Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors
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I have two criteria I am searching for in Type 1 Hyper Visors.
- Best one based on the experience of some of the experts here.
- Easily managed from a remote location, either through NAT in a firewall, or directly - through a VPN.
To demonstrate the context of my questions, consider this; I see KVM talked about as being a great choice, and I had a much too difficult a time configuring the remote management of Hyper V Server 2019 from the same lan. There were so many steps and difficulties, it was just stupid.
What are your recommendations for an easy to manage "remotely" and "wonderful" Type 1 Hyper Visor?
Thanks.
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@JasGot said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
Best one based on the experience of some of the experts here.
Pretty subjective. Best is different to everyone. Consistently I found KVM, Hyper-V, and Xen to all be good. VMware we have lots of unnecessary complications with.
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@JasGot said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
Easily managed from a remote location, either through NAT in a firewall, or directly - through a VPN.
KVM really shines here. I've not seen anything come close.
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@JasGot said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
To demonstrate the context of my questions, consider this; I see KVM talked about as being a great choice, and I had a much too difficult a time configuring the remote management of Hyper V Server 2019 from the same lan. There were so many steps and difficulties, it was just stupid.
Yeah, remote management is what got me to move people to KVM. Hyper-V is atrocious to manage when you aren't on a LAN with it, and when you don't have Windows tools to connect to it. If you want to do nothing but PowerShell management, it is okay, but if you want anything graphical, it's a mess.
KVM we can use tools like Cockpit or virt-manager to manage it remotely, graphically, and it works amazingly well.
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XCP-ng with XO is another option that works well and is under rather consistent development.
XO sets up a web server we're you'd get gui access, back ups, health stats all from a single pain of glass.
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We use xenserver and xcp-ng hosts but we use the Windows client, aka Xencenter, to manage the hosts.
Xencenter is to xenserver/xcp-ng what virt-manager is to KVM - but Xencenter is more advanced and powerful.
It talks directly to the hosts on the hosts management interface using the embedded web service (xml-rpc) inside the host so no management VMs or anything is required. We access the hosts management interface over VPN.
The client itself is just a user interface and doesn't store anything so you can run multiple clients connected to the same hosts at the same time.
Xencenter client -> host
You can also combine it with Xen Orchestra which is a web application for managing the host and give additional functionality.
Web browser -> XO server -> host
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As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host, I will most likely use KVM exclusively. I still use Hyper-V Server for most deployments. It does everything I have ever needed and no licenses to deal with.
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@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host,
It can now. We switched to it two weeks ago because it is finally ready.
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@scottalanmiller said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host,
It can now. We switched to it two weeks ago because it is finally ready.
Can you clone through cockpit yet?
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@stacksofplates said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@scottalanmiller said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host,
It can now. We switched to it two weeks ago because it is finally ready.
Can you clone through cockpit yet?
Don't think so. In the SMB MSP space, that never comes up. Most customers have only 1-3 VMs, and never anything alike.
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@stacksofplates said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@scottalanmiller said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host,
It can now. We switched to it two weeks ago because it is finally ready.
Can you clone through cockpit yet?
I don't see that option specifically on a running VM (lab), Fedora 31. Are you discussing to another host or just an export?
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I like the ability to clone - especially in my lab. The obvious reason is to have a few server (minimal) VMs patched and ready to deploy.
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@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
I like the ability to clone - especially in my lab. The obvious reason is to have a few server (minimal) VMs patched and ready to deploy.
Also on production when upgrades don't go as planned. While you can revert the production VM back to the pre-upgrade snapshot, you can use clones to troubleshoot on.
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@scottalanmiller said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@stacksofplates said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@scottalanmiller said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host,
It can now. We switched to it two weeks ago because it is finally ready.
Can you clone through cockpit yet?
Don't think so. In the SMB MSP space, that never comes up. Most customers have only 1-3 VMs, and never anything alike.
So you just install the OS from the install screen every time you build a VM?
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@DustinB3403 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@stacksofplates said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@scottalanmiller said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@brandon220 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
As soon as Cockpit can 100% manage a host,
It can now. We switched to it two weeks ago because it is finally ready.
Can you clone through cockpit yet?
I don't see that option specifically on a running VM (lab), Fedora 31. Are you discussing to another host or just an export?
No just a template to clone from. Like you apply any base configurations to the template and then just clone that.
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Proxmox
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@DustinB3403 Why?
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@DustinB3403 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@VoIP_n00b said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
Proxmox
It's not that bad.
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@stacksofplates said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@DustinB3403 said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
@VoIP_n00b said in Managing Type 1 Hyper Visors:
Proxmox
It's not that bad.
But it's not as good or better than any of the alternatives.