[PVE-User] Couple of questions

[Martin Maurer]

On 19.05.2010 10:29, Erik van Ast wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I have a couple of short questions and I hope someone can answer them 
> for me. I have already searched the internet and most of the times 
> there is an answer, but the answer is a bit too complicated for me, 
> because I have a Windows background and not a Linux one. We are using 
> more and more open source software and we are also starting to work 
> with Linux based OS'es like Ubuntu and OpenSuse so I want to learn more...
>
> My questions regarding Proxmox :
>
> · What's the difference between the different disc busses (IDE, SCSI 
> and VIRTIO)? I found multiple articles on this subject but not a very 
> clear answer for me. I also saw that you need to use IDE for Windows 
> and SCSI for Linux, but when do you use VIRTIO? And I have created a 
> new OpenSUSE machine with which SCSI didn't work but IDE and VIRTIO did...
>
Virtio drivers are the paravirtualized drivers for KVM.
Use always virtio for Linux guests, net and block. If you want virtio 
for windows, you need drivers which are not freely available in good 
quality. redhat has signed drivers for windows, but not freely available 
and in some situations you will get not better performance - so for 
windows IDE is best, e1000 for net.

> · Is it important to choose a guest type when you install a new VM?
>

sets the behavior of the mouse (usb tablet or not).

> · When you have a quad core CPU, can you choose for up to 4 CPU 
> sockets, or can you only choose for 4 CPU sockets when you have 4 CPU's?
>

you can set whatever you want but never use more virtual CPU´s as you 
have available on the host -if you do this you will have extremly bad 
performance and stability problems.

> · Can someone tell me what kind of network card I have to choose when 
> creating a new KVM machine? What's the difference between the options?
>

virtio on linux, e1000 for windows.

> · What's the difference between KVM and OpenVZ? I have small 
> experience with VMWare and is it true that KVM Is similar to VMWare? I 
> have also tried to create a new VM with OpenVZ with a downloaded 
> Appliance Template, but when I tried to install I couldn't connect to 
> the internet and I couldn't create a new network card...
>
Take a look here:
http://wiki.openvz.org/Main_Page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_platform_virtual_machines

if you have network issues with openvz containers, provide more details.

> · Is it easy and without risk to update the Kernel? We are using 
> Proxmox 1.5 with kernel version 2.6.18-2-pve and I read that a newer 
> version was available. Can it be upgraded without risk of losing data 
> and how can we upgrade?
>

live is risky by default, so you should always be prepared as good as 
possible (backup your data). but upgrade are quite smooth and 
hassle-free, just follow the howto on our wiki.

> · Is it possible to use 2 Proxmox servers connected to 1 SAN or NAS so 
> when 1 Proxmox server goes down, the other is able to take over the 
> machines residing on the SAN or NAS?
>
not yet out of the box, will be available in 2.x
see http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap (beta earliest mid of year)
>
> Those are a lot of questions, but I hope someone can answer them for 
> me so I am able to configure Proxmox for us in a better way. If 
> someone can only answer those questions by referring to known 
> articles, it's fine with me...
>
maybe this one: http://lwn.net/Articles/375075/
and all pages on our wiki, of course - http://pve.proxmox.com

br, martin
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Erik van Ast
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> pve-user mailing list
> pve-user at pve.proxmox.com
> http://pve.proxmox.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pve-user
>    

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pve-user/attachments/20100519/ccfdfeb9/attachment.htm>