@black3dynamite said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:

@stacksofplates said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:

@black3dynamite said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:

@scottalanmiller said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:

@black3dynamite said in What Are the Latest Virtualization Platform Recommendations:

And since discovering Mangolassi, XenServer seems to be only popular here when Xen Orchestra is being used with it.

that's the only context in which it makes sense. That's its one main management tool.

But saying that, you could say the same kind of thing for Vmware ESXi... it's only popular with vSphere to manage it. Of course, you need something to manage anything. When you have a management tool that is free and really good, there is no need for anything else and/or the two just become associated. That XS is only popular with XO just makes sense, as it is open, free and very powerful. XS has to have some tool, and that one is so good that no one else tries to compete.

Besides not supported better file systems for vm storage especially when using thin storage. I'm never a fan XenCenter it gets the job done but I much rather do things via CLI. I really hope XenServer devs integrated XO soon.

I think they should focus on things like not using ext3 first.

Totally agree. They should really have two version of XenServer. One can be the current one. And the other will include things like ext4, xfs, LVM thin.

Just use CentOS/Fedora/OpenSuse with KVM for that...

@stacksofplates said in KVM vs XenServer:

@Francesco-Provino said in KVM vs XenServer:

I think that the only thing I truly miss in KVM is not a fancy GUI, but instead a stateless host OS 'a la XenServer/ESXi' that I can safely deploy to a usb drive. Something like CentOS atomic host should be good, but focused on KVM instead of Docker.

You should be able to do a USB install and ship the logs off to somewhere else. Then just mount your disks/volume for the guests.

I've been thinking of trying that but been too busy/lazy.

Yes, just mount /var/log elsewhere should do the trick. But it will still lack the "statelessness" of a proper designed hypervisor-centric OS.
Fedora 26 seems like a good fit…

I think that the only thing I truly miss in KVM is not a fancy GUI, but instead a stateless host OS 'a la XenServer/ESXi' that I can safely deploy to a usb drive. Something like CentOS atomic host should be good, but focused on KVM instead of Docker.

But, really, don't install a guest in the '90s way with KVM, instead use a proper tool like virt-builder.
The old way of install a guest is completely unneeded in a virtualized/cloud world; instead of installing through an ISO, a procedure that is slow and requires kickstart/manual intervention, you can just use a cloud image pre-built and optimized to run as a virtual guest and inject the customizations (credential, additional software, config) with tools like virt-builder.
AWS and the other cloud providers works this way.

@wirestyle22 said in KVM Installation and VM Creation on Fedora 25:

#install KVM and it's associated packages
dnf -y install qemu-kvm qemu-img virt-manager libvirt libvirt-python libvirt-client virt-install virt-viewer bridge-utils

#start and enable the libvirtd service
systemctl start libvirtd
systemctl enable libvirtd

#check if KVM module is loaded
lsmod | grep kvm

kvm_intel 200704 4
kvm 598016 1 kvm_intel
irqbypass 16384 3 kvm

#create VM and install
sudo virt-install --name Plex --ram 4096 --vcpus 2 --disk size=12000,format=qcow2 --cdrom /etc/iso/Fedora-Server-dvd-x86_64-25-1.3.iso --virt-type kvm --os-variant fedora24 --graphics none

This is where I'm at:

Questions:

• It doesn't seem like I can input anything and if I attempt to escape it tells me I cancelled the installation. Unsure what this is supposed to look like when it finishes allocating to my VM.

• How do I interface with the VM to continue the installation process?

• How do you determine the IP address of a guest from KVM?

You can interface to the graphic console of the hypervisor with a software like virt-manager o other web interfaces; or you can expose the vnc/spice graphical port in this way and connect to it with any vnc/spice client.

Regarding the IP of the machine: if you are using the NAT networking with the addresses released by the host, just look at net-dhcp-leases. Otherwise, use domifaddr.

@scottalanmiller said in KVM vs XenServer:

@FATeknollogee said in KVM vs XenServer:

@Francesco-Provino We need a super-duper fancy looking web gui to manage KVM.

How come there is nothing like ProxMox or XOA for KVM?
I guess ProxMox is KVM!

Scale? Nutanix?

KVM has loads of them. Just approached in a different way.

With this solutions you throw away some of the main advantages of KVM:

• Completely FLOSS. No license issue in any way, no cost, ever. As many spare hosts as you want;
• Every feature of the hypervisor is exploitable;
• It's not dependent on a particular distro, vendor, product;
• It's a core project developed by the biggest player in the OSS space, so no risk of abandonment, very high quality of the code etc.

@FATeknollogee said in KVM vs XenServer:

@Francesco-Provino Have you used oVirt?

The setup is complicated (on purpose?) and the interface is no that great, but it works. My last experience with oVirt was in 2016/03, maybe now could be much better. But a great cli cannot be beaten…
IMHO most of the people think they need a gui control panel because of the "VMware cult": nice GUI client, cumbersome CLI.
PowerCLI is usable, but not for interactive use. Virsh (for KVM) is simply great.

@bigbear said in Dropbox Smart Sync:

@Francesco-Provino said in Dropbox Smart Sync:

@bigbear said in Dropbox Smart Sync:

So as some may know I have been looking for a solution to make a vast amount of data easily accessible for mobile users.

I just discovered Smart Sync, a feature Dropbox apparently released last year. It seems it will only sync what you "pin' or what you access the most. This may allow me to dump terabytes of data on the cloud and access it from anywhere. I am about to test it out.

Any use this or a product that does something similar, or have any experience with Dropbox Smart Sync?

Side Note: When I first got Dropbox in 2008 this is how it worked, as far as I remember. At some point dropbox changed to syncing everything in real time.

I used it from the very beginning, it's a game changer for us because we have a huge number of files in dropbox so the client initial sync can take ages. It works ok, the only downside is that (obviously) the file pointers are useless without internet connection.

@Francesco-Provino Great to know it is working for you. How does Smart Sync handle file access when two people are editing?

This is the biggest issue with dropbox, non only with smart sync. If you open an office file through the integrated o365 the experience is great and you can do collaborative editing in realtime. Otherwise, il better if you work on a copy or you will get a conflicted version issue.

@FATeknollogee said in KVM vs XenServer:

@Francesco-Provino We need a super-duper fancy looking web gui to manage KVM.

How come there is nothing like ProxMox or XOA for KVM?
I guess ProxMox is KVM!

Use oVirt if you need a web gui. Virt-manager is fine for 99% of use cases and works over ssh.

Why do you NEED a gui for that? I found the libvirt toolstack very easy to use, the docs are good, virsh is your friend.

I use the guy only for console access stuff, anything can be done via cli in an easier and quicker way than the grafical one.

It's expected that the next incarnation of Xen will use the PVH2 virtualization mode with Linux guests, bringing back some of the PV advantage.
XenServer is pretty limited but the XAPI are solid.

KVM performs very well, has less hardware limitations than XS and can be used on any Linux installation without fancy modding.
Plain Xen is much harder than both XS and KVM of course, many stuff like VGA passthrough of the dom0 and networking are completely up to the user.

The libvirt stack (that can be used with both KVM and plain Xen) is very mature and has plenty of features. I really like the automatic installation of the guests (virt-builder) and the various guest os inspection tools.

@bigbear said in Dropbox Smart Sync:

So as some may know I have been looking for a solution to make a vast amount of data easily accessible for mobile users.

I just discovered Smart Sync, a feature Dropbox apparently released last year. It seems it will only sync what you "pin' or what you access the most. This may allow me to dump terabytes of data on the cloud and access it from anywhere. I am about to test it out.

Any use this or a product that does something similar, or have any experience with Dropbox Smart Sync?

Side Note: When I first got Dropbox in 2008 this is how it worked, as far as I remember. At some point dropbox changed to syncing everything in real time.

I used it from the very beginning, it's a game changer for us because we have a huge number of files in dropbox so the client initial sync can take ages. It works ok, the only downside is that (obviously) the file pointers are useless without internet connection.

@scottalanmiller said in Xen Orchestra 5.9 with One Line Deploy:

You're several days late on that one, @olivier announced it a bit ago

Where?

Even better, a Linux VM with a lightweight WM has barely any ram overhead over the regular browser. Near 100Mb for kernel + X11 + some system daemons. I think an antivirus with fancy stuff can waste much more resources…

@nadnerB said in Home Anti-virus:

@IRJ & @Francesco-Provino That's all fancy, spankeriffic, and all but my hardware is incapable of virtualisation....

I don't think it's possible with any x86 machine that has <15 years. Even a Pentium 4 can do regular virtualization (no hw assisted) with virtualbox or vmware… I'm pretty sure of that!

@RojoLoco said in Home Anti-virus:

@Francesco-Provino said in Home Anti-virus:

@RojoLoco said in Home Anti-virus:

Webroot is the jam.

I just use a disponsable, self-resetting VM for internet. No problem whatsoever.

And I use a regular windows machine with webroot, also no problems. Different strokes. Also, the OP asked for antivirus recommendations, not a total home computer infrastructure change.

I won't expose a windows host to free internet surfing, regardless of the AV in use.
A light browser-VM today is a free, simple, extremely secure and effective way of doing security-by-separation.

@RojoLoco said in Home Anti-virus:

Webroot is the jam.

I just use a disponsable, self-resetting VM for internet. No problem whatsoever.

@nadnerB said in Home Anti-virus:

So I'm having some ridiculous issues with Avast Free AV and I'm considering switching to something else.
Details here: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=203267.0

What have you got for AV?

Why use an AV at all? I've never ever had problem with virus. Maybe the only time was an omicron virus for ms-dos in 1996. I was 7, the infection vector was a floppy with prince of Persia.

@FATeknollogee said in How do you setup KVM networking on a desktop or laptop:

Any further updates here?

What is the "cleanest" method available so vm's can "talk" to the host?

Bridge. But sometimes is messy with the wifi in my experience, so maybe is better to use ZeroTier for a testing environment.

@scottalanmiller said in Has Windows 10 VDI Licensing changed yet?:

@black3dynamite said in Has Windows 10 VDI Licensing changed yet?:

Under type 2 examples, KVM is listed has a type 2.

It's actually what is now known as a Type 0, which is really a subset of Type 1. It's anything but a Type 2, as it is not on top of an OS.

Type 0 is a bad term, but ESXi and KVM are called that as they don't only not run on top of an OS, but they don't need a "Dom0" OS either. But Xen and Hyper-V still need that Dom0.

I don't agree with the use of "type 0" in this way, because I've seen it related to hardware virtualization like LPAR, that of course is a completely different thing…

@black3dynamite said in Has Windows 10 VDI Licensing changed yet?:

@scottalanmiller said in Has Windows 10 VDI Licensing changed yet?:

@dbeato said in Has Windows 10 VDI Licensing changed yet?:

@scottalanmiller it tAkes a couple of refreshes

Well written. I like that it covers history back to the IBM 1960s era, and clarifies what T1 and T2 are, and makes it perfectly clear that Hyper-V is T1 by both direct statement and description.

Under type 2 examples, KVM is listed has a type 2.

This is an old dispute. KVM is of course type 1, not by the classical definition but in the way it performs, expose the virtual hardware etc. It plays in the same league of Xen, HyperV and ESXi, no need to use other terms. The inner design of the solution is completely transparent to the user.