Testing Environments

[IncredibleBulk]

Hey all

I started using Linux originally because I felt that my pc knowledge was falling behind (and I was bored of my last job supporting Windows). I now know enough of the basics to get a system up and running, tweak what I need to, troubleshoot issues etc etc

I'm now starting to feel like I should move on to more advanced areas.... more specifically, I've been talking for ages about setting up a LAMP server and fooling around with self website and mail hosting (for no reason other then to prove I can)

What I'm wondering now is this, I don't want to do this on my current server install (I am bound to screw up).... but do I go the Virtualbox route.... or piece together old hardware and build a "real" testing box?

Opinions?

[HyRax1]

Virtualbox can setup a PC as real as any real PC! The only thing you have to do is enabled Bridged Networking for that VM and it will receive a DHCP-assigned IP exactly as though it were a real physical PC on your LAN.

The rest writes itself.

While your host PC does not have to have actual virtualisation technology built into the CPU to virtualise, it will ultimately perform better if you have VT-x capabilities in it, especially if you want to run more than one VM at a time.

Here's an old snap of me running several VM's at once on my desktop at home. Each VM is visible and connectable just like any real PC on my network.


Click to view full size!

[IncredibleBulk]

Cheers mate.... just as a side note, I used instructions from you blog to set up my own home Ubuntu mirror. Already made things faster while setting up this initial testing VM

[IncredibleBulk]

Originally Posted by HyRax1

Virtualbox can setup a PC as real as any real PC! The only thing you have to do is enabled Bridged Networking for that VM and it will receive a DHCP-assigned IP exactly as though it were a real physical PC on your LAN[/URL]

Any clues on how to actually get this working? Last time I tried to bridge networks it was with Vista and I ended up pulling my hair out haha

EDIT: Scratch that... been reading around and managed to get it working. Probably not the prettiest method, but it works... that's enough for me right now haha

[HyRax1]

Originally Posted by IncredibleBulk

Cheers mate.... just as a side note, I used instructions from you blog to set up my own home Ubuntu mirror. Already made things faster while setting up this initial testing VM

Now that you have it, it also opens the door to PXE network installs - who needs boot media?

Originally Posted by IncredibleBulk

Any clues on how to actually get this working? Last time I tried to bridge networks it was with Vista and I ended up pulling my hair out haha

Bridging under Windows is a bit of a pain compared to Linux (used to be the other way around for awhile). It is automatic in its setup, but it's not as elegant. What's worse is dealing with USB devices under a Windows Host...

[IncredibleBulk]

PXE installations will be a project for the future (I will be rebuilding my media centre soon so I will tackle that). Just doing network based software installation/upgrades is awesome at the moment though (yeah, I'm geeky enough to be excited by it haha)

I've got a low power gigabyte ITX board sitting in my desk drawer, I'm contemplating building that up so that I can use it as a stand-alone testing machine as well. Mainly to give stuff like rtorrent a whirl (I'm eyeing it off as a future torrent box)

[HyRax1]

Originally Posted by IncredibleBulk

PXE installations will be a project for the future (I will be rebuilding my media centre soon so I will tackle that).

Add unattended installs to the project list too.

Originally Posted by IncredibleBulk

I've got a low power gigabyte ITX board sitting in my desk drawer, I'm contemplating building that up so that I can use it as a stand-alone testing machine as well. Mainly to give stuff like rtorrent a whirl (I'm eyeing it off as a future torrent box)

My headless MythTV server has enough spare CPU cycles on its Intel E5200 CPU during the day that it doubles as my torrent box as well, running Deluge as well as running the VM that serves my blog (using headless Virtualbox). Works very well.

The only other low-power device I have is an old VIA C3 based machine which is my Smoothwall firewall/router box. Barely makes a sound since it's mostly passively cooled (though it does get a bit hot sometimes).

[IncredibleBulk]

Originally Posted by HyRax1

Add unattended installs to the project list too.

Shall do

My headless MythTV server has enough spare CPU cycles on its Intel E5200 CPU during the day that it doubles as my torrent box as well, running Deluge as well as running the VM that serves my blog (using headless Virtualbox). Works very well.

The only other low-power device I have is an old VIA C3 based machine which is my Smoothwall firewall/router box. Barely makes a sound since it's mostly passively cooled (though it does get a bit hot sometimes).

I'm thinking more of the hotter months, I'd rather not leave a quad core on all the time just to run torrents (which it what my server is doing 80% of the time). There is an eventual goal for my home set up, moving torrenting to a stand-alone low power box is the first step

[IncredibleBulk]

Possibly stupid question... regarding running multiple virtual machines, I'm planning on fooling around with (but not limited to);

- Mail server (postfix)
- Web server (LAMP)
- barebones install running rtorrent (for testing future torrent box) and nothing else

Now I'm wondering I should just run them all off the one VM or run them all as "stand alone". I'm tossing up running multiples since WHEN I fuck up, I won't ruin everything else

[HyRax1]

Originally Posted by IncredibleBulk

Possibly stupid question... regarding running multiple virtual machines, I'm planning on fooling around with (but not limited to);

- Mail server (postfix)
- Web server (LAMP)
- barebones install running rtorrent (for testing future torrent box) and nothing else

Now I'm wondering I should just run them all off the one VM or run them all as "stand alone". I'm tossing up running multiples since WHEN I fuck up, I won't ruin everything else

Unless you're building the next competition to OCAU, each of those tasks will consume very little resources.

For the most part, a stuff up will simply entail you uninstalling the software with the purge switch (in Ubuntu) which wipes the config of that app, and when you reinstall you'll have a fresh config to play with again. That said, it's difficult to stuff up a given setup anyway short of randomly deleting files off the system for kicks.

In my case I run LAMP and Postfix in a VM while my torrents run on the host. Doesn't have to be this way, but since my VM faces the world, I felt it prudent to separate torrents away from it.

[GumbyNoTalent]

I use VirtualBox + Turnkey Linux for all my dev work on my laptop, I can turn off the server when done, and I can have multiple dev environments.

[IncredibleBulk]

I'm not so much fussed about resource usage

More just want to keep the testing environments fairly clean, I have a poor habit of forgetting what I've installed and since these set-ups will be a very new things, I'd like to keep on top of it

[IncredibleBulk]

This question's a bit out of left field.... was discussing my plans to get my head around web hosting (basic) with a couple of friends. The point was raised that my net connection at home is pretty flakey (will drop out at least once a day if not more), so hosting for myself is fine but if I want to host for other people (which is the eventual goal), I'd need to look at an actual hosting solution

Now I'm wondering, do I go a fully managed solution (ie, sign up, upload, ignore) or a vps (they provide the box and bandwidth, I manage it)

Obviously the first is easier but the second more closely matches the original intentions (to learn and do it all myself)

[oli]

Originally Posted by IncredibleBulk

Now I'm wondering, do I go a fully managed solution (ie, sign up, upload, ignore) or a vps (they provide the box and bandwidth, I manage it)

Obviously the first is easier but the second more closely matches the original intentions (to learn and do it all myself)

Go the second option. That's the whole point of learning.

Considering the deals available from forum sponsors there's not much point in mucking around with trying to host anything more serious from home anyway.

VMWare Server is another decent/easy to setup virtualisation platform for testing as well by the way.