Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 09:39:34 +0100 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Bernhard_Fr=F6hlich?= <decke@FreeBSD.org> To: John <freebsd-lists@potato.growveg.org> Cc: "freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org" <freebsd-emulation@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: virtualbox tips for performance specific to FreeBSD-10 hosts Message-ID: <CAE-m3X3vuYDqkvMQOAWbZmieoJ-oJH2Sgih-8c-SBSWR7Qcyvw@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20140208095107.GA1232@potato.growveg.org> References: <20140208095107.GA1232@potato.growveg.org>
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On Sat, Feb 8, 2014 at 10:51 AM, John <freebsd-lists@potato.growveg.org> wrote: > Hello list, > > As subject, can anyone recommend any tips for getting optimum > performance from various guests on a freebsd-10-R host? I've looked at > the page about changing polling interval but that only applies to > freebsd guests. I'm looking advice specifically for linux guests on this > host. Guests are ubuntu and opensuse. > > Machine is a Xeon E5-2650L @ 1.80GHz with 32 cores, 192GB RAM and 10TB > available storage on zfs. I would not recommend using VirtualBox on such a box. VirtualBox is a Desktop Virtualisation product and that specs are too high to make good use of them. One issue you will run into is ZFS ARC - with that amount of memory it will take quite some time to fill up but ZFS ARC and VirtualBox wired memory will start fighting each other. So I recommend limiting ZFS ARC to some sane amount. (32GB?) VirtualBox has quite a bit more overhead than all the other server grade virtualisation products out there and that is especially true for I/O. With FreeBSD 10 you should already use AHCI on the host and the linux guests will likely use an SATA controller and AHCI too. That should be the minimum and is also what we have already written down in the vbox tuning notes: https://wiki.freebsd.org/VirtualBox/Tuning > No issues sofar freebsd on freebsd. Just looking for advice linux guest > on freebsd with virtualbox. Or perhaps there's something better than > virtualbox? Basically all guests need to be isolated from one another. > It makes backing up and restoring systems pain-free. So far this are the mainstream candidates: BSD: - BHyVe Linux: - KVM - Xen Proprietary: - VMware ESXi - XenServer I have had a look at a server virtualisation product myself some months ago and came to the conclusion that there is no painfree server virtualisation product that is focused on ONE machine with a proper webinterface with a reasonable easy installation and for free. VMware ESXi came close but it fails badly with the webinterface (no I don't consider the required 8-16GB RAM for the webinterface appropriate). RedHats oVirt also made a good impression but I broke it within half an hour and the webinterface never detected the nodes properly. Also oVirt really wants you to have a dedicated storage box which I wanted to avoid. Running it all on one machine is on their todo for years. No I don't want to run 3 boxes for two VMs. OpenStack was just a mess and I gave up because all the different components didn't fit into my small head. This really looks like you want to build your own cloud with 1000+ nodes. There are quite a few more KVM based products out there which I didn't try just because I gave up at that point and went with the free ESXi and a windows VM with vSphere Client. The ones that I remember were also appropriate candiates for my search were Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with KVM + convirt2, Proxmox or a simple Linux distribution and shell. So VirtualBox + phpvirtualbox does a few things very very good and I love it for that on small boxes with light load but it's not a proper server virtualisation product. What I would really like to see is a FreeNAS like appliance for virtualisation with a webinterface and based on BHyVe. The Linux KVM stuff is not quite there yet when it comes to "painless". -- Bernhard Froehlich http://www.bluelife.at/
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