Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?
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So I'm setting up a test / learn lab in .... 'the cloud' ... setting up Windows servers to do this n that and talk this n that.
I've been using Windows VPSs which become a bit dear because of the licensing.
I woke up this morning wondering "is it possible to get a cloud based Linux server, load a virtualization program onto that, & then run Windows Servers on that in evaluation mode?"
Then I could run up several Windows servers and hopefully save a bit of money, plus I'd pick up some Linux knowledge as well.
Anyone know if that is possible?
Thanks for any help.
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This isn't actually a Windows or Linux or VPS question. Can you do this in a VPS at a technology level? Yes. Can you in any real world cloud, no, it's disabled. It's a market question and from a real world market perspective, the answer is just "no".
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Can you do this same thing at home using just a desktop for hardware? Yes. So it's not a bad idea or impossible to do, it's the real world limitations and conditions set on cloud providers that is the option. I know of no VPS provider that does not shut down hardware virtualization passthrough which is a requirement.
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Real world, this would be costly, anyway. Memory is the biggest cost in VPS and each Windows instance would reasonably require 2.5GB+. That'll run up the bills quickly if you have three. Plus the Linux instance. That's like a 12GB instance, not cheap at all.
You'd pay for hardware for home really, really quickly.
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Yep all good points, thanks.
What about a dedicated server, would I be able to do it one of them? -
@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
Yep all good points, thanks.
What about a dedicated server, would I be able to do it one of them?Yes, a dedicated server would need to do that or it couldn't even be classified as a server post 2005. Virtualization and RAID are minimum starting points to be server class hardware for the last several generations. Without them, it would just be a toy. Even desktops do virtualization. So as a dedicated box, it would be literally useless if it couldn't do that.
So you can find some providers that do dedicated hardware like that, generally it is not cheap. You can also buy your own and put it somewhere like Colocation America (see banner ads floating around this conversation) where they can get you a 1U rack space for around $50/mo. It's not cheap until you compare to cloud hosting for a few demo servers and suddenly putting a cheap 1U server into a colo isn't so bad.
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@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
Yep all good points, thanks.
What about a dedicated server, would I be able to do it one of them?That's what I do for my home lab. The only Windows that ever ran on it was the first beta build of Server 2019, and I ended up not doing anything with it. It's running KVM on a Ubuntu Server base (not my favorite, but hey, it's cheap.)
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To give a quick example of the value of colo...
An older, cheap, 1U server that can have 32GB of RAM, the minimum you'd really want for a tiny lab, is going to be around $500 - hit up xByte.com for that.
Colo for that is going to be $50/mo. So $600/year.
So that is $1100 for the first year.
Do the same with Vultr or Digital Ocean or Linode and you are at $160/mo or $1920 for the first year.
The colo drops to just $600/year after the first year. The cloud VPS stays at $1920 each year.
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Beyond that, the VPS can't virtualize (but can do containers) so pretty much useless, especially for Windows. But ignore that point.
If you wanted to go a lot bigger, going to 64GB with the xByte server might be another $200 one time. To do that with the VPS will literally double the cost to $2840/year!
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Eeeek, that's starting to look too expensive.
I've got hardware lying around all over the place at work, I'm sure I could purloin some for a Linux box at home and go that route.
I've not had much to do with Linux. What should I look for for the server & virtualisation program?
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@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
What should I look for for the server & virtualisation program?
Just install Fedora 28. And install KVM, it's included.
dnf group install with-optional virtualizationThat's it. Everything you need is installed.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/quick-docs/en-US/getting-started-with-virtualization.html
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@scottalanmiller Hey great thanks, Scott, I'll go and check that out this weeekend.
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Friday ended well. I located 3 Dell T610s I can lay my hands on. All have at least 24GB and at least 600GB SAS storage so I'm covered for hardware.
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@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
Friday ended well. I located 3 Dell T610s I can lay my hands on. All have at least 24GB and at least 600GB SAS storage so I'm covered for hardware.
That should do it.
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Crazy weekend.
Updated all the firmwares on the T610, installed Fedora, no problem. Need a GUI, so got that installed, no problem.
Post GUI install mouse decided it didn't want to work, move mouse wait .. wait .. wait, cursor moves. Unusable.
Replace mouse, no change. Cold boot no change. Rage building.
Dig up old 16GB 8 core i7 laptop I forgot about that runs W10.
Me thinks I'll use that instead & use Hyper-V. It's running 1511.
Update, update, update, update.
Then I find out my crappy modem just will not port forward.
Dig out old Billion modem, stuff around with that.
Arrgh! Can't find DSL log in password.
This story will continue ... -
@siringo consider skipping port forwarding for a lab with something like ZeroTier. Depends on your goals. What are you trying to do what would make you want to port forward?
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@siringo consider skipping port forwarding for a lab with something like ZeroTier. Depends on your goals. What are you trying to do what would make you want to port forward?
Trying to get access to the VMs on the host machine based at my house from the Interweb. So one of my current VPS windows servers can talk to one of the windows VMs on my home based host.
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@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@siringo consider skipping port forwarding for a lab with something like ZeroTier. Depends on your goals. What are you trying to do what would make you want to port forward?
Trying to get access to the VMs on the host machine based at my house from the Interweb. So one of my current VPS windows servers can talk to one of the windows VMs on my home based host.
ZeroTier, then. If you want to act like it is a LAN, that's your best bet.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@siringo consider skipping port forwarding for a lab with something like ZeroTier. Depends on your goals. What are you trying to do what would make you want to port forward?
Trying to get access to the VMs on the host machine based at my house from the Interweb. So one of my current VPS windows servers can talk to one of the windows VMs on my home based host.
ZeroTier, then. If you want to act like it is a LAN, that's your best bet.
Thanks Scott, I'll check it out & see what I can work out.
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@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@siringo said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows VMs on Linux VPS. Possible?:
@siringo consider skipping port forwarding for a lab with something like ZeroTier. Depends on your goals. What are you trying to do what would make you want to port forward?
Trying to get access to the VMs on the host machine based at my house from the Interweb. So one of my current VPS windows servers can talk to one of the windows VMs on my home based host.
ZeroTier, then. If you want to act like it is a LAN, that's your best bet.
Thanks Scott, I'll check it out & see what I can work out.
This ZeroTier is awesome, I've managed to create a network and put 2 nodes on it. Just trying to work out how to communicate from 1 to the other. This is going to be great fun.
