[6.3.5] VM usage - sleep and switching?

[DanielCoffey]

I am trying to get my head around how the user interface on an unRAID machine with VMs  is used when you want to change from one VM to another and how the machine handles sleep, both of the VM and the unRAID machine itself. Given the following configuration, could you answer any of the questions below please?

 

Hardware : i7 7700K with iGPU, one 780ti GPU, one monitor with multiple inputs, keyboard with sleep key (fn-F12), iPad

 

unRAID setup : NAS serving Plex stream, VM1 as lightweight Linux machine on virtual iGPU, VM2 as Windows 10 gaming machine on main GPU, only one active VM at a time.

 

Sleep rules : the unRAID machine must be available to serve Plex when asked but can spin down HDDs when not in use and should sleep using the sleep plugin after 30 mins when no Plex user and no VM user. The active VM should be able to sleep when not  in use for a short while or be hibernated if not needed for a long time.

 

Note : while the monitor has multiple inputs (HDMI from iGPU, DP from main GPU), I have to select them via a button on the monitor bezel and an onscreen menu. Monitor will wake to the last used input. I have space in the machine for a secondary physical GPU and also a spare input on the monitor.

 

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Situation A : Stop and Start usage. I am using VM1 for light browsing but get called away from the PC for a while. On a bare metal machine I would normally press the keyboard sleep key to force sleep, deal with the situation then return and press a key to wake. What do I do here to achieve the same result?

 

Situation B : Stop using for long interval. I am using VM1 for light browsing and get to the end of the day. I would like to sleep the VM and also allow unRAID to enter sleep after a while. I will not resume usage till the end of the day. Assuming unRAID is asleep when I return, what do I have to do to wake up both unRAID and the VM?

 

Situation C : Switch to gaming VM. I am using VM1 for browsing then decide to change over to the gaming VM2. What do I have to do in order to hibernate VM1 (so that it releases CPU cores and RAM) and then activate the gaming VM2?

 

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Thanks in advance for the help. If you think I should rearrange my machine or would benefit from different hardware (such as second discreet GPU or a KVM), feel free to make suggestions. This will be running on my main PC in the sig below where I have 4x8Tb drives and an unRAID USB ready to go. The SAS9201-8i will probably move over to this machine.

Edited September 10, 2017 by DanielCoffey

[DanielCoffey]

Just to bring this up again... I need some help understanding VMs and sleep.

 

Hardware : keyboard and mouse are on a USB PCIe card passed to the VM. The GPU is in its own IOMMU and solely for the VM.

 

I have noticed that I can start a Linux Mint VM in SeaBIOS (can't get past the blank screen in OVMF due to nVidia card) and if I press keyboard sleep (fn-F12 on my DAS Keyboard) then the VM immediately suspends itself and the screen goes blank. Looking at the iPad shows a yellow "paused" icon next to the VM. Pressing keys or buttons on the VM does not wake it at all. Clicking "resume" on the VM in unRAID appears to wake the VM in that I get the green "running" icon but the screen output from the VM stays off. Pressing buttons or mouse does nothing.

 

What is the expected behaviour here?

[saarg]

Sleep is not working when passing through devices as far as I know. You can put it to sleep, but not wake it up. 

[DanielCoffey]

That would be what I am seeing. Ah well... I will need to retrain my reflexes to not press the sleep button.