• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

RHCE/Virtualization Lab Build

D

Drake

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 28, 2002
Messages
1,056
I need a system that will let me experiment with different virtualization technologies, then game when I'm not studying. Here's what I have so far:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230V2 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor ($231.98 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme6 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($144.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($139.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($159.98 @ NCIX US)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($219.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT Source 220 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VS247H-P 23.6" Monitor ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Logitech MX518 ($0.00)
Operating System: Windows 8 Professional x64 ($0.00)
Total: $1336.88
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-29 13:55 EST-0500)

What do you think?
 
Take it you are going to use workstation judging you are using operating system?
 
Shockey said:
Take it you are going to use workstation judging you are using operating system?
Click to expand...

I am unsure how I will nest operating systems. It's my understanding that this combination CPU/motherboard supports VT-d, so I could potentially run RHEL as a hypervisor and pass the graphics card through to a Windows 8 VM. Or use Server 2012 and host a gaming Windows 8 VM and a RHEL VM for RHCE. Or Xen. Or ESXi. Or whatever.

Do you foresee any limitations? Is there a reason I shouldn't use it as both my primary workstation and a virtualization host, considering it's just a home lab?
 
Some quick background:
I'm running both VMWare Workstation 8 (on a Win7-64 host) and ESXi 5.1

My Win7/Workstation Hardware:
SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTi-F-O Dual LGA 1366
6 x 4GB DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1333 (48GB)
RAID: LSI 9211-8i
Graphics Card: AMD 100-505649 FirePro V4900 (using 3 displays)
Win7-64 Host


ESXi 5.1
Supermicro X9SCM-IIF-O
Xeon E3-1270 V2
RAID: LSI 9260-8i
4 x Samsung DDR3-1600 8GB/1Gx72 ECC (32GB)

NOTE: No Graphics card - not a workstation... using IPMI and ESXi for console access.


VMWare Workstation is great for running several guests of many different flavors. However, in the future I'll be switching my workstation host OS to CentOS with a Win7 guest. Reason for switching to a CentOS host-workstation is for both performance and robustness. The Win7 host is a little brittle and slow (better to manage Win7 as a guest with snapshot/recovery... given the nature of Windows configuration and applications...)

Make sure your Graphics supports 3x screens on Linux (reason for using AMD Firepro).

Features on VMWorkstation (not found on ESXi - please correct me if I'm wrong here!):
- Linked Clone from base snapshot (saves on file-space by sharing files from source image). I haven't been able to find this feature in vCenter (using the appliance).
- Supports "seamless" full-screen console with 2x monitor display! (this is a BIG deal for busy systems development/deployment/monitoring).
- Easier to copy/port VMs from workstation to laptop for on-site consulting. (NOTE: Guests include both RHEL and CentOS. I also like using KDE as my Linux desktop)

With VMWorkstation I'm able to:
- design/build/deploy from Win7 (many design tools DO NOT work in Linux)
- build and deploy into clustered websphere (2x node) hosts.

Features on ESXi (not found on VMWare Workstation - and again... please correct if wrong)
- ESXi just feels faster... (unscientific and subjective testing so far). However, I am running ESXi on 3.5GHz CPU and 512MB cache on the LSI RAID (really unfair comparison). But, only 1 CPU.
- ESXi has MUCH better guest monitoring. I haven't been able to find the same sort of monitoring tools on VMWare Workstation.
- All of my customers use ESX... This means that I'm able to match/test (within reason) client platform specifications.

In the end I would first begin using VMWare Workstation - given it's better console support (full-screen and dual display). Then, later and as the needs arise, add ESXi as a more robust guest platform.

NOTE: You may also simply run ESXi from a USB drive (thumb-drive) and boot as needed.
 
Last edited:
The build is fine if you plan to game natively and just spin up VMWare workstation, VirtualBox, or similar for RHEL guests for learning. The ASRock board is a good choice for VT-d if you choose to go down that road.

If you want to use VT-d for a gaming guest, I would either change the GTX 660 to an equivalent Radeon and buy a processor with both VT-d and integrated graphics (e3-1225 v2, i7-3770, etc) or also purchase a Radeon in addition to the GTX 660 (or any other discrete card in place of the GTX 660). You'll want some sort of additional video output that's not passed to the guest.

The GTX 660 may work for passthrough, but it seems Radeons are much more successful for device passthrough. My current setup is:

CPU: i7-3770 (non-K)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 (nearly the same as the Extreme 6)
Gaming card: Asus Radeon 6850 DirectCU of some flavor
Drives: Intel 330 120GB, two Seagate 7200.14 500GB drives, one WD Red 2TB drive
Additional sound cards: Asus Xonar DGX, M-Audio Audiophile 2496

The software setup is Arch Linux for the host, which I use for all my non-gaming tasks. For gaming, I have a Windows 8 KVM guest with the Radeon, onboard sound, and ASMedia USB 3.0 controller (the extra USB 3.0 controller on the motherboard) passed to the guest. My keyboard and mouse are plugged in to a USB printer switch (via small USB hub), with connections to one of the USB 2.0 ports for the Linux host and one of the ASMedia USB 3.0 ports for the Windows guest. My monitor is plugged in to both the onboard video (Linux host) and Radeon (Windows guest).

Plenty of virtualization options for you with the Extreme6 board.
 
fantabulous said:
The build is fine if you plan to game natively and just spin up VMWare workstation, VirtualBox, or similar for RHEL guests for learning. The ASRock board is a good choice for VT-d if you choose to go down that road.

If you want to use VT-d for a gaming guest, I would either change the GTX 660 to an equivalent Radeon and buy a processor with both VT-d and integrated graphics (e3-1225 v2, i7-3770, etc) or also purchase a Radeon in addition to the GTX 660 (or any other discrete card in place of the GTX 660). You'll want some sort of additional video output that's not passed to the guest.

The GTX 660 may work for passthrough, but it seems Radeons are much more successful for device passthrough. My current setup is:

CPU: i7-3770 (non-K)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 (nearly the same as the Extreme 6)
Gaming card: Asus Radeon 6850 DirectCU of some flavor
Drives: Intel 330 120GB, two Seagate 7200.14 500GB drives, one WD Red 2TB drive
Additional sound cards: Asus Xonar DGX, M-Audio Audiophile 2496

The software setup is Arch Linux for the host, which I use for all my non-gaming tasks. For gaming, I have a Windows 8 KVM guest with the Radeon, onboard sound, and ASMedia USB 3.0 controller (the extra USB 3.0 controller on the motherboard) passed to the guest. My keyboard and mouse are plugged in to a USB printer switch (via small USB hub), with connections to one of the USB 2.0 ports for the Linux host and one of the ASMedia USB 3.0 ports for the Windows guest. My monitor is plugged in to both the onboard video (Linux host) and Radeon (Windows guest).

Plenty of virtualization options for you with the Extreme6 board.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the info. I don't know why I was thinking that the host and guest could play nice and share the video card... I will swap out the CPU for a Xeon E3-1225V2 for the integrated graphics.

Do you have any more information regarding nVidia GTX's being troublesome with VT-d passthrough?
 
Drake said:
Thank you for the info. I don't know why I was thinking that the host and guest could play nice and share the video card... I will swap out the CPU for a Xeon E3-1225V2 for the integrated graphics.

Do you have any more information regarding nVidia GTX's being troublesome with VT-d passthrough?
Click to expand...

My vague understanding is that it has something to with the card's BIOS and initialization of the card. AMD cards seem to just work when passed as a secondary card to a guest. Maybe this would also work with NVidia cards, but it's not something I've been able to test yet. Maybe NVidia GTX cards work just fine with some hypervisors. I'd love if someone could chime in with their experience here. I seem to be the odd one out in only having experience with KVM.

http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_VGA_Passthrough has some general information about why VGA passthrough is problematic (in general and for NVidia cards specifically), but some of it is a little above my head.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top