For a small office would one consider using VM's over network or something like 2x/freenx to a server.

Problem is the office in way out in the country. I have no interest in driving out there every day for such and such but just thinking of the best solution to a soho that is easy to backup and maybe easy to have the local users fix.

Any ideas on how one might setup a soho system?

Thanks.

A local PXE boot server (unbreakable).
+
A network partition with read-only qemu-kvm images on it (unbreakable).
Users create relative images and work on it (they can break, it, but you can regenerate the relative image in 1 second).
+
A network storage for the qemu users to save on it (never use a VM for storage).

That's what i made @ work and i can tell you i have a system that beats any 10000$ proprietary solution out there.
And it's far simpler ^^.
You can use sshfs instead of nfs. You can also use a VPN, etc...

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I successfully use openSUSE (which comes with Xen hypervisor) and run Windows server and a Fedora based IMAP mailserver on it. This is not only a high performance solution but is reliable and easy to use. As openSUSE rarely causes problems, you can simply manage the VMs over ssh, backup with a cron job by suspending, copying and restarting. Beautiful!

For local users to do any "fixing", you can use VNC to call up a management GUI -rather clunky and unintuitive but a bit of training is all that is needed.

cheers, Ken

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Hey, thanks for the ideas.

I know it was a very generic question and just needed some ideas.

I like the setup you have. Do you have instructions on how to set it up? I have the fileshares and part of the PIX boot, but I do not have the setup working together in the fashion you speak of.

Thanks

Please don't forget to give them Rep(utation), I did. Thanks.

I guess the most interesting question is which OS you use on both sides and also what kind of connectivity you have to the internet from the office.

Freenx is really for slow latency networks ... so I guess you have very low bandwidth?

What do you mean with VM over a network? And what services do you want delivered to the small office/home office?

Maybe you can have the guyz there vpn into the central office where you are? Or better use a small router that vpn's in automatically? It is always best to try and keep the business critical stuff under your direct control - what will you do in case of hardware failure and the server hosting vm's does not come back up?

I work from a home office, and I vpn into our central office.

If you really want a server there, I would use a vpn gateway (can be a small router - so you can vpn in) and a small server with vm's in the small office, but it all depends on what services you want to offer ... vpn is the safest, I think ...

Sorry about the delayed rep's points.

They are using and spending a lot of money on MS and Mac stuff. I don't think they care as long as they can access email and web pages. They do maintain some local data that can be in other forms.

I think I can convert it over to Linux if only via some x2go or nx such thing. That was the cryptic reference.



The second part was running a vm or two on a server only for simplified backup and restore for all of this. Also remote copies. I know I can image the system but I like to copy VM's in a few minutes and boot back up. Seems faster to me.

Hi, thanks for your input!
Can you elaborate a bit on these two ideas?
What do you mean by relative images?

After all this I think I may try iSCSI boots to saved images.


jefro, I hope you don't mind, I changed "iscsi" to iSCSI for clarity. -- I actually looked it up before I realized what you meant.

Begin with creating and running qemu images, then dig into relative images.
TIP: use qcow2 as qemu disk.

It's the difference between ro image and the one you run. There's plenty of documentation around.
The network storage can be a samba share. You put a shortcut on users's desktop, and they save in it.
It's one solution amongst others.

I think I need to get some more info on booting qemu images over pxe them too.

I have never booted qemu images across the network. What kind of ram do you need on each terminal?

Nono, i don't boot qemu images directly.
I first boot a complete Linux system, then the user launch his virtual machine.

Wheew, thought I was loosing it there. Thanks.