Need Help/Pointers on setting up home VM/File server

Discussion in 'Installation/Configuration' started by VL1969, Apr 27, 2015.

  1. VL1969

    VL1969 New Member

    Hello,
    Not sure if this is the right place to ask this so mods please move the posting apropriatly if needed.
    but here it goes.

    I want to setup a File server and VM server for home use.
    main usage as folow:
    #1. Files server using SAMBA shares file dump for all users in the family
    Media shares for HTPC and shared storage for use with VMs as needed.
    #2 run several VMs mostrly Linux but at least 2 Windows VM for specific programs needed for work.
    --- Linux VMs will be Ubuntu Based Bare installs(no GUI for the most part) to run a media file downloader/organisers like coach potato, deluge or transmittion deamon (with web interface)
    sick beard sabNZB(not sure if this will be used but it has some usefull scripts with in so still may be isntalled)
    --- a VM with TVHeadend or MythTV server back end to be used with Kodi HTPC.
    and couple of other similar light weight systems for utulitarien use as needed.
    the setup will be done on an AMD 8 core system with 16GB RAM.
    now here comes the tricky part.

    MUST HAVE : a full btrfs support for data storage part
    I am currentyl run a file server based on OpenSusy 13.1 with desktop
    have 6T storage pool setup on BTRFS system (actually whole system is run on BTRFS) but separate System disk with "/" and "/home" btrfs partitions
    and a 6T btrfs RAID1 pool on 2 3T WD drives
    also have a 2T btrfs raid1 single drive setup which will be going away and added to the main pool for total of 8T drive space (got to love the btrfs ability to pool drives of different sizes with no problems)
    so what I want to do is take the current server offline.
    take 2 HDD of the same size (looking on maybe getting 2 120GB SSD) and install the Ubuntu Server on Raid-1 setup. so the uptime is not an issue if one drive fails.
    setup WebMin for remote adminisntration (my last setup had IPMI and it was tough to give it up but old hardware had to be replaced)
    install VirtualMin for VM server option. (am I right in understanding that VirtualMin is a WebGUI that can be used to create/setup and manage virtual machines on main host.)
    can I use VirtualMin on a single host to simply mange local VMs using web interface similar to the way like ProxMox does it?
    will this setup support BTRFS Samba shares runnig from main Host machine.
    to diagram an example:
    ? do I need UserMin for home server setup or can I just manage users with WebMin on main server ?
    can I install webmin in each VM for management or do I need to use desktop versions?
    don't like CLI much :)

    HOST(Ubuntu 14.1x) ==> (WebMin/VirtualMin/{UserMin})
    =-> Samba shares on HOST (FileDump / UserShares / Media)
    =-> VM(Ubuntu + PLEX Server)
    =-> VM(Ubuntu 14.1x / Deluge/Transmition+SABnzbd+Sick Beard+CouchPotato)
    =-> VM(Sophos UTM or pfSance) planed but not terribly important at the moment
    =-> VM(Windows 7) work related
    =-> VM(any other I can think of as needed)

    please point me to nice HowTo and info pages for this.
    I can not call my self a total noob as I have been plaing with Linux for the last year and managed to setup and run a Linux file server and converted all 3 of my PC to Linux (Mint) but there is still lots of things I do not know...
    I do however good at folowing directions and do very well using google ;-P


    thanks for all your help in advnace
     
  2. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    I would use virtualbox with phpvirtualbox admin interface to manage the vm's.
     
  3. VL1969

    VL1969 New Member

    can i ask why virtualbox? isn't it a bit overhead when KVM is built into the system? I mean I am already setting up webmin on the host system. adding KVM to it is just one CLI command away. and virtualmin/cloudmin is part of the webmin family so installed same way. by all means I did thought of virtualbox for this too, just set it a side for more integrated solutions for now. this is why I am here to get oppinions and sugestions from other people and pick the best one.
     
  4. VL1969

    VL1969 New Member

    an quick update here, I decided to bite a bullet and start the rebuild.
    I have my first run with Ubuntu 14.04 Server (headless) +KVM + Cloudmin
    looks promising, I will be doing anew build in the next couple of days, as i screwedup and put wrong drive to be used for my storage pool (it has some data in it even though I am not sure what that is right now.) and use that to drop the /home folder into it. I don't want that, aslo I had some issues with networking and messed thing up badly there as well. So will be removing the drive and reinstall all from scratch as it still a fresh install so no loss there. but I like how it looks and feel. just need some pointers on proper network configuration for KVM/cloudmin
     

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