Remote Linux V2P

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parityboy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 13, 2010
Messages
390
I'm thinking of renting a server in a remote datacentre for a project or two. However, I would like to be able to create a "golden image" Linux installation at my desktop using VirtualBox or VMware, convert the disk image to raw and then image the remote server's hard disk with it.

Is this possible?
 
parityboy said:
I'm thinking of renting a server in a remote datacentre for a project or two. However, I would like to be able to create a "golden image" Linux installation at my desktop using VirtualBox or VMware, convert the disk image to raw and then image the remote server's hard disk with it.

Is this possible?
Click to expand...

You wouldn't be able to image the disk remotely, but if you ordered a server configured with vSphere, you could easily put your own VMWare image on it.
 
Depends. If the provider offers IPMI or remote console access, this is do-able. You don't even need virtual media support for it. You could have GRUB boot a live OS (run from RAM) using memdisk. Then from within that, overwrite the disk. I've done it in the past, where I had GRUB boot up mfsbsd, then installed FreeBSD on the box.
 
@JTY

Thank you for that. :D I was hoping IPMI would provide me a route, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know its capabilities. However, based on what you've said I see light at the end of the tunnel. I'll probably have to:

1) pre-upload the image to a cheap VPS (I'm running 8/1 ADSL)
2) make it available via NFS (firewalled of course!!)
3) boot the target server with a live OS
4) mount the NFS volume and then dd the image to the target server's hard disk.

Does this sound plausible?
 
curious, about your project, why not use digitalocean or amazon EC2 or something and spin up a cluster on the cheap to do w/e you want? Renting hardware is becoming quite the legacy way of doing things.
 
@4saken

Because sometimes there are projects where having a modicum of control over bare metal is preferable. For one, a certain level of performance is guaranteed. This cannot and does not hold with a VPS; believe me, I know. :)
 
parityboy said:
@4saken

Because sometimes there are projects where having a modicum of control over bare metal is preferable. For one, a certain level of performance is guaranteed. This cannot and does not hold with a VPS; believe me, I know. :)
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Don't agree, but fair enough. :)
 
parityboy said:
@JTY

Thank you for that. :D I was hoping IPMI would provide me a route, but I'm not familiar enough with it to know its capabilities. However, based on what you've said I see light at the end of the tunnel. I'll probably have to:

1) pre-upload the image to a cheap VPS (I'm running 8/1 ADSL)
2) make it available via NFS (firewalled of course!!)
3) boot the target server with a live OS
4) mount the NFS volume and then dd the image to the target server's hard disk.

Does this sound plausible?
Click to expand...

Instead of using NFS, I would stream the disk image over an SSH tunnel from the VPS. Here's a guide on it, https://www.pantz.org/software/dd/drivecopywithsshanddd.html, though searching for "dd over ssh" will find other examples.
 
B00nie said:
Have you seen the benchmark tests from AWS? If you need anything but a very temporary resource it's very bad bang for buck.
Click to expand...

I work actively in that space for very large financial systems in the Enterprise. So, a blanket statement about benchmarks just makes me laugh. There are 10000x to skin the cat using compute resources. Be it, EC2, DO, GCE, other. If you are just spinning up a single EC2 instance and using it as a traditional VM you are just doing it wrong, and I think thats why there is still a lack of understanding on how to properly use these services. It's a completely different way of thinking.
Either way, i understand where the OP is coming from.
 
@4saken

In my case, performance is just one facet. Security is the most important one; I've been reading many articles/publications concerning the security of virtualised environments and my conclusion is that for the security needs of my project, bare metal is the correct choice. :)

With regard to EC2, I have to agree that spinning up a single VM is wrong. I myself have been guilty of that but that was before I was aware of the proliferation of low end VPS providers (which was in fact precisely what I needed).

EC2 is not cost-effective for a 24/7 operation, but for a supply of burst compute, it's an excellent resource. I've not used the other platforms you've mentioned, so I can't comment. :)
 
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