How do I mimic linodes virtual machines
I have purchase a used 12 core server from Ebay, for the purpose of setting up my development environment. I want to build out several virtual machines, so that it looks like my Linodes. I can then test my Docker Swarms, which I am only now learning, by essentially having a clone of my Linodes. Problem is, the server is on it's way and I know literally nothing about building the Hyper stuff. I would like to mimic Linode as close as possible. Does anybody know what they us to run the virtual machines on? As importantly, is it free/open source? Any other tips/gotchas/advice appreciated. Just a little starting point and I should be off and running. Thanks so much.
4 Replies
If you install a standard distribution (e.g., Ubuntu, Debian, etc.) on your server, you should be able to install the Xen hypervisor (I believe that's what Linode uses). However, given your problem domain, it doesn't really matter which hypervisor you use, IMHO.
Configuration is up to you… My knowledge stops there.
I would imagine that, if you use the Linode API, I would guess that it's proprietary. However, only Linode knows that for sure. Even if it was open-source, it might be beyond the point of diminishing returns to try to get it working. I would imagine Linode has plenty of stuff in it that’s unique to their platform. You'll have to ask them about this.
-- sw
stevewi, Thanks for the quick response. I will look into XEN and try to verify that is what Linode uses. And as you said, may it doesn't matter which flavor anyway.
In regard to the API; I'm not concerned with getting things that close. I just want to have my machines look the same so that my deployments can all be tested.
Something like:
Machine A: website 1
Machine B: website 2
Machine C: Mariadb
Machine D: mail server
and then manage the Docker packages with swarm. The idea being, that if it works here, it will work there. We'll see. Likely to be some explosions along the way.
0db
Hi,
Xen is phased out of Linode. I believe they are now using KVM, so you'll want to use Qemu to run your virtual machines. A few other notes.
Make sure you've enabled CPU virtualization in your bios. On the virtual machines, use paravirtualized ethernet and hard disks rather than full virtualization. This will closely mimic what Linode is doing with their setup, so far as I know.
If you want to run Qemu headless, you can do so, which would mimic Linode even more.
Good luck!
Blake
@tech10 --
Thanks… I was rapidly coming to that conclusion myself. I didn't remember that Xen had been phased out. Regardless, the rest of what I said is still true, you can install QEMU as a package on Debian/Ubuntu.
@0db --
How you would configure this to make it work is still a mystery to me… However, I would pay particular attention to how networking is set up… If you truly want to mimic Linodes, each VM will need:
- an IPv4 address;
- an IPv6 address (or maybe an IPv6 /64 block…you'll have to ask Linode -- I've only ever used a single address); and
- a "private network interface" (I don't use this so I have no idea what it's about…I only have one Linode so it does not have to cooperate with others).
-- sw