• Choice of hypervisors

    From 2twisty@21:3/166 to All on Wed Jun 29 21:20:22 2022
    I run my homelab on ESXi at the moment. I'm wanting to explore another hypervisor for a while, and the ones I'm considering are Proxmox and xcp-ng (opensource Xen).

    Any of you out there have experience with BOTH that can offer some pros/cons of each?

    Right now I'm leaning toward xcp-ng because one of my fav YouTubers (LawrenceSystems) likes it better than Proxmox.

    Still doing my homework, and I can always stay on ESXi if I have to -- just looking to play with a new system to broaden my experience......

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From tassiebob@21:3/169 to 2twisty on Thu Jun 30 18:51:48 2022
    I run my homelab on ESXi at the moment. I'm wanting to explore another hypervisor for a while, and the ones I'm considering are Proxmox and xcp-ng (opensource Xen).

    I was using ESXi for a good while, but reached the point where I needed to update to support - I think - Windows 10. But the newer version of ESXi that played nicely with W10 didn't like my older hardware.

    Our IT guys at work use Proxmox so I gave that a go. I've got it running on 4 machines - one is a really low end HP thin client with an SSD grafted in that runs a couple of tiny VM's here at home. It only has 4G of RAM so is very constrained in what it can do. I have a couple of Dell R720's and a SuperMicro 1RU box in a local datacentre. There'd be somewhere around 30 VM's running across those.

    Proxmox - at least for me - just works for what I need.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: TassieBob BBS, Hobart, Tasmania (21:3/169)
  • From Warpslide@21:3/110.2 to 2twisty on Thu Jun 30 08:12:16 2022
    *** Quoting 2twisty from a message to All ***

    I run my homelab on ESXi at the moment. I'm wanting to explore
    another hypervisor for a while

    Still doing my homework, and I can always stay on ESXi if I have to
    -- just looking to play with a new system to broaden my
    experience......

    Have you considered playing with Hyper-V as well?

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2019

    I have ESXi on my home lab but we use Hyper-V at work and it's pretty slick, give it a go if you'd like. Hyper-V server is free, so no need to worry
    about a license key.


    Jay

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  • From tassiebob@21:3/169 to Warpslide on Fri Jul 1 21:11:30 2022
    Have you considered playing with Hyper-V as well?

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2019

    I have ESXi on my home lab but we use Hyper-V at work and it's pretty slick, give it a go if you'd like. Hyper-V server is free, so no need
    to worry about a license key.

    Interesting... I hadn't considered Hyper-V myself as I was under the impression that you needed a full Windows license to run it, but from that link it looks like you can get a stripped down host operating system that just does Hyper-V (a bit like ESX uses a stripped down Linux under the hood).

    It looks like most of my hardware would be compatible, although whether it becomes obsolete in a future update would be a concern. That could happen with Proxmox too, although it's probably less likely.

    I might give Hyper-V a run though next time I'm building a new host. I know your message wasn't really aimed at me - but thanks anyway :-)

    Cheers,
    Bob.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: TassieBob BBS, Hobart, Tasmania (21:3/169)
  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to Warpslide on Fri Jul 1 11:42:32 2022
    Have you considered playing with Hyper-V as well?

    Hyper-V is great if you want to run all Windows guests. I found it hard to get the level of control over the virtual hardware that I wanted. That's why I have been using ESXi.

    XCP-NG offers similar levels of control since it is based on Xen.

    Considering proxmox simply due to popularity. Haven't decided what I want to do just yet, since what I have is working and this is all for play/exploration anyway.

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    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to tassiebob on Fri Jul 1 08:30:00 2022
    tassiebob wrote to Warpslide <=-

    It looks like most of my hardware would be compatible, although whether
    it becomes obsolete in a future update would be a concern. That could happen with Proxmox too, although it's probably less likely.

    Part of the reason I chose Proxmox over ESXi is compatibility. I run vSphere at work, and ESXi is finicky about hardware - I had to retire a Dell rack mount server because 7.0 wouldn't support it.

    My home "server" is a laptop, didn't think it had much of a chance of
    running ESXi. Proxmox runs fine, since it's basically Debian underneath with QEMU.


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  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 4 10:50:15 2022
    Hi poindexter FORTRAN,

    Part of the reason I chose Proxmox over ESXi is compatibility. I run
    vSphere at work, and ESXi is finicky about hardware - I had to retire
    a Dell rack mount server because 7.0 wouldn't support it.

    That is one of the main bug bears with ESXi. I have a perfectly fine
    Dell 210 half length server, that's got a Xeon (I think x3470 3.9Ghz quad core), the only short comming with that server is it's max 16Gb of
    ram. ESXi 5 ran fine on it, but I wasn't willing to use that in
    production, so it was setup with Proxmox 6.x when installed in a data
    centre, and was rocksolid...



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From deon@21:2/116 to vorlon on Mon Jul 4 17:28:08 2022
    Re: Re: Choice of hypervisors
    By: vorlon to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 04 2022 10:50 am

    Part of the reason I chose Proxmox over ESXi is compatibility. I run vSphere at work, and ESXi is finicky about hardware - I had to retire
    a Dell rack mount server because 7.0 wouldn't support it.

    That is one of the main bug bears with ESXi. I have a perfectly fine
    Dell 210 half length server, that's got a Xeon (I think x3470 3.9Ghz quad core), the only short comming with that server is it's
    max 16Gb of ram. ESXi 5 ran fine on it, but I wasn't willing to use that in production, so it was setup with Proxmox 6.x when installed in a data centre, and was rocksolid...

    I must say I've been pretty lucky to get ESXi on a lot of things (that werent on the HCL). There is a german site (escapes me at the moment) that has a lot of "community" drivers that has been quite useful. With that site, I have it running on an APU1D (which runs my BBS, Hub 3, my netware server, an MSDOS 622 and my Windows game server) - which only has a serial port for a console :)

    That said, I was interseted to see the discussion on xcp-ng and proxmox. ESXi takes up too much of the 4G and I'm wondering if I can replace it with one of those to get a little bit more ram.


    ...лоеп
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  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to deon on Mon Jul 4 22:19:15 2022
    Hi Deon,

    I must say I've been pretty lucky to get ESXi on a lot of things (that werent on the HCL). There is a german site (escapes me at the moment)
    that has a lot of "community" drivers that has been quite useful. With
    that site, I have it running on an APU1D (which runs my BBS, Hub 3, my netware server, an MSDOS 622 and my Windows game server) - which only
    has a serial port for a console :)

    Yes ESXi will run on more hardware than what's on the HCL, if you want to "hack" around with it. I had to use a third party network driver for the
    second port on my current home server. (Intel S1200BTL, with a Xeon
    E31240 @3.3Ghz) I'd still be using my old/previous home server (Now
    that it's only me) running a Q9600 cpu, if it wasn't for the dropping of
    the cpu support and the limit of 8gb of ram....

    Vmware go out of there way to remove still valid and usable cpu's etc. But
    then they are aming the product at the comercial $$$ paying people. It's
    just lucky for the comminity that they have a free/trial version of the product.

    That said, I was interseted to see the discussion on xcp-ng and
    proxmox. ESXi takes up too much of the 4G and I'm wondering if I can
    replace it with one of those to get a little bit more ram.

    I have installed proxmox on the above older server (The Q9600), and it
    used just shy of 1gb of ram.. I think it was around the 900mb area.

    Unlike ESXi though, proxmox want's to use part of the HD for the debian
    based install. The other thing I'm yet to try out and why my S1299BTL is
    still on ESXi (6.5 now), is the hardware passthrough for the sata hd controller. It's got 4 2gb hd's passed through to Nas4free, with ZFS on
    the drives.





    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From tassiebob@21:3/169 to deon on Mon Jul 4 22:32:30 2022
    I must say I've been pretty lucky to get ESXi on a lot of things (that werent on the HCL). There is a german site (escapes me at the moment)
    that has a lot of "community" drivers that has been quite useful.

    Ain't nobody got time to be friggin' with the hypervisor to get it working on a box :-) My recollection is that ESXi was quite unhappy with my R720's, and given our IT guys at work use ProxMox I figured I'd give it a run. It just works.

    that site, I have it running on an APU1D (which runs my BBS, Hub 3, my netware server, an MSDOS 622 and my Windows game server) - which only
    has a serial port for a console :)

    I think my home Proxmox box has a CPU along those lines - it's a HP thin client with 4G of RAM and an SSD strapped into it. Runs DNS and the PBX :-)

    The ProxMox backup server is pretty nice too - if you end up with ProxMox, then it's worth a look. I run it as a VM on one of the servers and backup all the VM's (including those at home) to it. VM's on the server with the backup server get backed up separately as well.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: TassieBob BBS, Hobart, Tasmania (21:3/169)
  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to deon on Mon Jul 4 11:20:24 2022
    That said, I was interseted to see the discussion on xcp-ng and proxmox. ESXi takes up too much of the 4G and I'm wondering if I can replace it with one of those to get a little bit more ram.

    Both ESXi and XCP-NG are very light weight. However, I doubt you will see a huge savings in RAM.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From claw@21:1/210 to vorlon on Mon Jul 4 15:32:53 2022
    On 04 Jul 2022, vorlon said the following...
    Hi Deon,

    I must say I've been pretty lucky to get ESXi on a lot of things (that werent on the HCL). There is a german site (escapes me at the moment) that has a lot of "community" drivers that has been quite useful. With that site, I have it running on an APU1D (which runs my BBS, Hub 3, my netware server, an MSDOS 622 and my Windows game server) - which only has a serial port for a console :)

    Yes ESXi will run on more hardware than what's on the HCL, if you want to "hack" around with it. I had to use a third party network driver for the second port on my current home server. (Intel S1200BTL, with a Xeon
    E31240 @3.3Ghz) I'd still be using my old/previous home server (Now
    that it's only me) running a Q9600 cpu, if it wasn't for the dropping of the cpu support and the limit of 8gb of ram....

    Vmware go out of there way to remove still valid and usable cpu's etc.
    But then they are aming the product at the comercial $$$ paying people. It's just lucky for the comminity that they have a free/trial version of the product.

    That said, I was interseted to see the discussion on xcp-ng and proxmox. ESXi takes up too much of the 4G and I'm wondering if I can replace it with one of those to get a little bit more ram.

    I have installed proxmox on the above older server (The Q9600), and it used just shy of 1gb of ram.. I think it was around the 900mb area.

    Unlike ESXi though, proxmox want's to use part of the HD for the debian based install. The other thing I'm yet to try out and why my S1299BTL is still on ESXi (6.5 now), is the hardware passthrough for the sata hd controller. It's got 4 2gb hd's passed through to Nas4free, with ZFS on the drives.


    \/orlon

    I've been reading a bit of these for a while know and am wondering what it is you can't run. I have used ESXi for a long time and most of the time If I can do an upgrade it doesn't lose support of any of the hardware. I think I'm currently on 6.7. I'm not at home but pretty sure thats what it is. Not interest in 7 yet as there isn't anything I can't run that I want too as of now.

    The majority of my servers are on Linux, with only a few exceptions for game servers that really need to be in windows.

    I have a Dell R815. Its old but its kicking along. Been able to do anything I throw at it.

    |23|04Dr|16|12Claw
    |16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
    |10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
    |20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to claw on Tue Jul 5 10:41:00 2022
    Hi Claw,

    Yes ESXi will run on more hardware than what's on the HCL, if you
    want to "hack" around with it. I had to use a third party network driver

    I've been reading a bit of these for a while know and am wondering
    what it is you can't run. I have used ESXi for a long time and most
    of the time If I can do an upgrade it doesn't lose support of any of
    the hardware. I think I'm currently on 6.7. I'm not at home but
    [...]
    The majority of my servers are on Linux, with only a few exceptions
    for game servers that really need to be in windows.

    Proxmox will run a windows guest just fine.

    I have a Dell R815. Its old but its kicking along. Been able to do anything I throw at it.

    Older hardware with ram limitations is the only reason I've changed to
    newer hardware. 8/16gb of ram was just not enough.

    In the process I updated the host software, in doing a fresh install as I didn't want any "crud" left over. I was running ESXi 5.5 for a very long
    time, and it's only drawback was the requiremt of it's client management software.

    I've got 8 vm's installed with 7 running 24/7 on my current server.


    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to vorlon on Tue Jul 5 15:56:00 2022
    Am 05.07.22 schrieb vorlon@21:1/195.1 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo vorlon,

    Proxmox will run a windows guest just fine.

    Just one note from me concerning Proxmox:

    I thought about using it (and also had a test installation on one
    system) for my retro systems but had to find out that is isn't
    possible to mount virtual floppy disks to VMs.

    While this is not a problem for most people nowerdays, it is one if
    you eg. want to install Novell NetWare, where you have to boot from a
    floppy disk for installation - and the license files are also on
    floppies.

    That's why I'm sticking with ESXi, which also has the guest tools for
    the most OSes of all hypervisors. (You can still use the older guest utilities for NetWare on newer ESXi versions)

    Oh, and ESXi also features a remote console as a real program on
    Linux, not only via a browser (compared to xcp-ng, which does not
    offer a management or remote console application for Linux, only for Windows...)

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to deon on Mon Jul 4 09:37:00 2022
    deon wrote to vorlon <=-

    I must say I've been pretty lucky to get ESXi on a lot of things (that werent on the HCL). There is a german site (escapes me at the moment)
    that has a lot of "community" drivers that has been quite useful. With that site, I have it running on an APU1D (which runs my BBS, Hub 3, my netware server, an MSDOS 622 and my Windows game server) - which only
    has a serial port for a console :)

    If you run into that site again, please let us know. I've got a Dell R630
    that fell off the HCL with ESXi 6.7 that I'd like to find a use for.

    That said, I was interseted to see the discussion on xcp-ng and
    proxmox. ESXi takes up too much of the 4G and I'm wondering if I can replace it with one of those to get a little bit more ram.

    Proxmox is nice, I do want to fire up xcp-ng and take a look. I wonder if I can run xcp-ng under Proxmox to test? :)

    (Actually, myold i7 might not support nested virtualization...)


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to vorlon on Mon Jul 4 09:39:00 2022
    vorlon wrote to deon <=-

    Vmware go out of there way to remove still valid and usable cpu's etc.
    But then they are aming the product at the comercial $$$ paying people. It's just lucky for the comminity that they have a free/trial version
    of the product.

    I'm sure they'll go away after being acquired by Broadcom. In their memo,
    they cited that something like 75% of their revenues come from a handful of their top customers. Reading between the lines, it sounds like they're focusing on them and the hundreds of thousands of smaller customers are in limbo.


    ... It's all more or less the same.. but it's all different now.
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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to tassiebob on Mon Jul 4 13:22:00 2022
    tassiebob wrote to deon <=-

    Ain't nobody got time to be friggin' with the hypervisor to get it
    working on a box :-) My recollection is that ESXi was quite unhappy
    with my R720's, and given our IT guys at work use ProxMox I figured I'd give it a run. It just works.

    Odd, I received 2 Simplivity servers for my office; I wasn't going to run
    the Simplivity hyperconverged stuff on it* so I updated the BIOS with the
    Dell BIOS and installed ESXi on it with no issues.


    *I did some research into Simplivity, and it looked pretty good - it
    installed on 2 mirrored SD cards, did its own RAID, networking and VMs all
    in one box - oh, and hardware dedupe, if memory serves.

    I'm going to be working with Nutanix boxes in a similar HC environment for
    my company's remote sites. They're going to eat VMWare's market share for lunch if VMWare loses focus on the small enterprise, which Broadcom pretty much committed to doing.







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  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Jul 5 10:18:36 2022
    Proxmox is nice, I do want to fire up xcp-ng and take a look. I wonder
    if I can run xcp-ng under Proxmox to test? :)

    I did this under esxi. It was a bit of a PITA to get working. You have to make sure that the virtual hardware you present to xcp-ng is "right" and you also have to make the vSwitch that the vNICs are connected to fully promiscuous so any VMs you run nested will be able to access the network.

    I had trouble with that last part and was unable to get help from forums, because either "nested virtualization is a bad idea" or they didn't have any experience doing that.

    I can tell you EXACTLY how to get xcp-ng running under esxi. Since I've never really used ProxMox, I am not sure how to control the vswitch.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Jul 5 10:23:08 2022
    I'm sure they'll go away after being acquired by Broadcom. In their
    memo, they cited that something like 75% of their revenues come from a handful of their top customers. Reading between the lines, it sounds
    like they're focusing on them and the hundreds of thousands of smaller customers are in limbo.

    In their defense, ESXi offers features that most small businesses never need. So, they can roll with xcp-ng or proxmox (or whatever flavor of KVM they want) for free.

    So focusing on the feataures that enterprise customers want, need and are willing to pay for is just what the shareholders need.

    However, keeping a free tier has its benefits. It allows nerds like me to play with it and become familiar with its base features, so that I can then go to the company president and recommend that they buy a license.

    At my previous job, I wanted to explore xcp-ng as an alternative to ESXi, but I got overruled and was not given the "work time" to explore it. As a result, I have ESXi on my homelab so I could better support the company's invrastructure. I'm now getting around to playing with it.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to poindexter FORTRAN on Tue Jul 5 10:26:55 2022
    I'm going to be working with Nutanix boxes in a similar HC environment
    for my company's remote sites. They're going to eat VMWare's market
    share for lunch if VMWare loses focus on the small enterprise, which Broadcom pretty much committed to doing.

    We looked at Nutanix and fell over when we saw the price to do all the hyperconverged stuff. So we stuck with ESXi on 2 servers -- with a shared SAN backend. We would just migrate the VMs to the secondary server manually if we had to.

    So, by "small enterprise," how small do you mean? The company I was working for had about 40 employees and could not justify the expense of Nutanix.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From claw@21:1/210 to vorlon on Tue Jul 5 18:09:57 2022
    On 05 Jul 2022, vorlon said the following...
    Proxmox will run a windows guest just fine.

    Older hardware with ram limitations is the only reason I've changed to newer hardware. 8/16gb of ram was just not enough.

    In the process I updated the host software, in doing a fresh install as I didn't want any "crud" left over. I was running ESXi 5.5 for a very long time, and it's only drawback was the requiremt of it's client management software.

    I've got 8 vm's installed with 7 running 24/7 on my current server.

    \/orlon

    Nice. I'm sure someday I'll have to actually switch. I don't plan on replacing the Server anytime soon. with mostly Linux Servers I shouldn't have to worry either. Well see. I have 192G of ram so hope that will last me a while. I can't remember how many I have running 24/7 I would guess its at least 7 or more. If we stop playing a game for at least a month I tend to take them down so they don't get weird update issues and things like that. So I can decide what to do if/when we decide to play that game again.

    |23|04Dr|16|12Claw
    |16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
    |10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
    |20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)
  • From deon@21:2/116 to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Jul 6 09:10:44 2022
    Re: Re: Choice of hypervisors
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to deon on Mon Jul 04 2022 09:37 am

    If you run into that site again, please let us know. I've got a Dell R630 that fell off the HCL with ESXi 6.7 that I'd like to find a use for.

    I think it was this site: https://www.v-front.de/.

    The customiser enables you to create a custom install ISO - so you can get through the installer (which from memory needs to have a valid storage device and network card). The depot has the drivers.


    ...лоеп
    --- SBBSecho 3.15-Linux
    * Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)
  • From paulie420@21:2/150 to acn on Tue Jul 5 19:40:33 2022
    I thought about using it (and also had a test installation on one system) for my retro systems but had to find out that is isn't
    possible to mount virtual floppy disks to VMs.

    While this is not a problem for most people nowerdays, it is one if
    you eg. want to install Novell NetWare, where you have to boot from a floppy disk for installation - and the license files are also on floppies.

    I could be off base here, but I mount .ISOs that I create and they are mounted as disks, right?

    I use a linux command to create an ISO from some disk, add it to my ProxMox VM and boot, and its mounted as d:\ e:\, etc...



    |07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
    |08.........

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/04/26 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to paulie420 on Thu Jul 7 13:08:00 2022
    Am 05.07.22 schrieb paulie420@21:2/150 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo paulie420,

    I thought about using it (and also had a test installation on one
    system) for my retro systems but had to find out that is isn't
    possible to mount virtual floppy disks to VMs.

    While this is not a problem for most people nowerdays, it is one if
    you eg. want to install Novell NetWare, where you have to boot from a
    floppy disk for installation - and the license files are also on
    floppies.

    I could be off base here, but I mount .ISOs that I create and they are mounted as disks, right?

    .ISO files are mounted as virtual CD-ROM drives, that's correct and
    that does work.

    But I'm referring to virtual floppy disks (1.44 MB), not CD-ROMs, ISOs
    etc.

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to 2twisty on Wed Jul 6 07:49:00 2022
    2twisty wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I can tell you EXACTLY how to get xcp-ng running under esxi. Since
    I've never really used ProxMox, I am not sure how to control the
    vswitch.

    Thanks for responding! I just moved my BBS to a virtual machine on Proxmox,
    so I have the old hardware available to play with. Sounds like that might be an easier path.


    ... Consider different fading systems
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to 2twisty on Wed Jul 6 07:52:00 2022
    2twisty wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    So focusing on the feataures that enterprise customers want, need and
    are willing to pay for is just what the shareholders need.

    The issue is that reading between the lines of Broadcom's press release, they're planning on focusing on a fraction of their *enterprise* customers, stating that 75 percent of their revenues come from a couple of hundred of their largest customers.

    I don't begrudge them that, but it bodes poorly for anyone not in that extra-large enterprise space.

    At my previous job, I wanted to explore xcp-ng as an alternative to
    ESXi, but I got overruled and was not given the "work time" to explore
    it. As a result, I have ESXi on my homelab so I could better support
    the company's invrastructure. I'm now getting around to playing with
    it.

    And, so it goes, over and over again.


    ... Consider different fading systems
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to 2twisty on Wed Jul 6 07:54:00 2022
    2twisty wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    So, by "small enterprise," how small do you mean? The company I was working for had about 40 employees and could not justify the expense of Nutanix.

    Pricing for vSphere Enterprise plus and Nutanix were comparable, I thought.
    I should go back and compare again.

    The beauty for a remote site is having one system with resiliency to log
    into and manage routing, firewall, VM and file sharing on one box.


    ... Consider transitions
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to acn on Wed Jul 6 08:15:00 2022
    acn wrote to vorlon <=-


    Just one note from me concerning Proxmox:

    I thought about using it (and also had a test installation on one
    system) for my retro systems but had to find out that is isn't
    possible to mount virtual floppy disks to VMs.

    I didn't realize that, just confirmed on my 7.2-5 install. You could pass through a USB floppy to the guest if you had physical floppies. There
    appears to be a way to do it from the command line, but I don't think you could swap the floppy disks easily, as in a multi-disk install.

    Oh, and ESXi also features a remote console as a real program on
    Linux, not only via a browser (compared to xcp-ng, which does not
    offer a management or remote console application for Linux, only for Windows...)

    I'd definitely consider ESXi on supported hardware. I figured that I get enough time playing with ESXi at work that I wanted a change of pace in my homelab.


    ... "The swift blade penetrates the salad."
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to acn on Fri Jul 8 10:51:06 2022
    Hi acn,

    you eg. want to install Novell NetWare, where you have to boot from a floppy disk for installation - and the license files are also on
    floppies.

    Had a look at the proxmox setup, and yeah it lack's "floppy" image
    support. How about tuning those floppies into a bootable cdrom?

    Oh, and ESXi also features a remote console as a real program on
    Linux, not only via a browser (compared to xcp-ng, which does not
    offer a management or remote console application for Linux, only for Windows...)

    That's one of Proxmox's advantages, 95% was done via a browser. Having
    upgraded to 6.5 of ESXi, I now have been able to ditch it's config
    program.




    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 8 10:56:04 2022
    Hi poindexter,

    But then they are aming the product at the comercial $$$ paying
    people. It's just lucky for the comminity that they have a
    free/trial version of the product.

    I'm sure they'll go away after being acquired by Broadcom. In their
    memo, they cited that something like 75% of their revenues come from a handful of their top customers. Reading between the lines, it sounds
    like they're focusing on them and the hundreds of thousands of smaller customers are in limbo.

    Typical of Broadcom. I know a lot of business's are there to make $$$,
    but some make it the only thing they want...

    I can see the free/comminity products going away. What they will then
    miss is the people that have a setup at home to play around with and
    test. Those skill's learned will be lost for any future employment.....



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to claw on Fri Jul 8 11:15:21 2022
    Hi Claw,

    Nice. I'm sure someday I'll have to actually switch. I don't plan on replacing the Server anytime soon. with mostly Linux Servers I
    shouldn't have to worry either. Well see. I have 192G of ram so hope
    that will last me a while.

    Who said that x amount of ram is enough for everyone... Back in the day
    IBM thought that there would only be big (ie: $$$$ companys) that would
    run what we do now in our homes.

    I can't remember how many I have running 24/7 I would guess its at
    least 7 or more. If we stop playing a game

    Two of mine are FreeBSD based (Pfsense/Nas4free), the others are Linux.



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From claw@21:1/210 to vorlon on Thu Jul 7 21:31:51 2022
    On 08 Jul 2022, vorlon said the following...
    Two of mine are FreeBSD based (Pfsense/Nas4free), the others are Linux.

    \/orlon

    Yup Love my PFSense box. Been running it for years same install even migrated 2 servers. Still upgrades and still kicken.

    |23|04Dr|16|12Claw
    |16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
    |10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
    |20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)
  • From tassiebob@21:3/169 to vorlon on Fri Jul 8 20:25:47 2022
    That's one of Proxmox's advantages, 95% was done via a browser. Having upgraded to 6.5 of ESXi, I now have been able to ditch it's config program.

    One of the advantages I've found with Proxmox is that it'll do some things out of the box that (I think) you need a license for with ESXi - live migration is one example.

    I have 3 hosts and can live migrate VM's between them if I need to. It's not as nice as it could be because I don't have shared storage on my personal cluster, so it has to do a live migration of the discs as well, but for what I do I can live with that.

    There's probably other things too - not sure. I'm sure ESXi does things Proxmox won't too (mounting floppy images in the GUI sounds like one).

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: TassieBob BBS, Hobart, Tasmania (21:3/169)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 8 13:42:00 2022
    Am 06.07.22 schrieb poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo poindexter,

    [Proxmox]
    I thought about using it (and also had a test installation on one
    system) for my retro systems but had to find out that is isn't
    possible to mount virtual floppy disks to VMs.

    I didn't realize that, just confirmed on my 7.2-5 install. You
    could pass through a USB floppy to the guest if you had physical
    floppies.

    But then it is still a USB floppy drive, even for the guest, right?
    So nothing for a DOS system -or NetWare-, I guess.

    There appears to be a way to do it from the command line, but I
    don't think you could swap the floppy disks easily, as in a multi-
    disk install.

    Maybe. But that's not worth the hassle for me.
    In ESXi, it's working and even swapping disks is working fine from the
    remote console application.

    Oh, and ESXi also features a remote console as a real program on
    Linux, not only via a browser (compared to xcp-ng, which does not
    offer a management or remote console application for Linux, only for
    Windows...)

    I'd definitely consider ESXi on supported hardware. I figured that I get enough time playing with ESXi at work that I wanted a change of pace in my homelab.

    At the moment, I'm using ESXi on an old 'Lenovo M92p tiny' and for my retrocomputing needs, it's just fine :)
    I hope this system keeps on working a while.

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to vorlon on Fri Jul 8 14:03:00 2022
    Am 08.07.22 schrieb vorlon@21:1/195.1 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo vorlon,

    you eg. want to install Novell NetWare, where you have to boot from a
    floppy disk for installation - and the license files are also on
    floppies.

    Had a look at the proxmox setup, and yeah it lack's "floppy" image
    support. How about tuning those floppies into a bootable cdrom?

    That might be possible, but it's just a workaround.

    Oh, and ESXi also features a remote console as a real program on
    Linux, not only via a browser (compared to xcp-ng, which does not
    offer a management or remote console application for Linux, only for
    Windows...)

    That's one of Proxmox's advantages, 95% was done via a browser.

    I don't see the lack of a decent real remote control application as an advantage. Too often, some keys don't work correctly in browser stuff
    and it's lacking behind in speed and comfort.

    Having upgraded to 6.5 of ESXi, I now have been able to ditch it's
    config program.

    I prefer the VMware Remote Console 100 times over the slow and
    sluggish website for accessing the VM.
    And it's even possible to use VMRC with parameters to even connect
    directly to a VM instead of having to open the website to then launch
    VMRC :)

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 8 11:01:14 2022
    Pricing for vSphere Enterprise plus and Nutanix were comparable, I thought. I should go back and compare again.

    I think they are now. We got one of their "small business" deals before they eliminated it.

    I think it was called "Essentials." I don't remember the package name anymore, but it allowed us to use the license on 2 servers.

    We used one of out 6.5 licenses on an older server for the 3rd VM host.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to tassiebob on Sat Jul 9 11:05:10 2022
    Hi tassiebob,

    That's one of Proxmox's advantages, 95% was done via a browser.
    Having upgraded to 6.5 of ESXi, I now have been able to ditch it's config program.

    One of the advantages I've found with Proxmox is that it'll do some
    things out of the box that (I think) you need a license for with ESXi
    - live migration is one example.

    yes, plus doing native backup's (That's only supported in paid for ESXi)

    I have 3 hosts and can live migrate VM's between them if I need to.
    It's not as nice as it could be because I don't have shared storage on
    my personal cluster, so it has to do a live migration of the discs as
    well, but for what I do I can live with that.

    I haven't needed to go down that route. I do have the sata/sas controller
    on hardware pass through with ZFS so it's pretty easy to take the drives
    etc to a new temporay hardware if need be.

    Also a regular backup system in place, so it's easy to restore to a new
    vm or even real hardware.



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to acn on Sat Jul 9 11:20:17 2022
    Hi acn,

    Had a look at the proxmox setup, and yeah it lack's "floppy" image support. How about tuning those floppies into a bootable cdrom?

    That might be possible, but it's just a workaround.

    It's better than nothing though.

    That's one of Proxmox's advantages, 95% was done via a browser.

    I don't see the lack of a decent real remote control application as an advantage. Too often, some keys don't work correctly in browser stuff
    and it's lacking behind in speed and comfort.

    Yes that's true, but then once I get a vm going I'll either use ssh (if
    unix os, and pass -X to ssh if a gui program is needed), or install a
    remote access program (Think teamviwer, connectwise etc) if Win....



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to vorlon on Sat Jul 9 08:27:00 2022
    vorlon wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    I can see the free/comminity products going away. What they will then
    miss is the people that have a setup at home to play around with and
    test. Those skill's learned will be lost for any future employment.....

    Or it'll be something like a yearly "free" subscription where you need to continue to register to use it. No Free Lunch.


    ... Do you know what this dream means?
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to acn on Sat Jul 9 08:30:00 2022
    acn wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Maybe. But that's not worth the hassle for me.
    In ESXi, it's working and even swapping disks is working fine from the remote console application.

    That is nice! I've done a couple of installs in DOSBOX using disk images and it sure beats physical floppies.

    At the moment, I'm using ESXi on an old 'Lenovo M92p tiny' and for my retrocomputing needs, it's just fine :)

    Those do look nice. I have 20 gb of RAM in my homelab (an old Thinkpad) and when I need to upgrade am thinking of getting one of those Tinys and make it and my thinkpad into a cluster.


    ... Do you know what this dream means?
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to 2twisty on Sat Jul 9 08:32:00 2022
    2twisty wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

    Pricing for vSphere Enterprise plus and Nutanix were comparable, I thought. I should go back and compare again.

    I think they are now. We got one of their "small business" deals
    before they eliminated it.

    I think it was called "Essentials." I don't remember the package name anymore, but it allowed us to use the license on 2 servers.


    Nutanix or VMWare? VMWare Essentials Plus is a nice package, albeit like Microsoft's Small Business server - it's meant to work for small
    environments as a standalone cluster. We couldn't manage Essentials Plus
    with our existing vCenter.

    If I'm not mistaken, the limits were 3 physical CPUs and 100 guests.

    We're using VMWare's Remote Office/Back Office licensing, something I could see being phased out in the "new" VMWare.


    ... Do you know what this dream means?
    --- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From vorlon@21:1/195.1 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 11 12:11:18 2022
    Hi poindexter FORTRAN,

    I can see the free/comminity products going away. What they will
    then miss is the people that have a setup at home to play around
    with and test. Those skill's learned will be lost for any future
    employment.....

    Or it'll be something like a yearly "free" subscription where you need
    to continue to register to use it. No Free Lunch.

    There's nothing wrong with that. It's like "shareware" just on a
    different scale.

    I can see myself though swithing to Proxmox, when/if my install of ESXi
    6.5 falls over.... I've only stuck with it as it's a product I'm already
    using, and I'm yet to test Proxmox's hardware passthrough.



    \/orlon
    aka
    Stephen


    --- Talisman v0.42-dev (Linux/m68k)
    * Origin: Vorlon Empire: Amiga 3000 powered in Sector 550 (21:1/195.1)
  • From claw@21:1/210 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 11 07:58:56 2022
    On 09 Jul 2022, poindexter FORTRAN said the following...
    Nutanix or VMWare? VMWare Essentials Plus is a nice package, albeit like Microsoft's Small Business server - it's meant to work for small environments as a standalone cluster. We couldn't manage Essentials Plus with our existing vCenter.

    If I'm not mistaken, the limits were 3 physical CPUs and 100 guests.

    We're using VMWare's Remote Office/Back Office licensing, something I could see being phased out in the "new" VMWare.


    The Home lab license doesn't have CPU restrictions on it. At least I know it uses all 4 of my 16 core CPUS You only need to pay for it if your using it for business.

    |23|04Dr|16|12Claw
    |16|14Sysop |12Noverdu |14BBS |04(|14Noverdu.com|04)
    |10Standard Ports for SSH/Telnet Web/HTTP://|14Noverdu.com:808
    |20|15fsxNet/MRC Chat/Registered Doors!/50Nodes/No Time Use! Stay On!|16|07

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Noverdu BBS (21:1/210)
  • From acn@21:3/127.1 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 11 15:05:00 2022
    Am 09.07.22 schrieb poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 in FSX_GEN:

    Hallo poindexter,

    At the moment, I'm using ESXi on an old 'Lenovo M92p tiny' and for my
    retrocomputing needs, it's just fine :)

    Those do look nice. I have 20 gb of RAM in my homelab (an old Thinkpad)
    and when I need to upgrade am thinking of getting one of those Tinys and make it and my thinkpad into a cluster.

    Also a nice idea :)

    The M92p tiny is only for retro projects, and at the moment, it isn't
    even turned on :)
    My main system (NAS, media server etc.) is a 'microserver' without any virtualization (right now). It uses a Supermicro mainboard and a
    Megaraid RAID controller.

    I'm thinking about moving the BBS (from an old Igel Thin Client PC)
    and the HomeAssistant (from a RasPi 3) into VMs there, but I'm unsure
    about the virtualization platform.
    I would like it to run next to the normal Linux system, so that the
    'bare metal' Linux system can do its things nicely.
    Maybe VirtualBox with its headless mode?
    Or qemu-kvm VMs launched by shell scripts?

    Regards,
    Anna

    --- OpenXP 5.0.56
    * Origin: Imzadi Box Point (21:3/127.1)
  • From 2twisty@21:3/166 to poindexter FORTRAN on Mon Jul 11 09:19:49 2022
    Nutanix or VMWare? VMWare Essentials Plus is a nice package, albeit like

    It was VMWare Essentials Plus. Those limitations were fine for the small business we ran. But we wanted hyperconverged...but that was not possible due to cost.

    So we went with the older "san backend" approach and resigned ourselves to manual vMotion.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: The Ratrace Losers (21:3/166)