kaptk2's blog

OpenVZ and KVM are Linux based virtualization programs, both are part of the Proxmox VE distribution. The goal of this article is to provide some knowledge on moving physical machines to virtual containers (OpenVZ) or fully virtualized machines (KVM). This article is not specific to Proxmox VE and the principles outlined and scripts provided should work on "stock" KVM or OpenVZ machines with a few minor changes to path settings.

Proxmox VE is an example of the end product being greater than the sum of parts. All the technologies used to build Proxmox VE are not unique however putting them all together and adding a nice interface is. Overall I am very impressed with the ease of use and quality of the software. The flexibility that is provided by virtualization plus the ease of administration provided by Proxmox VE is a great combination for anybody looking to use virtualization.

Backups are something that are generally ignored until they are needed. Having good backups will save you much time and headache and maybe even money. Having had backups fail before and having to pay thousands of dollars to recover the data is an experience that I hope to never have again.

Virtualbox (http://www.virtualbox.org/) is a virtualzation platform. I use it to test out new Linux distributions as well as to run some limited tests of new software for customers. It can run on Linux or windows hosts and can run quite a few guest operating systems. Installation in Ubuntu is a snap. First enable the VirtualBox repo if you don't want to use the open source edition. Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list. I added this to mine for gutsy:

deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian gutsy non-free


FreeNX is the free open source version of nomachine.org NX software. It is a VNC like program that tunnels over SSH and has compression to run well and at high resolutions over even slow internet links. This program has many advantages over the VNC protocol. The biggest is security, it is built into the program from the ground up. All connections are encrypted and tunneled over SSH by default with FreeNX. FreeNX is also faster by a huge factor over VNC this is a real plus on slow connections.

As many of you know Zap2it has stopped providing free scheduling infomation for MythTV users. The solution that the developers of MythTV came up with was to help start a company called Schedules Direct (http://www.schedulesdirect.com) to provide the data. According to the Schedules Direct website: