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I'm setting up a KVM server at home and wanted to run my ideas past the community to see if there's anything I'm missing, as well as ask some questions. I've used KVM before, but never with IOMMU and never where disk/network access was very important. I'm open to suggestions and I'll be happy to provide more info on the setup if needed. The new hardware should be here in 7-10 days (after the Holiday).
Background
I've been using Sage TV since somewhere around version 3 (windows version). Since Google bought SageTV almost a year ago now, I've been needing to migrate to something else. I have two sage extenders that I would like to continue to use during this transition. I plan to transition to mythtv, XBMC, plex, or similar that will support a low power linux front end like the Raspberry Pi.
I've just purchased an FX-8120, 16GB of ram, a 90GB Sata III SSD, and a Gigabyte board that supports IOMMU. The IOMMU will be necessary for the single PCI Hauppauge 350 analog tuner.
Disk Setup
My current plan is to use LVM partitions on both the SSD and a 500GB spinning disk.
On the SSD:
That's 6 machines, all of which might not exist at the same time. I don't expect to always run Myth/XBMC/Plex at the same time. After I figure out the replacement for SageTV I expect to combine the Myth/XBMC/Plex into a single VM. Leaving plenty of room for a Zoneminder VM in the future.
On the Spinning Disk:
This leaves the spinning drive with basically just Sage and TV storage as it's currently used now only virtual. I hope to share the bulk LVM partition via the Host so that as I move to Myth the Linux VM's can easily access the storage as well.
Disk Setup Questions:
Network Setup
I have GigE run through the house and the host will be on that. I plan to setup the Guests with a Bridge to the eth0 of the host as all the machines will be accessed via the LAN.
Network Questions:
Misc
That's as far as I've currently got figured out. I would love to hear any advice about what I might do differently. If this looks good I'd love to hear that too. I'll have more questions about backing up the LVM partitions to my NAS but that will come at a later time after I get the installs complete.
Background
I've been using Sage TV since somewhere around version 3 (windows version). Since Google bought SageTV almost a year ago now, I've been needing to migrate to something else. I have two sage extenders that I would like to continue to use during this transition. I plan to transition to mythtv, XBMC, plex, or similar that will support a low power linux front end like the Raspberry Pi.
I've just purchased an FX-8120, 16GB of ram, a 90GB Sata III SSD, and a Gigabyte board that supports IOMMU. The IOMMU will be necessary for the single PCI Hauppauge 350 analog tuner.
Disk Setup
My current plan is to use LVM partitions on both the SSD and a 500GB spinning disk.
On the SSD:
- KVM Host
- MythTV Backend
- XBMC Test Machine
- Plex Test Machine
- Fedora development machine (work related)
- Misc - small VM for playing around on (Arch/Gentoo)
That's 6 machines, all of which might not exist at the same time. I don't expect to always run Myth/XBMC/Plex at the same time. After I figure out the replacement for SageTV I expect to combine the Myth/XBMC/Plex into a single VM. Leaving plenty of room for a Zoneminder VM in the future.
On the Spinning Disk:
- SageTV - Windows XP
- Bulk Storage with Samba/NFS shared off the host
This leaves the spinning drive with basically just Sage and TV storage as it's currently used now only virtual. I hope to share the bulk LVM partition via the Host so that as I move to Myth the Linux VM's can easily access the storage as well.
Disk Setup Questions:
- Does TRIM support work on LVM raw virtio disks?
- Will using VirtIO raw disks be the best solution on the SSD?
- Which filesystems should I be using? EXT4 on the SSD and EXT2 on the Bulk TV shows?
Network Setup
I have GigE run through the house and the host will be on that. I plan to setup the Guests with a Bridge to the eth0 of the host as all the machines will be accessed via the LAN.
Network Questions:
- Do the Myth/Sage VM's need a seperate bridge to the Host so that network access between them doesn't actually travel across the NIC? As I understand it, Guest-to-Host communications are much faster if the entire interface is virtual.
Misc
That's as far as I've currently got figured out. I would love to hear any advice about what I might do differently. If this looks good I'd love to hear that too. I'll have more questions about backing up the LVM partitions to my NAS but that will come at a later time after I get the installs complete.
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