64 Bit unRAID running natively on Arch Linux with full hypervisor support

[ogi]

You are now able to do everything that has been discussed in this thread if you have Hardware that supports PCI Passthrough... WITH unRAID AS A VM using the following guide:

 

Virtualizing unRAID in KVM on openSUSE 13.1 (64Bit)

 

[glow=red,2,300]BEFORE YOU BEGIN, UNPLUG THE POWER TO ALL OF YOUR OF DRIVES AND REMOVE YOUR unRAID USB FLASH DRIVE! IF YOU FOLLOW MY GUIDE AND ONLY PLUG IN YOUR DRIVES AND UnRAID USB FLASH DRIVE WHEN I TELL YOU IT'S SAFE TOO...[/glow]

 

You can install openSUSE to a USB Flash Drive and use it on your CURRENT unRAID system and even switch back and forth between unRAID running in a VM and running unRAID "bare metal".

 

NOTE: If you want to go back and your unRAID "bare metal", simply boot into your unRAID USB Flash Drive like you always have.

 

Thanks for sharing Grumpy, looks like a very thorough guide.  Hopefully I'll be able to allocate some time this weekend to make this happen!

 

[jumperalex]

You are now able to do everything that has been discussed in this thread if you have Hardware that supports PCI Passthrough... WITH unRAID AS A VM using the following guide:

 

Dude, I literally will have to stop myself from packing my unraid box and bringing it with me to my fathers over xmas to do this   Actually the thing stopping me right now is my motherboard doesn't support.  But a quick trip to amazon for some overnight shipping can solve that 

[peter_sm]

So the next release would be the "unraid baked in", what I see so is this where you virtualize unraid, or am I wrong about the "baked in" version ?

 

[ironicbadger]

So the next release would be the "unraid baked in", what I see so is this where you virtualize unraid, or am I wrong about the "baked in" version ?

 

 

errrrr? what? i really don't know what you mean dude!

[Ockingshay]

Is it better to virtualise unraid or is it better to have unraid as is and then virtualise everything else? Logically in my mind I envisioned it as being unraid and its current webgui, with then a baked in virtualisation page where I could install/create various VMs. This way I can have no plugins to clog up unraid and its core components.

 

Is that even possible? And/or is that the wrong logic?

 

 

 

Amazing guide btw, looking forward to trying it IF that's the way to go and my first thought isn't feasible.

[ironicbadger]

Is it better to virtualise unraid or is it better to have unraid as is and then virtualise everything else? Logically in my mind I envisioned it as being unraid and its current webgui, with then a baked in virtualisation page where I could install/create various VMs. This way I can have no plugins to clog up unraid and its core components.

 

Is that even possible? And/or is that the wrong logic?

 

This has been discussed in this thread already but it's better to have unraid as the host.

[Ockingshay]

Is it better to virtualise unraid or is it better to have unraid as is and then virtualise everything else? Logically in my mind I envisioned it as being unraid and its current webgui, with then a baked in virtualisation page where I could install/create various VMs. This way I can have no plugins to clog up unraid and its core components.

 

Is that even possible? And/or is that the wrong logic?

 

This has been discussed in this thread already but it's better to have unraid as the host.

 

Ok, that's what I thought, but keeping up with this thread is kinda hard 

[JustinChase]

As an uneducated (about this stuff) follower of this thread, I have to admit I'm a bit confused now also.

 

Is it better to virtualise unraid or is it better to have unraid as is and then virtualise everything else?

 

This has been discussed in this thread already but it's better to have unraid as the host.

 

In my mind, these are the same things.  I suspect Ockingshay might have the same understanding as I do.

 

Having "unraid as is and then virtualise everything else" sounds to me like "unRAID is the host" in that situation, but iconicbadger makes it sound like they are different things.  not that it really matters, I'm going to have to wait awhile to begin tackling this project, but I would like to understand better in the meantime

[peter_sm]

So the next release would be the "unraid baked in", what I see so is this where you virtualize unraid, or am I wrong about the "baked in" version ?

 

 

errrrr? what? i really don't know what you mean dude!

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=30777.msg277186;topicseen#msg277186

 

So that we have unraid as a host but instead of slack we might use CentOS (bzimage/bzroot)

 

But I might have misunderstand this ?

 

What I like to see/have is unraid 64bit as a host for KVM...... not virtulize unraid.

 

//Peter

 

[ironicbadger]

So the next release would be the "unraid baked in", what I see so is this where you virtualize unraid, or am I wrong about the "baked in" version ?

 

 

errrrr? what? i really don't know what you mean dude!

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=30777.msg277186;topicseen#msg277186

 

So that we have unraid as a host but instead of slack we might use CentOS (bzimage/bzroot)

 

But I might have misunderstand this ?

 

What I like to see/have is unraid 64bit as a host for KVM...... not virtulize unraid.

 

//Peter

 

Yes, that is the point of this whole endeavour. unRAID as a KVM (there hypervisor capable) host. I did try explain that in the OP, I guess not quite well enough...

[WeeboTech]

Yes, that is the point of this whole endeavour. unRAID as a KVM (there hypervisor capable) host. I did try explain that in the OP, I guess not quite well enough...

 

That's ironic...  ... 

[peter_sm]

Something that would be helpful is perhaps a summary of the approaches possible with pros/cons.

 

I think the advantage of having the unRaid "distro" be the host is that it gives the unRaid components direct access to the hardware, is that correct?

 

 

 

If you take my openSUSE 13.1 with KVM thread as an example. I could put all of the stuff people want in this tread into a Live CD with unRAID backed in. It would take me 15 minutes and most of that is creating the ISO and uploading it which people would install.

 

New verison of unRAID comes out, I put up a new ISO. It still pulls the config files from the unRAID USB Stick. As far as the user / unraid / vms are concerned... Nothing change besides updates to PHP or NFS, webGUI, etc.

 

If they installed it onto a hard drive... I could point it to my repo. When there is an update to unRAID or a securtiy update to PHP, NFS, or SSH... "yast update" handles that. The updated unRAID package would install a new kernel if needed, upgrade emhttp if needed, update samba if needed, etc.

 

Or they could use the new "release" and create a new ISO and use that like I mentioned earlier.

 

If you don't grasp the concept of that, which all of us have seen, used on pretty much every Linux Distros there is... I dunno. Go Download Linux Mint Live CD and see it in action for yourself. I think the lightbulb will come on then and it will make more sense.

 

This is what I meant with "baked in" 

[grumpybutfun]

So the next release would be the "unraid baked in", what I see so is this where you virtualize unraid, or am I wrong about the "baked in" version ?

 

That is not for me to decide. That is Tom's decision.

[vl1969]

As an uneducated (about this stuff) follower of this thread, I have to admit I'm a bit confused now also.

 

Is it better to virtualise unraid or is it better to have unraid as is and then virtualise everything else?

 

This has been discussed in this thread already but it's better to have unraid as the host.

 

In my mind, these are the same things.  I suspect Ockingshay might have the same understanding as I do.

 

Having unRAID "unraid as is and then virtualise everything else" sounds to me like unRAID is the host in that situation, but iconicbadger makes it sound like they are different things.  not that it really matters, I'm going to have to wait awhile to begin tackling this project, but I would like to understand better in the meantime

 

I think the confusion is about what ironic and grumpy are planning to do.

it is not the question on what is better since the current unRaid is too locked up and too outdated to serve as a good VM host.

it does what it was built to do splendidly but that is it, good if you want to run it as a baremetal fileserver only setup but other than that it's a pain.

it needs a lot of work to virtualize it and a lot of things to work together to just being able to do it in the first place.

 

so to clear thing up:

#1. you can use unraid as VM host today by running the virtualbox plug-in

but it is not very stable setup and IMHO not a very useful one as there are limits on what you can do with it.

 

#2. given that you have a compatible hardware able to do pass-through on mainstream  hyper-visors you can virtualize unraid as well and that usually more stable setup for unraid compared to #1. if you want/need virtualization in the first place.

 

#3. what grunpy and ironic are proposing is to redo unraid so it would be build on a more modern and updated 64-bit distro and that would solve a lot of issues we have today.

such as:

a. if you have unraid running on a modern distro you can use it as a VM host since KVM and Xen is now a part of the total system and are stable and type one hypervisors not type2

 

b. since unraid is now a fully capable host you do not really need a pass-through as the host have direct hardware access, also since the host starts first you can use an unRaid share to be used for DataStore forVM and ISO storage.

 

c. you can now have a way to securely expose your server to the outside using a secure VM webserver and only share what you want.

 

sound good to me.

 

I have been trying to build a similar server setup suns UnRaid  for the last 2 month. as my hardware does not support IOMMU thus I can not virtualize unraid properly

so far no luck.

 

 

[Ockingshay]

#3 gets my vote 

[grumpybutfun]

#3 gets my vote 

 

How did I get lumped into this?

 

I volunteered and put together guides on how to install unRAID as a VM in KVM and Xen.

 

Mission Accomplished!

 

From what little Tom has said, my takeaway from reading "the tealeaves"...

 

He is considering or for all I know... developing an "unRAID Nerd Edition".

 

Based on some things Ironic and other users have said... He might be leveraging talent to assist in those efforts.  I am not involved with that process and do not have any information on what is going on behind closed doors.

 

I have no doubt if Tom does decide to do this, he will make sure it's a solid, polished and professional product. Hopefully we will hear more soon.

 

Until then, for those of you who can do PCI Passthrough and want to do many of the things described in this thread ALONG WITH unRAID BEING A VM... you can now.

[jumperalex]

Mod: can you please move this thread to the Support|Virtualization section.  Thanks

[EGOvoruhk]

Mod: can you please move this thread to the Support|Virtualization section.  Thanks

 

Why? You would install this distro onto bare metal

[jbartlett]

Mod: can you please move this thread to the Support|Virtualization section.  Thanks

 

Why? You would install this distro onto bare metal

 

It's also a "User Customization"

[prostuff1]

Mod: can you please move this thread to the Support|Virtualization section.  Thanks

 

Why? You would install this distro onto bare metal

 

It's also a "User Customization"

Which at this point is exactly what it is.

 

The threads will stay here for now.  Should Tom want to move them he will, or if us mods feel the threads should be moved over to the other subforum

[ironicbadger]

I think this is the right place for this thread. It's not specific to either subforum, so unless it can go in both it should stay here.

[grumpybutfun]

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (Maipo) will be based on Fedora 19 and upstream Linux kernel 3.10, with the first beta announced on 11 December 2013.

 

CentOS 7 should be released about a month or so after RHEL 7 does.

 

Might as well use the RHEL 7 beta for testing

 

I nominate this for "Best Idea Of The Week" Award.

[EGOvoruhk]

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (Maipo) will be based on Fedora 19 and upstream Linux kernel 3.10, with the first beta announced on 11 December 2013.

 

CentOS 7 should be released about a month or so after RHEL 7 does.

 

Might as well use the RHEL 7 beta for testing

 

I nominate this for "Best Idea Of The Week" Award.

 

+1

 

Somebody buy that guy a root beer

[ironicbadger]

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (Maipo) will be based on Fedora 19 and upstream Linux kernel 3.10, with the first beta announced on 11 December 2013.

 

CentOS 7 should be released about a month or so after RHEL 7 does.

 

Might as well use the RHEL 7 beta for testing

 

I nominate this for "Best Idea Of The Week" Award.

 

Before we know it we'll all be singing limp bizkit songs.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Interstellar]

How have you fixed this bug:

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=30849.0

 

As I'm stuck