Please bare with me for I am new to having a server and a new user of Unraid.

So far I have unraid up and running and 2 shares / folders, both password protected for my wife and I.

My wife and I have our own computer both running windows 10 with Hyper V for virtualization and we are both able to access our folders from our own computers.

Unraid is on a older mini itx board with an atom processor with ion graphics.

 

What I would like to know is and if possible how to set up: is it possible to have a templates i believe they would be called of different operating systems, like Fedora for example and have my wife and I be able to open an instance/clone of the same operating system at same time on our own computers.

 

I want to be able to have operating systems set up on templates stored on Unraid so I only have to configure them one time.

I want to open a instance/clone of the template so that any changes to operating system gets erased as soon as vm is shut down.

I would need instance/clone to share a share/folder, this way if a document is made while using instance/clone we could save it to our share/folders

 

Just to clarify. Are you talking about something like PXE network boot?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_booting

 

You want to run a VM on your windows computers?

 

Or are you talking about running VMs on your Unraid server (a more usual subject of discussion on this forum). You can run VMs on Unraid and  remote operate them from your Windows computers, for example.

Thanks trurl, I am sorry for not being 100% clear 

I read the wiki and PXE network boot is sort of what I am looking to do, but with a VM template that opens up in Hyper V instead of a image of a operating system to a thin client. 

here is a link that I found last night that might help clear things up on the template side  https://www.altaro.com/hyper-v/templating-virtual-machines-with-hyper-v-manager/

 

I want to have the VM template stored on Unraid ( not sure if template has to be converted to a container or not) and have hyper v use that template to open a clone. 

 

Template 1 wife:

Fedora

settings (background etc.)

mapped folder to windows 10

mapped folder to wife's Unraid folder

her programs 

 

Template 2 Me:

Fedora

settings (background etc.)

mapped folder to windows 10

mapped folder to my Unraid folder

my programs 

 

if this set up is possible i would need guidance on mapping out a folder on vm os to a Unraid share/folder

and if template has to be converted to container I would need guidance with that as well.

Edited January 20, 20197 yr by SyberShot

I don't have any experience or advice on what you want, maybe someone else will.

 

I will note though that the word "container" as it is used on this forum relates to Docker. These containers can be thought of as small, self-contained, single application VMs that are managed by the Docker engine running on Unraid. I doubt that is the meaning of container you want. Is the word "container" usually used to discuss what you have in mind also?

I have a feeling that in the suggested scenario Unraid is merely acting as a networked file store.   All the Hyper-V aspects seem to be taking place on the client systems.

thanks trurl for the reply, when I said container I meant Docker, Sorry for any confusion. 

itimpi thanks for the reply, correct Hyper V is running on both our computers which are running windows 10

at the moment we are storing or vm's on said computer, but want to store them on the server instead. 

the server I believe is not powerful enough to run two or three them at a given time, so i am trying to find a way to store a template of the vm's on the server, to free up space on our main computers storage drives.

 

I may even be over thinking this, however I am not sure for this is my first physical server

Edited January 20, 20197 yr by SyberShot

2 minutes ago, SyberShot said:

when I said container I meant Docker

I don't see how Docker could relate to anything you want to do. As I mentioned, Docker containers are little VMs themselves, and they are running on Unraid.

29 minutes ago, SyberShot said:

thanks trurl for the reply, when I said container I meant Docker, Sorry for any confusion. 

itimpi thanks for the reply, correct Hyper V is running on both our computers which are running windows 10

at the moment we are storing or vm's on said computer, but want to store them on the server instead. 

the server I believe is not powerful enough to run two or three them at a given time, so i am trying to find a way to store a template of the vm's on the server, to free up space on our main computers storage drives.

 

I may even be over thinking this, however I am not sure for this is my first physical server

I was assuming that you would still run the VMs on your Windows 10 systems (I.e. not on the Unraid server).   What you would do is store the master copies of the VM images on the Unraid server.    To run a particular VM you would copy it to your Windows system and then start it up there?

 

i am guessing at this as I have never tried running VMs in the manner you seem to be suggesting.

Sorry again for any confusion Trurl, i did know if the template had to be added to a docker in order for a solution to my needs to work. 

I was probably overthinking when I asked if my template needed to be added to docker.

 

I am just basically trying to find a way to save storage on main computers by utilizing the server to store our vm's and content created on them or for them, for they take up a lot of storage on our main computers. If i had a more powerful server i would just install them on the server and run them from the server but my server is not powerful enough to do that.

 

again I am sorry for being a noob to all this.

 

 

6 minutes ago, SyberShot said:

Sorry again for any confusion Trurl, i did know if the template had to be added to a docker in order for a solution to my needs to work. 

I was probably overthinking when I asked if my template needed to be added to docker.

 

I am just basically trying to find a way to save storage on main computers by utilizing the server to store our vm's and content created on them or for them, for they take up a lot of storage on our main computers. If i had a more powerful server i would just install them on the server and run them from the server but my server is not powerful enough to do that.

 

again I am sorry for being a noob to all this.

 

 

It sounds as if you are just trying to use Unraid in its NAS mode to store files and free up storage on your local machines?    If so there should not be anything special you need to do.

20 minutes ago, itimpi said:

I was assuming that you would still run the VMs on your Windows 10 systems (I.e. not on the Unraid server).   What you would do is store the master copies of the VM images on the Unraid server.    To run a particular VM you would copy it to your Windows system and then start it up there?

 

i am guessing at this as I have never tried running VMs in the manner you seem to be suggesting.

thank you itimpi for the reply, you assumed correctly about running the VM's on our windows 10 systems. so if I store a master copy of the VM's image on the Unraid server, instead of copying it to windows system can I just have hyper V point to that image and open a new instance of it?

 

 

edit: 

Quote

It sounds as if you are just trying to use Unraid in its NAS mode to store files and free up storage on your local machines?    If so there should not be anything special you need to do.

exactly however before the edit within this post I want to know if I can just point hyper V to master and open a new instance or clone of it. this way i do not have to copy it to windows system and take up storage space, also by opening up a instance or clone (not sure of correct lingo) i do not have to worry about messing up master copy.

Edited January 20, 20197 yr by SyberShot