Anyone Actually Using Virtual Linux Servers?

[Kent Borg]

Is anyone actually using virtual Linux servers?

I am finally getting around to replacing my old basement server, and
it is a pain to make sure I don't break anything.  So I have had this
notion that I want to be able to play and break things with more
flexibility in the future, I want to replace it with a series of
virtual Linux boxes running on a single host OS.

I played with Xen for awhile (not the fully virtual version, I don't
have a new enough CPU in my new box), but I decided it is far too
brittle with its intimate dependencies between guest and host OSs.
(Do a dist upgrade of Ubuntu on the host and watch the guests freak
out when trying to start them up again.)

So now I am attacted to the run-anything flexibility of Qemu, and with
kqemu (now open source) and "-kernel-kqemu" it is pretty dang fast.
If I ever get a KVM-compatible CPU and it is worth using, my images
should be pretty compatible.

I want to be able to play with new Wikis and other exciting toys
without risking breaking e-mail, for example.  And I figure there is
more security in having things partitioned.

It does seem a waste to have so many machines running, but my new box
has 8 times the RAM, a wimpy CPU but still twice the computrons (at
least in bogomips), 4 times the CPU cache, and 5 times the disk space,
with 8 times the caching in the drives and 33% faster spinning
platters.  I am not blowing most of my horsepower on running a GUI, so
I should be able to waste a little.  Mostly the machines will be idle
waiting for something to happen (expect the mail machine, it will be
busily dealing with tons of spam).

Anyone else doing this?  Am I crazy?


Thanks,

-kb

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