Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
If you don't have a subscription, you'll also need to adjust the package sources. By default, Proxmox tries to download updates from the enterprise repository, which you cannot access.
I suppose that's why it did this when trying to install
htop
...@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
Which options does it show you? By default, it should create a LVM thin pool on the local disk and offer to store images in a folder on the root file system as well.
The "local" one apparently accepts
VZDump backup file, ISO image, Container template
content, and is a directory.The "local-zfs" one is just Disk image and Container.
Anyways, created a VM for Windows, looks like so:
No issues so far. Even installed the VirtIO drive without issue! Something that
bhyve
has not yet been able to accomplish due to some weird sector size thing or another.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
The "local" one apparently accepts VZDump backup file, ISO image, Container template content, and is a directory.
That's the default directory for images I was talking about.
The "local-zfs" one is just Disk image and Container.
Did you create the ZFS pool in the installer? I guess it makes sense that it wouldn't create
local-lvm
then.
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
The "local" one apparently accepts VZDump backup file, ISO image, Container template content, and is a directory.
That's the default directory for images I was talking about.
Fair enough.
The "local-zfs" one is just Disk image and Container.
Did you create the ZFS pool in the installer? I guess it makes sense that it wouldn't create
local-lvm
then.I suppose it replaced it with the equivalent, not that it didn't create it.
Anyways, seems everything is working fine?
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
Anyways, seems everything is working fine?
Looks good to me.
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@Tsaukpaetra BTW, if you're planning to script any of this and want certain disks to survive the re-creation of a VM, you have to bypass Proxmox' storage system. It will always delete all disks associated with a VM when that VM is deleted.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
Anyways, seems everything is working fine?
I broke it...
So what I'm seeing here is, write rates are bunct, probably because ZFS? Simple benchmark:
But it's comparable (better than) my no-name SSD I'm using in my main box...
And when taking advantage of host cache....
Oh fuck, apparently it ran out of memory?
I wasn't using that much RAM, and ZFS is supposed to leave RAM available for the system.....
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
the system.....
What the... I don't have anything connected to USB other than the console keyboard.
Let's try rebooting one more time....
Edit: Oh, it was apparently the FreeNAS drive that got cut off:
Weird.
Powercycle brought it back to life.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
ZFS is supposed to leave RAM available for the system
Well, ZFS is not exactly known for using your RAM sparingly. How much do you have?
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
ZFS is supposed to leave RAM available for the system
Well, ZFS is not exactly known for using your RAM sparingly. How much do you have?
32Gb. Still, I was only using 6G of that for the VM, and whatever the host OS was using (which, in theory, shouldn't be 26 GB!).
But lo and behold, starting the disk benchmark does indeed crash the system.
Whelp, time to try XCP-ng...
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
Whelp, time to try XCP-ng...
I'm pretty sure that this has nothing to do with Proxmox and more to do with ZFS eating RAM like crazy, but feel free to find that out yourself.
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
more to do with ZFS eating RAM like crazy
Maybe, but I've never had it stuff out running processes like it seems to consistently do as demonstrated. Anyways, this is an adventure! Let's start the chapter on XCP....
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
XCP....
Install went smoothly enough. Text-based this time, but it allowed installation on the NVME drive this time!
Access the web interface and...
Bullshit. Okay, fine, "Quick Deploy" the real interface...
Fuck you! Why the hell can't you do that yourself?!?!?!
Alright, fine, I'll nav the console and...
.... ..... ..... ..... Okay, I've waited 15 minutes and it has no visible progress. Let's try the Windows client?
Well, seems serviceable I guess?
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
I've waited 15 minutes and it has no visible progress.
Oh, there we go! 30 minute install!
Blimey!
And apparently it didn't even work anyways, assuming that the first nic was the one it should have used (Doh! that one's not connected, you fool!).
All over the place are apparently paid features, but apparently the basic VM management section (aka "Home") seem to work fine...
One thing I noticed is apparently it set up the main storage as LVM, but there's literally no configuration available in the GUI. Actually, for any storage you add, you can do nothing to it except detach it (and then forget it).
It also does not search subfolders for stuff, so my ISO share is basically useless unless I want to add multiple of them to the storage entries.This is a problem, since I have no idea what parts of the two SSDs and NVME SSD I selected are actually holding data for the VMs.
I'm somewhat less impressed, but I can only assume it's put the disk on one single SSD (as opposed to striped across multiple of them).
Oh wait, it's not using VirtIO drivers, let's install--
Oh. Well, Windows Update, here we come! Anyways, a few reboots later and....
Well, it's improved I guess...
I don't know which one I prefer.
I'll be sleeping on it for sure.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
Maybe, but I've never had it stuff out running processes like it seems to consistently do as demonstrated.
I'm guessing you've also never run that particular benchmark on a VM image on ZFS before?
Honestly, I'm not too surprised that it triggered the OOM killer. If you want to prevent that, disable Linux's overcommitting and/or adjust the ZFS configuration.
Edit: Or simply use LVM. Manual configuration on the CLI may be required if you want striping. Here's some documentation if you want to create a thin pool with striping, you really don't need ZFS for that.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
One thing I noticed is apparently it set up the main storage as LVM, but there's literally no configuration available in the GUI. Actually, for any storage you add, you can do nothing to it except detach it (and then forget it).
It also does not search subfolders for stuff, so my ISO share is basically useless unless I want to add multiple of them to the storage entries.As I said earlier in the thread, Xenserver/XCP is basically unable to be managed except from Windows machines (using Xen/XCPcenter). That is my only real complaint about it overall, with the exception of how Citrix manages it.
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
If you want to prevent that, disable Linux's overcommitting
Have you ever tried it in practice?
The results are... interesting.
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
I'm guessing you've also never run that particular benchmark on a VM image on ZFS before?
Uh, yeah, I have. No issues except it was about one quarter of the speed of the drive because of sync writes or something.
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@Polygeekery said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
One thing I noticed is apparently it set up the main storage as LVM, but there's literally no configuration available in the GUI. Actually, for any storage you add, you can do nothing to it except detach it (and then forget it).
It also does not search subfolders for stuff, so my ISO share is basically useless unless I want to add multiple of them to the storage entries.As I said earlier in the thread, Xenserver/XCP is basically unable to be managed except from Windows machines (using Xen/XCPcenter). That is my only real complaint about it overall, with the exception of how Citrix manages it.
That's what I meant when saying "in the gui".
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@Zerosquare said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
Have you ever tried it in practice?
Yeah, you caught me there.
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@Tsaukpaetra I'm guessing the difference must be the ZFS config, then. Since the Proxmox documentation mentions adjusting it (see above), it probably doesn't set a reasonable value by default.
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@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
it probably doesn't set a reasonable value by default.
Typical.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
@dfdub said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
I'm guessing you've also never run that particular benchmark on a VM image on ZFS before?
Uh, yeah, I have. No issues except it was about one quarter of the speed of the drive because of sync writes or something.
Just spun back up the FreeNAS install and re-created the ZFS pool under it. This is the result:
No crash, but Task Manager kinda hung up on the disk stats for a bit, claiming 100% IO usage but 0 bytes/s read or write.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
No crash, but Task Manager kinda hung up on the disk stats for a bit, claiming 100% IO usage but 0 bytes/s read or write.
is a 38.1 GB disk.
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@dkf said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
@Tsaukpaetra said in Citrix gutting Xenserver free edition:
No crash, but Task Manager kinda hung up on the disk stats for a bit, claiming 100% IO usage but 0 bytes/s read or write.
is a 38.1 GB disk.
For testing? Maybe.