Orion - ESXi/unRaid build - now v6 and KVM


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pfSense - WAN port on 82574L off the motherboard running to my ADSL2+ modem, LAN port on the quad port Intel.

 

Hi Beta,

 

I'm actually thinking of installing pfSense as a WM also. Are you using the 4 ports in the Intel NIC for the LAN? I'm guessing these go to the switch, right?

 

I actually thought of using one of the ports in the MB (I also have the MBD-X9SCM-F-O) for the WAN and the other for the LAN. Would this be feasible? I'd like to keep one of the PCIe in the MB available for a GPU (the other 3 are dedicated to 3 AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards), hoping in the future it can be passed through to a Win VM and be able to run Photoshop in there (maybe aiming to high?)

 

PS: I building the ESXi right know, not an expert myself but sure having fun  :) :)

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pfSense - WAN port on 82574L off the motherboard running to my ADSL2+ modem, LAN port on the quad port Intel.

 

Hi Beta,

 

I'm actually thinking of installing pfSense as a WM also. Are you using the 4 ports in the Intel Nick for the LAN? I'm guessing these go to the switch, right?

 

I actually thought of using one of the ports in the MB (I also have the MBD-X9SCM-F-O) for the WAN and the other for the LAN. Would this be feasible?

 

It might work fine, but the 82579LM doesn't have an official ESXi driver.  There is a community hack driver kicking around, but I've steered clear of it due to a few problems people have had.  This was one of the reasons for getting the Intel card.  The other one was that I like overkill :)

 

If you can get the 82579LM to work ok with ESXi then yeah, there's no real issue running it in that configuration.

 

re: CP2 - CP1 has stopped development, and CP2 is much better-looking and fuller featured.  It's a little rough around the edges in places, but it works OK for the most part.

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pfSense - WAN port on 82574L off the motherboard running to my ADSL2+ modem, LAN port on the quad port Intel.

 

Hi Beta,

 

I'm actually thinking of installing pfSense as a WM also. Are you using the 4 ports in the Intel Nick for the LAN? I'm guessing these go to the switch, right?

 

I actually thought of using one of the ports in the MB (I also have the MBD-X9SCM-F-O) for the WAN and the other for the LAN. Would this be feasible?

 

It might work fine, but the 82579LM doesn't have an official ESXi driver.  There is a community hack driver kicking around, but I've steered clear of it due to a few problems people have had.  This was one of the reasons for getting the Intel card.  The other one was that I like overkill :)

 

If you can get the 82579LM to work ok with ESXi then yeah, there's no real issue running it in that configuration.

 

re: CP2 - CP1 has stopped development, and CP2 is much better-looking and fuller featured.  It's a little rough around the edges in places, but it works OK for the most part.

Considering I'm an ESXi noob that'll be a challenge, I'll keep you posted!

 

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi BetaQuasi,

 

I'm wondering if I might ask you a question about your build (I apologise if this is a basic question, I'm not from a computer background and trying to get my head around this all while I await computer parts)?

 

I'm curious about how you've connected your cache drive? It looks like it using the motherboard's SATA port, is this using Raw Device Mapping? Is there a limit on how many hard drives can be mapped to a virtual machine?

 

I ask because I'm in the process of building an EXSi machine with unraid and either a windows 7/Ubuntu VM. I'm awaiting a X9SCM-IIF and an IBM M1015 from America. I have nine drives I currently have to use with unraid (one parity, one cache, seven hard drives) and I've only ordered one IBM M1015. I'm wondering if I can use a motherboard SATA port for my cache drive (and to add more drives to Unraid at a later stage) and use these in unraid or do I need to order another IBM M1015?

 

If you can add them to unraid are there any problems with this?

 

Cheers

Al

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You can RDM a drive and use it in unRaid - yes that's exactly what I've done with my cache SSD.  All the rest of the drives, I am keeping on M1015's though, for consistency and because it gets quite painful when it comes to replacing a dead drive that has been RDM'ed - especially if you have lots of them!  I much prefer the idea of simply swapping out with a new drive and rebuilding the data, rather than having to RDM the new drive etc etc

 

The other thought process for RDM'ing the cache drive was that if I max the case out at 24 drives, there'll be 16 connected to unRaid (2xM1015's in passthrough) and 8 connected to the FreeNAS VM (1xM1015 in passthrough).  Therefore leaving no space for the cache drive.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

Thought I'd post a quick update on the current status of my server.

 

- The instability of the Windows VM running Sab/Sick/Couch ended up getting to me, so I fired up a Ubuntu Server 12.04 VM (from the mini.iso so it was as lightweight as possible.)  This box now runs the following:

 

- SabNZBD

- Sickbeard main

- Sickbeard anime fork

- CouchPotato Server

- Headphones

- LazyLibrarian

- Deluge for the occasional torrent when usenet fails lol

 

The old Windows VM is still there - all it does now is runs APCUPSD for my UPS and shutdown script, and an instance of XBMC that is on all the time for updating of new downloads (HTPC's around the house are switched off unless needed.)

 

Another VM is running the following:

 

- Shared MySQL DB for the XBMC instances

- Latest Plex Media Server - used for transcoding to phones/tablets.  Main use is actually to sync content to my tablet for the 50 minute train ride to work.

 

One of these days, we'll get a product that has the best of XBMC and Plex and I'll only need one.  We're almost there now that there are some frodo-based builds of the Plex Home Theater client, and a Ubuntu PPA for the same...  what I'd love to see though is the Plex HT client in an Openelec-style build, then I could ditch XBMC completely.

 

Or.... maybe the rumoured XBMC server will replace plex and I can go that way instead.

 

Anyways.. the hardware itself I've yet to have a single problem with (touch wood).  No misbehaving disks, no RAM issues, no controller issues, nothing.. it's been almost a year running 24/7 now, let's hope things stay that way!

 

There's only a couple of things I'd like to do, but I'm kinda taking the 'if it ain't broke....' approach:

 

- update the BIOS on the X9SCM to 2.0b (currently on 1.1a).  Have gone to do this several times but haven't actually gone through with it

- update ESXi to 5.1 w/ the Dec 2012 patch

- add some more drives to the FreeNAS VM and change to a RAIDZ2 pool, and a couple of SSD's for cache (I don't really need it but I still want to do it lol).

 

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I'm doing a bunch of research right now because I'm planning on building an unRAID box and I'm not sure if I want to also virtualize it and run it with ESXi.  I had no idea about those things before reading on these forums.  I had a quick question about your setup and the various VMs that you have.

 

How do all of the VMs communicate with each other?  For example, for your xbmc setup, how does it see the unRAID server to look for media?  Does it just communicate via the LAN or do you talk directly to the HDDs in the box somehow?

 

Thanks,

Jesse

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- The instability of the Windows VM running Sab/Sick/Couch ended up getting to me, so I fired up a Ubuntu Server 12.04 VM (from the mini.iso so it was as lightweight as possible.)  This box now runs the following:

 

- SabNZBD

- Sickbeard main

- Sickbeard anime fork

- CouchPotato Server

- Headphones

- LazyLibrarian

- Deluge for the occasional torrent when usenet fails lol

 

Another option is Turnkey Linux (http://www.turnkeylinux.org/) appliances. tssgery created a NZB appliance and a Newznab appliance (http://aceshome.com/forums/index.php#c2 which could be of interest to ESXi users. No Plex appliance that I can find, unfortunately, but the recent activity around Plex HT gives me hope.

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I'm doing a bunch of research right now because I'm planning on building an unRAID box and I'm not sure if I want to also virtualize it and run it with ESXi.  I had no idea about those things before reading on these forums.  I had a quick question about your setup and the various VMs that you have.

 

How do all of the VMs communicate with each other?  For example, for your xbmc setup, how does it see the unRAID server to look for media?  Does it just communicate via the LAN or do you talk directly to the HDDs in the box somehow?

 

Thanks,

Jesse

 

The machines communicate via LAN, a virtual LAN inside the ESX host called vSwitch.

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Another option is Turnkey Linux (http://www.turnkeylinux.org/) appliances. tssgery created a NZB appliance and a Newznab appliance (http://aceshome.com/forums/index.php#c2 which could be of interest to ESXi users. No Plex appliance that I can find, unfortunately, but the recent activity around Plex HT gives me hope.

 

I saw that being talked about a month or two ago - looks like a great idea for those that want to take a hands off approach.  In my case, I actually wanted to go through the motions of setting up each app, pulling the latest version from git, configuring it all to my requirements etc... it helps me understand the way these things work, so when it comes time to troubleshoot, it's made all the easier.

 

I also have to manage several Ubuntu (and a couple of Debian) based headless servers in my day job, so makes sense to keep my skills up (which always need work when it comes to Linux! :))

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  • 2 weeks later...

BetaQuasi

 

From the Esxi 5.0 pointer thread you posted the following:

 

Did you mean the E3-1230?  If so, I'd get a V1 if possible, only because most of us have them and people have had issues with v2 chips and multi-controller passthrough (mainly affecting 3 passed through controllers, but why restrict yourself at this point!)

 

I built my system just like Spencers and Dirty Sanchez (LandFill) but added a AOC-SASLP-MV8 controller. 

 

I am looking to do a ESXi system now to minimize plug-in conflicts/problems (been burned enough) and the ability to virtualize hosts for specific apps.  I know I need to upgrade the i3 2100 processor with one that supports VT-d and the memory from 4GB to 16GB.

 

Since I only have a single PCIe slot for the controller card, I need the integrated video from the CPU.  I don't think I should run it headless.

 

I was considering a Xeon E3-1230 v2 (77w) till I saw your post.  I am now thinking to use a i7-3770 (ivy-77w) or Core i7-2600 (sandy-95w).  Since I have a small enclosure, I like to keep the wattage as low as possible.  From what I have read, sandy is better then ivy for stability/compatibility issues.  But I am not sure if that matters to me since I have a single controller card.

 

I would be interested in your thoughts/suggestions on a CPU to use.  Here is the list of CPUs that the ASUS PH877-i supports.  I am not sure if it's current.  Since its ASUS, I am sure its close.

 

Appreciated your thoughts.

 

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I would be wary of any Xeon and that board to be honest - as per their website:

 

*Since Xeon CPU is not desktop CPU model, some feature may not able to work on this combination. For detail, refer to support.asus.com

 

That usually means that certain BIOS options don't work with that CPU, which may or may not include VT-d.  I'd do some research via google on that one first to see if it's even possible.  (and possibly via Asus support, though I don't know how much use they'd be.)

 

In saying all that, the E3-1230v2 may not present an issue with passthrough on your board - the issue I was referring to was related to the X9SCM series of boards and its server-class chipset (C202/204), in combination with the Ivy Bridge Xeon, so it may or may not affect you.  If your research doesn't bear any fruit (i.e. you cant find anyone else that has tried with your hardware combination), then it may just be a case of giving it a crack, and being prepared for the case where it won't work.

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Last week, I built another one of these for a workmate (well he did most of the work seeing as it was his!.)  It looks like he got a newer revision again of the Norco 4224 - the backplanes are green again, but of far better quality than either the original green ones or the yellow ones.  They also sit rock solid in the slots, no movement whatsoever - so at the front, all the drive bays align perfectly and there is a satisfying 'snick' when you mount a drive.

 

Made me jealous! lol

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