I am just getting started with vm, going to be using Proxmox.
Just playing around with it to see what I can learn from it.
PC that I am getting is Intel i7 6700 32gb ram 1tb ssd 240gb ssd this is in a Lenovo M900 sff case, do not have much room for this PC.
#1 Which ssd do I install Proxmox onto? From what I found out from Youtube is install to 240 gb and use the 1tb for storing vms and iso. Answer my own ? to show I have done some research as best as I can, just have not found clear info on my use case.
#2 What suggestions do you have to make the best use of storage?
Will not be using zfs for storage.
VM’s that I would like to have running
Pihole
Printserver
minecraft server
There will be more vms added when I learn more.
These will be running all the time.
When I need them will be running these.
Windows 10 to experiment on.
Linux will be running many different ones to see which one I like, Manjaro is my current favorite. My main PC that I use all the time is Windows 10.
#3 What to find out if a VM Linux is more secure for things like banking, or is a dedicated PC running Linux?
After this will look for what to do next that could be fun.
This is not a powerful setup just something to have fun with.
Can do all kinds of bad and good things to an OS and after just restore from snapshot, and start all over.
Please us the question number ie #1 #2 #3 when you answer the questions.
#4 What is an inexpensive and small footprint to add freenass storage about 5 - 6 drive bays?
If you need more info that is not provided please ask if it will help you answer the ? better Thanks
The smaller capacity one. Enable like 2GB of swap on it and leave about 40GB free for the SSD controller to use for TRIM, do not allocate them anywhere. It’s called overprovisioning (but on SSDs), this way, your SSD should last some time longer and it should always feel fast.
You could use LVM-Thin instead of LVM to overprovision your VMs. In this case, overprovisioning in virtualization means allocating more resources to VMs than your hardware actually has. If your 1TB drive gets full, all VM activity will stop.
Might also want to run LXC for certain tasks. Pihole and I think the print server won’t mind being ran in a container. Might be a stretch for minecraft server. Windows has to be a VM, no getting around it. Same for desktop VMs.
A dedicated PC, even something like a Raspberry Pi 400 would be more secure, because it doesn’t share memory with others. Until we get memory encryption, it is not very secure to share a device for that. Not that the chances of getting attacked are that high, but at the very least use a different browser that you only use for that sort of stuff and nothing else. If you want to take it a step further, use incognito and always manually log out when you are done’
What are you talking about, the 6700 can run a lot of stuff. I ran VMs on a Dell R210 II, which has a quad core intel xeon with HT, I think something between sandy bridge and haswell. Currently my homelab consists only of ARM SBCs (because I don’t use VMs, only containers - well, I do have a TR that functions more like a PC, I got a Windows VM with GPU passthrough I start whenever I feel like playing a game). I don’t recommend ARM SBCs unless you know linux well.
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Thanks for all the info.
Was going to use containers for pihole, printer, (minecraft, this will be a test)
Have not found any info to do printer on proxmox was going to put three different videos together to see if I can make it work. One video was putting printer server on a Pi.
My Banking is on a dedicated PC and it only does banking.
Pfsense is going to be on its own PC and a 4 port intel nic. The 4 port is an upgrade from a intel nic pci no express and a broadcom on board pc.
Pfsense is separate just in case I mess around and the proxmox pc is down, lots of videos talking about putting pfsense on proxmox, that may com later, after I stop breaking proxmox from learning curve.
Do you have any other suggestions of what is can put on vms?
Do you have a website that shows in detail how to set the ssd up?
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Most of tutorials will be either for debian or ubuntu, so you can use LXC containers with those. Proxmox is just the host. The GUI is pretty straight forward for setting up LXC, just download the container image, then create container.
On VMs not necessarily. I plan on running either XMPP, Matrix or RocketChat in containers, likely a mail server and a web server. The most common thing for homelabs is Jellyfin, which I would suggest you put in a VM. You might also want Samba (or something easier to use, like OpenMediaVault, which has a Samba management interface) to share your files on your network. Some people prefer nextcloud and Jay made videos on it.
No, just follow the proxmox instructions on how to set up the SSD in the Proxmox GUI with LVM-Thin. It should not be very hard. I don’t have access to proxmox right now, might start up my proxmox VM later and look up on how that would go.
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Thanks for the help and info