vmware Questions

[Frank Staals]

John Nielsen wrote:
> 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
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>   
If the goal is just to run FreeBSD instances inside your virutal 
machines vmware, qemu, xen etc are all not needed. Use jails instead 
which would be much faster.

-- 
-Frank Staals