[PVE-User] Image format of disc

Thu May 20 14:45:28 CEST 2010

Hi all,

Can someone tell me what kind of image format we should use when creating new VM's?
We have 2 VM's running at the moment. One is using VMDK because I copied it from a VMWARE ESX server, and the other is in RAW format because I also created a new VM and RAS is the default setting. Which one is considered best and most reliable?

Met vriendelijke groet / Kind regards / Mit freundlichem Gruß,

Erik van Ast

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: pve-user-bounces at pve.proxmox.com [mailto:pve-user-bounces at pve.proxmox.com] Namens pve-user-request at pve.proxmox.com
Verzonden: woensdag 19 mei 2010 10:51
Aan: pve-user at pve.proxmox.com
Onderwerp: pve-user Digest, Vol 26, Issue 11

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Today's Topics:

   1. Couple of questions (Erik van Ast)
   2. Re: Couple of questions (Martin Maurer)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 10:29:31 +0200
From: "Erik van Ast" <Erik.van.Ast at suzohapp.nl>
To: <pve-user at pve.proxmox.com>
Subject: [PVE-User] Couple of questions
Message-ID:
	<80A72F1B1CFF80409D8E422437CEDC9A01D24EED at srv03-suzo-03.Suzo.int>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

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...

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

*         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?

*         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?

*         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...

*         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?

*         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?

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...

Kind regards,

Erik van Ast

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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 10:50:50 +0200
From: Martin Maurer <martin at proxmox.com>
To: pve-user at pve.proxmox.com
Subject: Re: [PVE-User] Couple of questions
Message-ID: <4BF3A66A.7090307 at proxmox.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"

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
>    

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