Arch Linux

Seb74

Member

Registered: 2006-10-07

Posts: 89

Recommended to run a webserver in a virtual Arch?

I'm thinking of maybe putting windows server or 2k or something on my server at home, with Arch in a virtual vmware-machine, having:

Easy and working Cool n'Quiet (saving some energy probably since I never dared try it in Arch)
Much much faster network filesharing in the workgroup (no matter how I tweak Samba windows to windows is much faster)
Easier/faster to set shares/security, just rightclick folders
Webserver more secure, since it will be isolated from the fileshares and rest of the LAN
Ability to let the server (that is windows and not virtual Arch) do torrents, http-downloads, p2p, and leave my workstation off at nights. Controlling it using RDP locally, or tunneling in VNC through the virtual Arch when remote.

So, you Linux-guys will probably disagree on all my reasons, but anyway.
Has anyone tried running Arch (or other Linux) virtually and as a webserver (Apache/PHP/MySQL)?
Does it work well? Stable and safe and decent performance and such?
Good idea you think?

EDIT: Another advantage is if I'd like to upgrade or reinstall or switch OS on the webserver. I just install the other virtual server while the old one are running, and when I feel its working as I like I just switch the forwarding in the router and take the old virtual server down. Good bye to downtime while struggling with installs. Unless I'd need to do something with the external hosting OS that is
Also saving snapshots is invaluable, if trying stuff out and it just messes up the system....just a simple rewind and a minute later its all restored.

Last edited by Seb74 (2007-11-19 10:28:42)

lloeki

Member

From: France

Registered: 2007-02-20

Posts: 456

Website

Re: Recommended to run a webserver in a virtual Arch?

then, why don't you put linux as your host, and both windows and your server as guests? you'll have much less trouble like that and can apply your strategies to both windows and linux guests, while having a minimal host to manage. plus, depending on your hardware you may have the benefit of hardware virtualization.
what's more, this way your linux guest is not being put at stake by the windows one. no one knows what could get through those samba shares

obligatory alternatives section:

that said, samba/SMB is so slow and unstable anyway (even the windows one), and there are many alternatives, my favorite being ssh/sftp (where you have the benefit of both encryption and compression of transmitted data, thus raising throughput). with fuse you can even mount ssh/sftp under linux and mac. about ssh/sftp mounts for windows I don't know but winscp and others work well enough for transfers, and samba for the occasionnal remote read/write file access. and for remote readonly access (e.g reading videos without copying them locally), I have a special webserver page just for my LAN which lists video files so I can stream them.

as for torrents, you may want to take a look at transmission, which has both a daemon and a client part.
or you could use command line/ncurses ones (like rtorrent or ctorrent) together with a detached 'screen' session. for http, think of wget and curl (again in a 'screen' session). there may be ncurses download managers out there but I don't know about them.

and all this via commandline (ssh), so you have the benefit of not hogging server resources (both ram and cpu) with a gui, and when you're remotely connected, it's just a thousandfold faster. you can even access your 'shares' remotely and securely. I do backups from anywhere this way with rsync+ssh.

and the bonus section:

looking at your setup you may also be interested in mpd, and transform your server in a remotely controllable music library+player that will play regardless of the clients machines available (or not). and with its shoutcast output support you can stream this music on multiple locations in a pseudo-synchronized fashion.

Last edited by lloeki (2007-11-19 11:07:18)

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Seb74

Member

Registered: 2006-10-07

Posts: 89

Re: Recommended to run a webserver in a virtual Arch?

That sounds a bit overkill almost, but sounds like interresting solutions.

The idea with Windows physically on the host was to have simple and working Cool n' Quiet. Linux can be a bit tricky.
I need a old P2P program that really works best on Windows (have tried Linux).
And windows filesharing is so easy and fast, I can map the share to a drive on the XP-clients. Like have I: go to the servershare for direct access. I've never had any trouble with Samba sharing at home, and between windows-hosts its always really fast (like 60Mbps instead of Linux where I often get around 30Mbps, depending on installation in some random way).

Needing SSH in any way seems very cumbersome if you do most of the client work against the server, browsing files and having MyDocuments on the server and so on. I dont know exactly how your solutions work but I think simple Windowssharing is more accessible in a windows network.

Only thing I need Linux for is a secure, isolated, webserver, and ability to tunnel in VNC.
Local security is no big issue since its my home and no company.
Could always turn passwords on for the shares also, and some firewall rules.

gormine

Member

Registered: 2007-11-26

Posts: 55

Re: Recommended to run a webserver in a virtual Arch?

EDIT: After I posted this, I realized other people are getting a lot faster speeds. I am going to post a new thread to try and figure out my problem. I deleted the info because it could very well be useless if my configuration is scewing up the numbers.

Last edited by gormine (2007-12-05 23:32:42)