vmware Questions

[John Nielsen]

On Wednesday 21 February 2007 20:50, Martin McCormick wrote:
> 	If one has a FreeBSD system that has 1 gigabyte of RAM
> and a 1-GHZ processor, would it be possible to run a couple of
> vmware instances of FreeBSD?  I want to set up a DHCP server on
> each virtual machine and configure one to be optimized for DHCP
> failover and dynamic leases while the other is dedicated to
> static bootp service.  It would be much easier for the 2
> instances of dhcpd to run in separate machines, so to speak,
> since they normally use the same named files for logging and
> configuration.
>
> 	What sort of a performance hit does one usually see on a
> virtual machine?

Depends a lot on the virtual machine. VMware Server runs VM's pretty 
efficiently, but there is a moderate hit. ESX server has almost n 
performance penalty.

> 	When we run dhcpd on a normal FreeBSD system of the type
> described above, the system is normally loaded around 0.05 or so
> so it isn't having to work too hard.
>
> 	Thanks for any help as to what vmware port is best.  The
> platform is FreeBSD and the 2 virtual machines will also be
> FreeBSD if that makes any difference.

Modern versions of VMware don't run under FreeBSD. If you really want VMware 
then install a supported Linux distro and run VMware server. (Or go out and 
buy ESX or GSX server or one of the Workstation products). FreeBSD 6.2 
works great as a guest under most VMware products.

> 	There will be no X windows involved, just hopefully 2
> DHCP servers running as if they were on two separate boxes.
>
> 	Any information to point me in the right direction or
> reasons why this is not a good idea are appreciated.

For what you're talking about, jails make a lot more sense than 
virtualization or emulation. If you really want to run virtual machines 
under FreeBSD, take a look at qemu. qemu (even with the kqemu_kmod port 
(highly recommended) definitely has a noticeable performance impact, but 
DHCP is so lightweight that it probably won't matter.

JN