On any cloud platform specifically can we run a windows VM and install a windows game ??
Will this work and will the data be lost after we disconnect the instance and is it feasible.
If you make sure to attach a persistent disk to the machine, then you can install games on it and they will stay there. Also make sure you get a machine with a GPU! You would probably have pretty bad experience using Remote Desktop though. Apart from that, this is entirely feasible.
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Normally I've developed locally (on my own machine) and pushed to wherever things needed to go via mapped drives, ftp, github, etc. I have done a bit of work with vagrant/virtualbox (but again, locally) with a shared/mirrored folder.
I am now in a situation where everyone here has access to their own dev box (a vm on the network). I see some working in Vim directly via SSH, I believe, but I'm not there yet. So I'm left with the question: What's the best way for (more of a front end guy) to approach this?
I have heard of doing an SSH-mount from my workstation... if that's a viable thing. I'm curious what everyone's take on this kind of environment is and (perhaps) any best practices. Tips, links, and reading is highly welcome and appreciated, too... any pointing in a good direction would be wonderful.
Thank you.
The best answer will come from what virtual resources do you want to capitalize on for the virtual networked VMs. If you just want the storage space, then share the VM's drives, and mount them locally, treat them as local, end of story. If you want to run all the processing on the remote machine, and connect from a thin client, you have a couple of options, but they all take the same form. Connect to the machine, edit the files on the remote machine. Depending on your OS, you will have different options available.
If the remote machine doesn't have an graphical client installed you are stuck with either, mounting the remote share locally (you can use whatever editor you want) or ssh to the remote machine and using a commandline editor (vim, nano, emacs).
If there is a graphical client installed you have more options:
Remote in the server using any visual viewer (mstsc for windows, vnc is an option), and then use any remotely installed editor of your choice.
Remote in using ssh -X, and then run the remotely installed editor. Assuming you have an X-Server locally (if you are running linux you already do), the GUI part of the application will be run on the client side of the ssh tunnel, and the process will be run on the server. This is probably the best option.
So:
Make sure the remote server has a desktop client software (gtk, kde, gnome, almost any windows os, etc...)
install GUI editor of your choice on that server
ssh -X to that server
install sublime text, geany, or your choice of editor
run subl, geany, or other to start the application.
SSH mounting would indeed allow you to use all of the files on the VM as if they were stored in your local machine, letting you edit and update files without having to manually copy them every time you perform changes. You will run into a speed bump though, since files changed will have to be synchronized/copied to your remote machine every time and that takes a couple of seconds. Check this post by DigitalOcean, they explain how to get the SSH mount working.
A better option you have (IMHO) is to use an IDE in your local machine that allows you to push changes to a server after saving or by manually doing so. This would allow you to develop faster by using your local resources (local web server) since no files would have to be copied over the network to the remote VM; and would also allow you to test on that remote VM when needed by uploading the files when you are ready to test on that environment.
PS: Exporting visual apps or environments form the remote machine to your local one can be slow (depending on your network and the VM host load running your machine). If you still like that approach, you could also install something to access that VM over something more standard and lightweight like RDP for GNU/Linux (xrdp).
I've got a decent PC that I'd like to install xenserver on, but it's also my primary workstation. Wondering if it's possible to access guests directly from the host machine -- meaning, can I use the monitor, input devices, etc that are attached to the host, to interact with the guests.
Currently setup as a dual boot Linux and Windows machine. I need them both running simultaneously while still being able to treat the host like a workstation. Already using Virtualbox, which is great but not what I'm aiming for.
I've searched high and low for an answer to this question. Maybe I wasn't searching with the right terms. I've found a package in the Ubuntu repos that adds an entry in grub along the lines of 'Ubuntu with Xen Hypervisor', but that was on a test machine that couldn't actually run Xen.
Normally, I'd just wipe this puppy and find out for myself, but there are really good reasons why I can't just jump into it this time, so I'm turning to the community.
Thanks for any and all info!
You can use a simple text console on the host to interact with the guests
xe console vm=guest
but I don't know of a way to access a graphical interface from the host.
I'm going to develop mostly Django sites on a MacBook Pro and would like to use Ubuntu VMs for testing purposes.
Which product is better suited for this purpose?
Can I connect to the VM via TCP/IP (so I can have apache running on the VM and access it from Safari on my MBP)?
Thanks!
It should be possible using VMWARE FUSION. It has a good network management, and you should be able to access easily your vm via network.
I've successfully used both VirtualBox and VMWare Fusion for this. On both systems, you can set the guest up so that it has its own IP address, and connect to it via HTTP, SSH and even native file sharing, so you can mount the guest's drive as a network drive from the Mac, and vice versa. This makes it possible to do the editing on the Mac in eg Textmate, but run the server on the VM.
I can only tell you about my experiences with a Core2Quad Q6600 on VMWare Fusion 3.0. I have three boot partitions on this system (ahem yes it is a hackintosh running with the E-Fix USB).
So i can do performance measurements. I use it for sometimes very large compiler sessions. And the amazing fact was that Linux as a Guest runs without any measureable time difference on virtualised and native Linux. Windows7 on the other hand only runs with 40% on my machine and GUI is allmost non useable while the GNOME Desktop from latest Ubuntu still works fine.
Check this out. Virtual Box is free so there is nothing to loose.
We have 3 identical HP DL380 G5 server here, one of them is running vmware-server with one VM running on it.
I've begun the process to migrate these systems to be running ESXi (the $0, "embedded" system); two of the physical machines will have %99.99 of the time exactly 1 VM, the other will have 2.
For this, the major advantage I get Disaster Recovery ability. Our tape backup system doesn't have a "bare metal" ability. I can manually copy VM images to a different server, however. Even if they are months old, they provide pretty-close-to-instant up, further recovery they would be from tape.
Being the free version, I don't get the VMWare "consolidated backup" or VMotion. And I need to do per-physical machine management. But the ESXi takes 32MB of disk, and it specifically supports the server.
With that in mind, is there any reason not to always use ESXi, if the hardware supports it? Even if you only are planning on running 1 VM on that hardware?
Well, in your case ESXi is the better choice. There are cases where you want to use VMware Server but not really for this case. This is what ESXi is for. For instance, I use VMware Server on top of my development OS so I could do testing and use different distro's etc. I wouldn't do VMware Server for a production server like you are describing, but ESXi would be the best choice.
Is it an excellent idea to virtualize the whole OS to get the ability to make backups? NO! its not... Damn hype to virtualize without the real need for it.
There are free alternatives to make backups of pretty much any OS, image or archive of your choice.
To be more precise, XSIBackup will allow you to hot backup any ESXi edition from version 5.1 and up, it backs up the guest OS while it is running, and can even transfer it to a secondary ESXi box via IP and leave it ready to be switched on:
https://33hops.com/xsibackup-vmware-esxi-backup.html
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Background:
I'm running a full-time job and a part-time job in the weekends, and both my employers have supplied a laptop for me to work on. Of course I also have my powerful workstation at home to work from, and sometimes when I'm at the office at my weekend job (it's in another city) I'm working from yet another workstation.
Problem:
That makes a full 4 PC's I'm maintaining (software versions, licences and settings) just to do my work, and believe me, my list of prefered software is way too big.
I want to setup a Virtual Desktop on my VMware server, so I can work from the same installation and same session no matter which PC I'm working from.
Now I don't have the time and money to go through a full test of each setup, so I'd like to hear your experiences on the subject.
Question:
Should I use a VMware virtual workstation with some remote logon software (like realVNC, teamviewer, logmein, whatever...) or should I invest in a full VDI system like Sun or VMware provide?
Edit:
I'm programming in Adobe Dreamweaver on Windows XP - but I run my servers on Debian and sometimes do quick edits in VIM too. First I intend to virtualize a WinXP with base installation, to see how it runs.
I am a consultant and tend to work in a variety of environments. I carry a Thinkpad running VMWare Server over Ubuntu64 with 4GB of RAM. I've got a 320GB secondary hard drive that I use just for VM's and have 25 or so different virtual machines that I boot up as the circumstances demand.
They're a mix of Linux servers and workstations, Vista workstations and XP Workstations. I rarely use the VMWare server console. I access every one of them via one of the remote access methods.
For Linux, I usually install FreeNX or NXServer for desktop access and just SSH for commandline. On Windows, I always use Remote Desktop (RDP), but, on XP, that only works on the "Pro" versions, not the "Home" versions. If all else fails, I install VNC and use that. VNC is at the bottom of my list because it really is a last resort. The only thing it's better than is not actually being able to use the machine.
However, NX on Linux and RDP on Windows work WAY better than VNC. Other than little things like font smoothing and fancy desktop effects, the only big glitch would be if you are doing much with video or audio or DirectX-based stuff. Things like YouTube or other video do NOT like to work with any remote desktop protocol that I know of.
As far as performance, using Linux as a host for VMWare provides really good management of system resources. The Windows-based VM's aren't able to just gobble up memory, but still get it when they need to.
I do C# development all day in a virtual Vista workstation on Visual Studio 2008 and have absolutely no problems having 3-4 different solutions all open at once along with the normal stuff alongside over RDP on another machine, connected via wireless VPN.
I can flip over to the host OS and it won't even be touching swap space at all. As far as I'm concerned, it's a great way to work.
If you want to work with the same installation, you should seriously consider the Remote Desktop Server/Client solution, bundled into every windows OS from XP. Basically, this app displays the view from your remote desktop to your local one, using highly compressed images; this works even via low-bandwidth internet connections
While the XP version can only handle one user simultaneously, the one in Windows Server 2003 (and in Windows Server 2008, I presume) can handle multiple users (up to a certain limit).
Disadvantages, and side-effects include:
virtual pc via RDC is slow
anything using the 3d acceleration will be slow (at least using XP/2003)
Personally, I would go down the route of using a virtual workstation with some remote logon software. The network performance of VMWare has always been good in my experience, and depending on the OS, there may be a decent remote logon provided.
I guess you can live with Logmein Free. [Or Pro if u want those features]
Well, you don't say what OSs are involved, so.....
For windows, I find that Remote Desktop works as well or better than anything else, although if you pay for the RealVNC version with the mirror driver, that's supposed to be as good.
For off site access for windows, www.logmein.com (the free version) works very well.
If Unixes are involved, then VNC is definitely the way to go, there are various solutions for doing this remotely. Everything from redirection servers, to just forwarding a port in your firewall to an ssh server and setting up the various tunnels.
Performance of VMWare is very good, and I can run a SQL Server slice, a web server slice and develop on my laptop simultaneously. The VM slices reside on a USB 2 portable drive and make it easy to port between my laptop and desktop.
VM Console works well for accessing each environment, and depending on the configuration you set up with NAT vs. Bridging you can UNC to shares on slice.
The nice by-product of this is that should you host machine take a nose dive you can quickly recover your development environment.