What do you use VMs for at home?

N

NanoHavoc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 11, 2012
Messages
307
Hey, I've been searching around and I can't find too many interesting topics about it, and this is one of the very few forums I have found that has a whole section dedicated to VM's so I figured this is perfect!


What do you guys use VMs for at home? and which VM types do you use? (xen hyper Vmware, etc!)

Just curious cause I'm thinking about setting up a nice little home lab type of deal and want to see all the uses people come up for it, I have a few ideas planned out, but the more the merrier :)
 
Virtualization system: VMware vSphere5

VM Running:
- pfSense (router/firewall)
- Trixbox (VoIP server)
- Exchange 2010 (Mailbox/Hub Transport/Clien Access)
- Exchange 2010 (Edge Transport) + Forefront for Exchange
- Windows 2008 (Active Directory master)
- Windows 2008 (Active Directory slave/replica)
- Linux (DNS Master)
- Linux (DNS Slave/Replica)
- Exchange 2010 (Edge Transport) - MX Backup
+ 15/20 other VM for testing/dev (Windows/Linux/Unix/MacOSX)
 
esxi, open indiana all in one , norco , lsi 9211 , p8b ws, 32gb non-ecc, xeon, lga 1155
 
2 hosts running vSphere 5.

VMs include:
2x Domain controllers
1x MS Deployment server
1x vCenter
1x Media server to stream online content to our TVs with Playon
1x Veeam backup server
1x RRAS server
1x Win XP I use when VPNing into customer's networks
1x VMA
1x Win 8 Beta

and a slew of other VMs to play with various technologies and OS's.
 
windows xp for me for telecommuting
windows xp for my wife for the same
ubuntu server for mail/web/icinga
pbx in a flash for home pbx
red hat el6 for my wife for work-related stuff
centos6 for me for testing things

used to run firewall virtualized but i moved it to a physical box. not that it didn't work fine, but too many things in the house didn't like it when i would reboot/reconfigure the esxi box.
 
dang, all really good responses, I can feel the ideas in my brain chruning :) I hadn't even though of a media streaming use. I could probably set up a VM plex server
 
2 hosts running ESXi 5

2 x Windows 2008 R2 domain controllers
1 x Ubuntu server running Asterisk pbx
1 x SQL Server 2008 R2
2 x SharePoint 2010 servers
1 x SharePoint Services 2.0 server (sandbox for a migration project I'm working on)
1 x SharePoint Services 3.0 server (sandbox for a migration project I'm working on)
1 x SharePoint Foundation 2010 server (sandbox for a migration project I'm working on)
1 x vCenter server
1 x Windows 8 preview
1 x Ubuntu server running Maraschino (XBMC web tool)
1 x Windows 7 running xbmc used for updating my htpc library

I'll be adding a few more soon (Lync 2010 server, SCOM, SCCM)
 
I am running 9 guests in VMware Workstation 8 on my i5 2500K/16GB RAM desktop.

1x Windows Server 2003 R2 x86
6x Windows Server 2008 R2
2x Windows 7 x64

Using them as an Active Directory lab environment, I will be getting a 32GB DDR3 kit very soon!
 
I just use VMware Player. I make copies of VM's (since Player does not support snapshots like Workstation) and keep backups.
VM's are fun to get running and try to sabotage (think antimalware solution testing). :)
Instructor at our school once said "If you can't take down a VM of Windows at least once, you're not doing it right." :D
Kinda fun to take a VM, install an av and try to hose it to see what the av does or does not catch. :)

I used a VM of XP at work on my 7 machine until Ikon finally decided to put out 7x64 drivers for our copier.
We use VM's of Server08 and 7 at school to run stuff like AD, DNS, DHCP because the workstations are gpedit/locked down under XP.
I've used VM's at home to try to learn sysprep and distributing images (before we study it at school).
 
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for testing software, testing network related stuff and running OS's that you're not supposed to on unapproved hardware (Mac OS)
 
This stuff can get pretty complicated it looks like, that's one of the main reasons I want to start setting stuff up at home to experiment a lot and see what kinds of stuff is possible, I feel like as time goes on virtualization will be more and more popular, it seems to have so many uses.
 
NanoHavoc said:
This stuff can get pretty complicated it looks like, that's one of the main reasons I want to start setting stuff up at home to experiment a lot and see what kinds of stuff is possible, I feel like as time goes on virtualization will be more and more popular, it seems to have so many uses.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've found that a home lab environment allows me to learn so much faster and stay ahead of my peers. It has diverse effects on my social life though :(
 
NanoHavoc said:
This stuff can get pretty complicated it looks like, that's one of the main reasons I want to start setting stuff up at home to experiment a lot and see what kinds of stuff is possible, I feel like as time goes on virtualization will be more and more popular, it seems to have so many uses.
Click to expand...

Even though companies rely on stuff like group policies and user permissions to lock down everything now (and then just distribute images company-wide), I think before too long they will end up tacking on a VM on top of that and let the employees run everything in a VM instead of the workstation itself. It's a lot faster to delete and copy a VM directory or image than it is to shut down a system and reinstall a system image. With malware becoming increasingly more of a PITA.....I know if I ever get to a point where I'm employed as a high level support in a large company, I'm going to certainly recommend a shift to VM's the next time either the hardware gets rolled out or a software update is scheduled. Install your host OS, install your VM app, copy your VM's over, gpedit the host and distribute the full host image. If someone hoses a VM, you copy it back and pick up where you left off.

VM's are easy to setup and easy to copy and open elsewhere. They work on dissimilar host hardware without any problems (because the image itself is contained within a VM of generic minimal specs). VM's generally run at the same step as a true software or OS install would; gone are the days of VM's being slow or a performance hang up. :)
 
That's exactly my point. I'm pretty young and I feel if I atleast learn a little bit of the basics of VMs at home when I go to get a job one day, I won't be like "WHATS A VM?!?!?!?!"

But I'm mostly looking for fun and interesting ways to get into beforeI start looking at the really practical and enterprise related stuff haha
 
Just one VM, Mint 12 for learning dvorak. Windows' habit of changing keyboard layout randomly when you press modifier keys annoyed me too much.

l3thal6 said:
Yeah, I've found that a home lab environment allows me to learn so much faster and stay ahead of my peers. It has diverse effects on my social life though :(
Click to expand...

Yeah, wish I could learn Medicine by experimenting at home... :p
 
KVM/Proxmox VE
Hardware: Phen2 965, 16G ram

PFsense
Zimbra server
webserver
recursive private dns servers
non-recursive public dns servers
XP vm for xp-only software/switch config
Asterisk server for home phone...
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
Just one VM, Mint 12 for learning dvorak. Windows' habit of changing keyboard layout randomly when you press modifier keys annoyed me too much.



Yeah, wish I could learn Medicine by experimenting at home... :p
Click to expand...

Maybe you could.........just gotta get creative. :cool:

Anyways, back to the topic, keep the uses coming, this is interesting. I'm having fun google all the things you guys are posting lol
 
Xen 6.0 New box arrives friday 2 quad core amd's looking to be 144gigs ddr3 ecc. Dell R415 1U rack mounted server.

Vm's that were saved from last box, that ill be migrated to this one.

WWW server
Email server
2008r2 rdp box ( billing and chatting and email )
FreePBX server
windows 8 server ( beta )
windows 8 desktop (beta )
2011 SBS box
few debian units for learning with
 
Currently:
ESXI 5 on Athlon II x2 w/ 8GB RAM and dual port Intel NIC (reclaimed desktop hardware).

pfSense and Windows home server atm and future home of my web server.
 
ESXi 5 hypervisor on two hosts
shared storage running 2008R2 with the free starwind iSCSI SAN software
for specs see signature

VM's:
- pfSense firewall
- 2 domain controllers
- MS Office PC
- XP system for remote access to clients
- XP system for misc. purposes (checking suspect software and such)
- misc. windows server systems for work related testing/learning purposes

pretty much what the other people are doing
 
My lab is the primary reason for my lab. :) It's so I can break vSphere and related items. It now also hosts what I call "home production":

-Untangle Premium
-VM for NetformX application (used for pricing Cisco proposals)
-Two Media VMs running Sabnzbd, Sickbeard, and uTorrent
-vCenter Operations Enterprise (use for customer demos)
-vCloud Director (customer demos)
-DC and DNS for the lab

Plus others that come and go as needed. I run some demos, as mentioned, out of my lab since I always know the state.
 
All for testing/development/screwing around in, using VMWare workstation:

2x Windows 2008 R2
Windows 8
Windows XP
Ubuntu 11.10
FreeBSD 8
OS X Lion :D
 
zero2dash said:
Even though companies rely on stuff like group policies and user permissions to lock down everything now (and then just distribute images company-wide), I think before too long they will end up tacking on a VM on top of that and let the employees run everything in a VM instead of the workstation itself. It's a lot faster to delete and copy a VM directory or image than it is to shut down a system and reinstall a system image. With malware becoming increasingly more of a PITA.....I know if I ever get to a point where I'm employed as a high level support in a large company, I'm going to certainly recommend a shift to VM's the next time either the hardware gets rolled out or a software update is scheduled. Install your host OS, install your VM app, copy your VM's over, gpedit the host and distribute the full host image. If someone hoses a VM, you copy it back and pick up where you left off.

VM's are easy to setup and easy to copy and open elsewhere. They work on dissimilar host hardware without any problems (because the image itself is contained within a VM of generic minimal specs). VM's generally run at the same step as a true software or OS install would; gone are the days of VM's being slow or a performance hang up. :)
Click to expand...


citrix is becoming huge with nice features. Also vmware has software out that you can use which is built into a winterm type hardware setup. You turn on the wintern and within seconds you are connected to your VM. The "going green" is a BIG push for all of this.

so honestly.. With everything that's listed here... You all cant tell me that you
1) paid for all your Microsoft hardware
2) are using the 190 (or 180 ... whatever the number is) eval's of the Microsoft and reformatting every 2-3 months.

tisk tisk.
 
jjandrob said:
so honestly.. With everything that's listed here... You all cant tell me that you
1) paid for all your Microsoft hardware
2) are using the 190 (or 180 ... whatever the number is) eval's of the Microsoft and reformatting every 2-3 months.

tisk tisk.
Click to expand...

I have an MSDN account and I paid for my copy of OS X so yes all the software I have is legal. Using illegal cracked software is just asking for trojans.
 
Had esx 3.5 at home for a while but shut back down to just the basics a while back. Will be trying out xen at home starting this weekend as I'll likely have some of it at work as well.


zero2dash said:
Even though companies rely on stuff like group policies and user permissions to lock down everything now (and then just distribute images company-wide), I think before too long they will end up tacking on a VM on top of that and let the employees run everything in a VM instead of the workstation itself.
Click to expand...

Xenclient is already gaining a lot of ground in production, especially for mobile users. Hypervisor on your laptop, work VM and personal VM, and the work VM can sync with corporate virtual desktop when bandwidth allows. I'm working towards adding some of that where I work.
 
Looking to build my own lab finally, how many vms do you think I could run on my i7 920 with 12 gigs of ram?
 
mainly planning on going through the windows server 2008 AD books that I have so about 3 at one time to practice AD stuff
 
jjandrob said:
citrix is becoming huge with nice features. Also vmware has software out that you can use which is built into a winterm type hardware setup. You turn on the wintern and within seconds you are connected to your VM. The "going green" is a BIG push for all of this.

so honestly.. With everything that's listed here... You all cant tell me that you
1) paid for all your Microsoft hardware
2) are using the 190 (or 180 ... whatever the number is) eval's of the Microsoft and reformatting every 2-3 months.

tisk tisk.
Click to expand...

Most of the posts indicate that their MS servers are demo/test/lab etc so there's no problem with re-using the 180 day eval. The MS lab books even tell you to do it.

With that said, I have a technet sub and it is well worth it. Even though most of my use would easily fall under the eval purpose.


To answer the OP:

two ESXi servers with iscsi storage (for testing vmware clustering with vsphere). Also testing DPM and allowing a non-busy host to power off when not in use to save power.. works pretty slick!

I run anywhere from 8-12 VMs at a time, mostly consisting of an MS lab environment to study for certs. I use ipcop to set up internal private networks for my labs and have a number of other machines serving web, torrents, media etc. The best thing about virtual is anything is possible and it's quick to try new things!
 
jjandrob said:
citrix is becoming huge with nice features. Also vmware has software out that you can use which is built into a winterm type hardware setup. You turn on the wintern and within seconds you are connected to your VM. The "going green" is a BIG push for all of this.

so honestly.. With everything that's listed here... You all cant tell me that you
1) paid for all your Microsoft hardware
2) are using the 190 (or 180 ... whatever the number is) eval's of the Microsoft and reformatting every 2-3 months.

tisk tisk.
Click to expand...

technet :) BUY ONE!
 
ESXi 4.1
Host 1 - Supermicro X8ST3-F motherboard, Intel E5640 proc, 24GB RAM
Host 2 - Supermicro X8SIL-F motherobard, Intel X3440 proc, 16GB RAM

1. Untangle Router
2. WHS (desktop backups and RPG gaming group's forum/file host)
3. OpenIndiana (8 2TB disk RAIDZ2 files storage, 4 750GB disk stripped-mirror for VMS, 4 1TB disk stripped-mirror for TV recording)
4. PVR (SageTV) Windows 7 VM
5. (2) Windows XP VMs for DVD ripping/encoding - one on each host
6. Windows 2008R2 (Active Directory)
7. Windows 2008R2 (SCCM)
8. Windows 2008R2 (vCenter)
9. Windows 7 box for Torrents/Usenet
10. (2) Windows 7 boxes for the wife to remote into and print coupons from without infecting her laptop (disks revert back on logoff).
11. Linux VM (changes occasionally to try different flavors)
12. Windows 2008R2 (Veeam) for VM backups to a Drobo Pro

There may be a few others, but I don't have access to it right now (at work). I'll probably set up a VMWare View Connection server this week to play with and make it easier for the wife to access her virus-prone coupon printing VMs.

I am seriously thinking about moving away from the All-in-one setup though. I already have a Xeon X3430 proc and 8 GB of ram, just need to grab another X8SIL-F board and find time to swap all the parts around. Will probably move to ESXi 5 at that point too...


As for licensing... I have a personal Technet account as well as a MSDN account through work.
 
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Oh wow, I was thinking of something else completely. The thing that colleges usually give to students that gives them free access to a bunch of software ahah
 
These are some great ideas for labs to run.
Can't wait to build my new server so I have something more powerful (and lots more RAM).
I'm thinking of setting up some virtual AD servers to play with and some software that requires AD.
 
I'm gonna be setting up a home server too, that's why I started this thread to see what kind of stuff I could do with it. It looks like the possibilites are pretty robust.

I'm only gonna be using an i7 920 with 24gb of ram so we'll see. Should suit my needs but it looks like I have a lot of learning to do before I'm running as many things as everyone posting in this thread haha.

Im glad I have a vacation coming up so I can get started on all of this.
 
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