Discussion Home networking with vmware esx?

[jM2.me]

Another router of mine is about to be thrown out of the windows.
Lag spikes, speed slow downs and overheating. Of course with around 15 devices connected it would overheat.

Then I had an idea how to setup home network with vmware esx with couple VMs running.

The current home server is running win2k8r2 with couple harddrives for storage. It's a i7 8GB system with system ssd. Two nic cards. Perfect for running vmware esx.

So the plan. Install vmware esx, plug in two ethernet cables for public and private network.
Install DD-WRT as VM with public adapter connected and private network connected.
If I am not wrong, it should act as a router for my home network. Then I would setup windows VM for home storage.

I am not sure if this is really usable configuration because of all possible slow downs.

Discuss? Comment?

Offtopic:
Since ESX allows direct PCI-E device mapping, I thought about putting my spare 560Ti and use it with VM. You see where I am going with this. How much of lag should I expect if using this in home network with duples 1g?

[NoPeace]

Why do you want to run VMWare and have that do the routing for you? You are already running 2k8, which is a server OS. Just enable NAT and DHCP function within the OS and it can then be served as a router. Now just get a good commercial switch if you don't already have one and attach your server to it. If you want wireless then you can add in wireless cards and set it to act as an access point, though it might just be simpler and easier to buy a very good commercial grade wireless router.... Much easier to set up wireless on that.

NoPeace - out

[jM2.me]

Why do you want to run VMWare and have that do the routing for you? You are already running 2k8, which is a server OS. Just enable NAT and DHCP function within the OS and it can then be served as a router. Now just get a good commercial switch if you don't already have one and attach your server to it. If you want wireless then you can add in wireless cards and set it to act as an access point, though it might just be simpler and easier to buy a very good commercial grade wireless router.... Much easier to set up wireless on that.

NoPeace - out

More visual representation of plan. Windows 2k8r2 is good for nat dhcp but i would love to have a linux web server as well as mac os VM for science. Should utilize server pretty good.
I am just unsure how reliable this setup will be.

Plus win2k8r2 networking is kinda too much for me to setup

[NoPeace]

Umm... Did you just say you want a Linux Web Server and that Windows Server 2008R2 Networking is too much? You do realize that Linux is much harder to set up, configure, and maintain then Windows? Windows is stupidly easy, it's right on the Welcome screen.

Do you want to install NAT?
--> Okay --> DONE

Simple as that, just a few clicks and make sure the network cards are configured. Doesn't take long at all and is painlessly simple. Linux on the other had varies greatly by the distribution you are using (SLES is great at being very friendly).

If you want a web server then just run it on Windows. IIS is built right on in, easy to setup (though IIS7 has way to many option for my simple mind XD), and has tons of resources to use. If you really want an Apache server then you can just run it on windows also, the same way you would run it on Linux.

Virtualization is great if you have a very powerful cluster that you want to dole out it's power to different users and scale it to their needs. For a single user it's pretty much unnecessary and you do get a reduction of performance whenever you are running virtual environments, both in the virtual environment and the system as a whole due to all the overhead and time sharing. It's always best to have a single machine on it's own then to split up tasks on it in different virtual environments.

Though if you don't stuff for testing purposes then virtual machines are great for that. But that evolves you constantly installing operating systems or needed a large network to test stuff. For final end use it's best just to use a dedicated machine. Ie, I use VMs to make test networks to test out configurations and services before I implement them on a physical machine. I'd never run VMs to do actual work unless I'm required to i.e. I have a script that runs a windows xp client on my server, log in, and run my antivirus from the VM to scan my server's drive (that way I can run AVG Free and have it scan a server which it doesn't normally allow) then afterwards have it close down.

NoPeace - out

[jM2.me]

Umm... Did you just say you want a Linux Web Server and that Windows Server 2008R2 Networking is too much? You do realize that Linux is much harder to set up, configure, and maintain then Windows? Windows is stupidly easy, it's right on the Welcome screen.

Do you want to install NAT?
--> Okay --> DONE

Simple as that, just a few clicks and make sure the network cards are configured. Doesn't take long at all and is painlessly simple. Linux on the other had varies greatly by the distribution you are using (SLES is great at being very friendly).

If you want a web server then just run it on Windows. IIS is built right on in, easy to setup (though IIS7 has way to many option for my simple mind XD), and has tons of resources to use. If you really want an Apache server then you can just run it on windows also, the same way you would run it on Linux.

Virtualization is great if you have a very powerful cluster that you want to dole out it's power to different users and scale it to their needs. For a single user it's pretty much unnecessary and you do get a reduction of performance whenever you are running virtual environments, both in the virtual environment and the system as a whole due to all the overhead and time sharing. It's always best to have a single machine on it's own then to split up tasks on it in different virtual environments.

Though if you don't stuff for testing purposes then virtual machines are great for that. But that evolves you constantly installing operating systems or needed a large network to test stuff. For final end use it's best just to use a dedicated machine. Ie, I use VMs to make test networks to test out configurations and services before I implement them on a physical machine. I'd never run VMs to do actual work unless I'm required to i.e. I have a script that runs a windows xp client on my server, log in, and run my antivirus from the VM to scan my server's drive (that way I can run AVG Free and have it scan a server which it doesn't normally allow) then afterwards have it close down.

NoPeace - out

I tried setting up Windows 2k3 to act as a router (DHCP and NAT). It was piece of cake. But now setting it up with 2k8r2 is pain in the ass. Added roles, configured cards, still nothing. Checked couple documentations that I could find. Followed exactly still managed to mess something up. Either internet is not shared or server doesnt assign ip addresses or issues with dns server. After couple tries I gave up :\

Ubuntu was tricky to setup but after following guides I had network up. And DD-WRT x86 is just no brainer, works out of box.

I have long work weak and maybe will give 2k8 another shot during weekends. Until then tried the setup in esxi environment



Host is running vnware workstation and workstation is running win7, mac os x, and esxi. Then esxi runs ddwrt win7 and freenas. Not sure how to show exact setup but its similar to what real use would look. Might do some bench marking tomorrow.

Did a quick speedtest test and speeds are exactly the same but ping is couple ms longer on VM.
Dont hhave time to test network performance.

peace

[Ekkie]

the base idea is sound but routing/nas under 2k8(r2) is a pain for uneducated admins even if they have worked with the OS before.
linux is a better choice as there are more documentations and step-by-step tutorial for (FW-) distributions like IPCop which i use within my perimeter network to route Inet traffic in and out of my Lan.
I would put the webserver into a Vlan-based DMZ(using an old cat 2950 12 port) and routed true my ipcop as i dont use it publicly just to play Ogame or host my webdesign tests, my movieDB and similar stuff.

So if u intent to provide services with internet access i recommend a separation of your networks as for the visualization part of your plan are you intending to use only virtual workstation or are there physical ones as well?
TBH i've worked with Hyper-V so far but i guess ESX has similar features so if there are just virtual ones work with the internal network settings and separate them using those features.