Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

disturb · 2009-12-18 21:04:03

Hi folks,

I do software (mostly web) development, and I work alone, so I have to cope with a lot of sysadmin-type work, in order to setup different stacks of web/application/database/source-control servers, let alone my own dev environment.

I don't have a bunch of hardware lying around, so i do most of this on my laptop, which ends up being a mess in no time.

Lately I've been *obsessing* over finding a way to virtualize these different concerns, to make my setup more manageable.
Ideally I'd log into a thin development client (with my Xsession, emacs and ssh), have the servers run headless, and use them like in the real world.
I'm aiming at getting it all under version control eventually too...

I also have a couple of concerns on top of that :
Performance, as I don't have a killer machine, having a fully virtualized OS for each server would probably slow it to a crawl.
And portability, i.e. be able to reuse those configs with as little tweaking as possible when I move them to a vps or other local boxes.

Considering this, I've basically narrowed it down to either os-level virtualization with openvz, or paravirtualization with xen.
Eventhough the former would seemingly provide the best performance, I'm worried I might be overlooking a bunch of stuff here, and I'm having a hard time deciding which way to go, especially since it's gonna be a lot of work, I'd rather get it right on the first try (yeah right !).

So anyway, sorry for the long rant, but I wanted to ask you guys if you had any experience with these virtualization solutions, and maybe could give some insights on what could best suit my needs here ?

cheers !

wuischke · 2009-12-18 21:25:18

I've no personal experience with xen or openvz, but I also have this problem.

My solution is to run a headless Debian (my server runs Debian) VM in VirtualBox and access it via SSH. Performance is no problem (C2D 1.6 GHz without VT-x, 1GB RAM, CPU usage for the VM is at ~1%), although database operations are slower compared to the server. Beware of RAM usage with many VMs, though.

Portability was no problem for me since I run the same operating system on the server and inside the vm - basically it's just copying files and merging configuration files. It was actually more of a problem when I used Arch for development. Moving the VM to another computer is even easier, you just need VirtualBox and no special configuration.

I recommend you to give it a try - maybe it's what you need and you saved yourself a lot of work.

disturb · 2009-12-18 21:39:11

wuischke wrote:

I've no personal experience with xen or openvz, but I also have this problem.
My solution is to run a headless Debian (my server runs Debian) VM in VirtualBox and access it via SSH. Performance is no problem (C2D 1.6 GHz without VT-x, 1GB RAM, CPU usage for the VM is at ~1%), although database operations are slower compared to the server. Beware of RAM usage with many VMs, though.
Portability was no problem for me since I run the same operating system on the server and inside the vm - basically it's just copying files and merging configuration files. It was actually more of a problem when I used Arch for development. Moving the VM to another computer is even easier, you just need VirtualBox and no special configuration.
I recommend you to give it a try - maybe it's what you need and you saved yourself a lot of work.

Hi wulschke,

yeah I've been messing with virtualbox myself, and like you, had a pretty good experience.
However, i can't see myself running a dedicated VM for each server, and shoving everything into a VM felt like I was hiding my mess in the closet
I'm seeing this setup as a way to start getting, and above all, staying, organized.
This wiil be my fallback solution though, if the container-type thing doesn't work out, or ends up being too much overhead.

Andrwe · 2009-12-18 21:56:11

What kind of machine do you have? (RAM, CPU etc.)

Because Xen is hungry too if you run many machines.

disturb · 2009-12-18 22:15:15

Andrwe wrote:

What kind of machine do you have? (RAM, CPU etc.)
Because Xen is hungry too if you run many machines.

My laptop is a C2D 2Ghz, with 3gb of RAM.
I'll probably build a server in a few months, but this should run on the latop...
Does that kinda specs look too weak for this purpose ?

mikesd · 2009-12-18 22:22:24

I ran openvz for a while on a modest machine, Athlon XP 2100. It worked fairly well, performance was fine. It ran 3 or 4 OpenVZ instances.

If you were considering OpenVZ I would also consider Linux Containers. I'm not sure how mature LXC is but I think it is getting close to being useful. There is an Arch Linux LXC howto available here.

I have only used Xen once or twice so can't really comment on it.

If you decide to go with machine virtualization, VirtualBox is nice.

disturb · 2009-12-18 22:50:48

thanks mike, nice links I didn't know about LXC, it seems to be about the same amount of work as setting up openvz, so I think I'd try this first... in a VM !

disturb · 2009-12-18 23:34:18

Crap, i just found out about Linux V-Server, it seems kinda like an hybrid between openvz and lxc, maybe more focused on security.

One more option to research...

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-18 21:04:03

Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#2 2009-12-18 21:25:18

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#3 2009-12-18 21:39:11

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#4 2009-12-18 21:56:11

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#5 2009-12-18 22:15:15

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#6 2009-12-18 22:22:24

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#7 2009-12-18 22:50:48

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

#8 2009-12-18 23:34:18

Re: Can you recommend a virtualization strategy for this use-case ?

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