container, it defaulted to 8GB so I kept it that way. I only bumped up the RAM and lowered Swap.

I started it up, installed it, and typed lsblk to list the drives and... It found all of them. Both harddrives, the flash drive and their partitions.

 

So now I hit a roadblock. I have no idea how to set up a Samba fileserver. I have no idea whether my Windows machines will be able to connect to it or if I need an active directory server.

 

Also, is it OK to download the templates on the flash drive with Proxmox on it or should I really put those on the Harddrives (ZFS pool)?

 

There aren't many (if any) up to date videos about it, which is a problem for me because that's the way I learn best.

 

When I look through the Proxmox wiki, nothing makes sense, but I found a PDF document for administrators of Proxmox, so I might give that one a shot, it looked a bit different to the wiki.

 

You already helped me a lot and I thank you for that even more. But it's either you (or maybe someone from the Proxmox community) helping me or me spending days figuring this out myself.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

but the template button was greyed out.

probably because that volume wan't setup as a container template. Id make a new dataset for that.

 

Just now, Laggger164 said:

So now I hit a roadblock. I have no idea how to set up a Samba fileserver. I have no idea whether my Windows machines will be able to connect to it or if I need an active directory server.

Pick the directory that you want to share, you can configure it from the web interface. You don't need AD

 

Just now, Laggger164 said:

Also, is it OK to download the templates on the flash drive with Proxmox on it or should I really put those on the Harddrives (ZFS pool)?

 

Id probably put everything on the hdds, normally i make a new dataset and use that for tempaltes and iso's

 

 

[Laggger164]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

probably because that volume wan't setup as a container template. Id make a new dataset for that.

 

Pick the directory that you want to share, you can configure it from the web interface. You don't need AD

 

Id probably put everything on the hdds, normally i make a new dataset and use that for tempaltes and iso's

 

 

 

Alright, I did think that I should have set it up for templates, although when I opened the dropdown menu there was storage for ISOs and another button for Templates. I was confused so I didn't change anything.

 

What can I put on the OS flash drive to use some of those 14GB available?

 

Alright, will do! Also, how would I go about connecting to the server when I am not at home connected to my network? I don't have my own IP adress, it is shared with a bunch of other houses in my village. Getting my own IP would require additional 15€ for setup and additional 2€ monthly. Nope I am not doing that, no reason to really.

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 hours ago, Laggger164 said:

 

Alright, I did think that I should have set it up for templates, although when I opened the dropdown menu there was storage for ISOs and another button for Templates. I was confused so I didn't change anything.

 

What can I put on the OS flash drive to use some of those 14GB available?

 

Alright, will do! Also, how would I go about connecting to the server when I am not at home connected to my network? I don't have my own IP adress, it is shared with a bunch of other houses in my village. Getting my own IP would require additional 15€ for setup and additional 2€ monthly. Nope I am not doing that, no reason to really.

You can put iso images or container templates. I wouldn't put vm images as those like lots of disk io and flash drives are normally slow and don't last that long

 

The best way is to share the port, but unforunatly as you found you cant.  If you not you changing ip you can use a dns serverice that will route a domain name(some are very cheap), so you can have mydomainname.server go to your home, and have a little service that looks at you ip and they changes where the domain name points when needed.

 

You can also do the lazy free way by having a vm always running with something like teamviewer and just connect to that vm and admin it from there.

[Laggger164]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can put iso images or container templates. I wouldn't put vm images as those like lots of disk io and flash drives are normally slow and don't last that long

 

The best way is to share the port, but unforunatly as you found you cant.  If you not you changing ip you can use a dns serverice that will route a domain name(some are very cheap), so you can have mydomainname.server go to your home, and have a little service that looks at you ip and they changes where the domain name points when needed.

 

You can also do the lazy free way by having a vm always running with something like teamviewer and just connect to that vm and admin it from there.

I think I will do the DDNS one. I also read that there are apps by the DDNS providers to automatically change the resulting IP adress, but it requires some PC to constantly keep running... which this server is supposed to be doing anyways, yay!

 

I assume that will work with the drives too yes? Just instead of the IP adress, when configuring a network drive I will put the domain name there like this \\domainname.something\storage instead of \\192.168.0.102\storage

 

Am I right about that?

 

Also, I found your video on Proxmox... Why did THAT not come up in the search bar? I was and am subscribed to you and it was the most helpful video out of all of them! Thank you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

 

I assume that will work with the drives too yes? Just instead of the IP adress, when configuring a network drive I will put the domain name there like this \\domainname.something\storage instead of \\192.168.0.102\storage

 

Am I right about that?

 

Also, I found your video

Normally I still use the ip, and you will have to setup your router to let you use the domainname in your house, you need to set it up first. Id still suggest just suing staic IP's as they always work and are easy to use.

 

 

[Laggger164]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Normally I still use the ip, and you will have to setup your router to let you use the domainname in your house, you need to set it up first. Id still suggest just suing staic IP's as they always work and are easy to use.

 

 

Alright I will keep that in mind.

 

Now I have a different problem. I cannot use the Samba User profiles. I created a new one, added it to the permissions of the particular share I want, but I don't have write access. When I set up the network drive in Windows and put the root account in, I can use it normally. But when I put a Samba user account in, I don't have write permission.

 

I did add that new account into the Share's settings, but no luck, even after restarting the Samba server.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Laggger164 said:

Alright I will keep that in mind.

 

Now I have a different problem. I cannot use the Samba User profiles. I created a new one, added it to the permissions of the particular share I want, but I don't have write access. When I set up the network drive in Windows and put the root account in, I can use it normally. But when I put a Samba user account in, I don't have write permission.

 

I did add that new account into the Share's settings, but no luck, even after restarting the Samba server.

What are the permissions on the folder that your sharing? That user needs write access in the filesystem level.