I'm really excited about the progression going on towards virtualization and it's really difficult to follow all the news 

 

My question now is: what are the Best Practices for those who were successfully running ESXi and would like to move into the new unRAID world rather sooner that later?

 

I have installed ESXi  5.1 with the following VM's:

• unRAID 5 with Dynamics and the mySQL plugin (central XBMC database!!)
  
• Windows 7 (32bit) without any important application
  
• ubuntu 13.10 with owncloud and openHAB

It would be certainly important to move away from the mySQL plugin first. As openHAB is already using mySQL on my Ubuntu VM, I can migrate the content into that VM.

 

From a HW perspective (see my signature) I have ESXi as well as the VM's sitting on a mirrored 256GB SSD (in a Raidon MR2020-2S-s2R enclosure that is connected to one of the mainboard SATA ports). All 8 HD's are connexted to my AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 controller, hence there is not SATA port left for a cache drive.

 

So what are the steps? Is it possible to reuse the existing VM's?

 

Thanks a lot.

in your case I would wait to move.

 

your ESXi working fine so why jump on a beta release.

you will be loosing too much in the process  un like some one like me who still do not have a proper VM server setup can play with the stuff until cows come home and still not miss anything.

 

no I am not 100% sure but I think the best way for you to move (when you think you are ready ) are:

 

1. make sure all is working and updated.

2. DO NOT use you existing mirror setup

  DO make an image of your mirror with ghost or clonzila (JIK)

 

get a new drive to play with and install the system on.

I am sure you can image it and restore on your mirror setup later.

 

3. do a VM export from the current running system.

    a. go to your unraid GUI and record your parity drive UUID

        JIK make a print screen of your current setup. make sure your HDD info

        is  clearly visible and identifiable from the print

    b. make a copy of your flash drive content.

 

 

4. follow the setup in one of the v6 release threads. to get the new system going

I tihnk this is the thread you need "http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31653.0"

 

it should have the info for setting up the system and creating a VM

 

also I would first remove all plug-ins from the setup as they will not be compatible and will interfere with clean install. Maybe some one else will chime in but I would just do a clean config on a new system.

I am pretty sure if you know what HDD is your parity you can build new array using existing HDDs wi no data loss.

 

 

 

 

If it aint broke don't fix it...

vl1969, thanks for your advise. I can certainly wait some time but this sounds all so exciting :-)

 

I'm going to put the mirrored SSDs aside, and will use another disk drive to play with. Anyhow, the mySQL migration went well today, I'm running a vanilla unRAID 5 now. All Applications are running on the Ubuntu VM since then.

 

Still not clear if I can use the existing VMDK for XEN and if I really need the cache drive (only SATA ports left on the mainboard, see my entry comments above). That is the part I don't know how to deal with:

"Now let's open the Shares page and create a cache-only share for our Xen images (you do have a cache disk right? if not pick an array disk and set up the share with only that disk included)."

 

I guess that I will start to boot into unRAID 6 tomorrow and setting up the Ubuntu VM according to the guide you mentioned.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

You can easily convert a vmdk to raw .IMG format using qemu-img

 

This isn't included with unraid but just boot from a live CD or something and do it.

 

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

 

Thanks Ironic.

 

Seems to be really easy. I guess that I can remove the VMWare Tools after the import from those exported images? Does XEN need any similar drivers?

 

I also guess that these are the steps I need to take (from Tom's guide):

• mkdir /mnt/cache/Xen (or another share that is sitting on a SSD I'm connecting to the mainboard SATA ports?)
  
• mkdir /mnt/cache/Xen/stacklet
  
• cd /mnt/cache/Xen/stacklet
  
• -->> import the Win7 & Ubuntu converted IMG files rather than wget ftp://ftp.stacklet.com/archive/x86-64/Ubuntu/13.04/ubuntu.13-04.xfce.x86-64.20130424.img.tar.bz2?
  
• ln -s /mnt/cache/Xen/stacklet /var
  
• xl create ubuntu.13-04.xfce.x86-64.20130424.pygrub.cfg -c
  
• vncserver :1

 

And lastl point that needs clarification: all of my 8 unRAID drives are connected to my AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 controller (passed-through in ESXi right now), hence there is not SATA port left for a cache drive. Not sure if XEN does see a drive that I would connect to the mainboard SATA port? This is the drive where I'm actually booting ESXi from.....

It depends on whether your guest is PV or HVM. This is explained here...

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31716.0

 

Arch for example does require specific PV drivers, or networking and other things doesn't work properly.

 

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/xen#Configuring_a_paravirtualized_.28PV.29_Arch_domU

 

Ubuntu's docs are here

 

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Xen

 

 

All getting clearer now, just had to try it myself....and discovered that Tom's mini guide is awesome. 

 

I booted into unRAID 6 and my server discovered the SSD drive that I had connected to the mainboard SATA port. I'm now using it as cache drive to be able to use it as described.

 

Next step is trying to export the existing VMDK's (ubuntu 13.10 & windows 7) to IMG's.

 

The only thing that's worrying me is the partiy speed at only 45 MB/sec. This was always double to speed. I might need to reconsider the disk settings?

 

Tunable (md_num_stripes): 1408
Tunable (md_write_limit): 768
Tunable (md_sync_window): 512