You are educating me beyond belief. My friends ask me how i know so much about Synology NAS drives. All down to you Will and your incredible knowledge. Thank you.
Great vid! Building my first Proxmox machine changed my Homelab, and dramatically accelerated my learning. Being able to spin up a server on a whim, take snapshots as I build, backup services regularly, and so on simply changed the game. I'll have to try Xen Orchestra out at some point. Thank you for introducing it to us!
For me I really liked the backups that Xen Orchestra allowed you to use Plus I wanted to be able to manage multiple servers, and do things like clustering down the line. Stuff that I saw Xen being better at then Proxmox. From what I have seen proxmox is easier to get setup and running for simple setups. I will say Proxmox is also way easier for stuff like GPU passthrough then Xen is
Agreed, i like it a lot too. Just some weird things like network interfaces that stay put even while they are removed. Sometimes it does not shut down. The continues swapping of harddrive names, so your VM won't start, because it even swapped the system drive into the drive for the vm passed through to the vm. I virtualized PFsense, i'm happy with it, I want to try some failover with another virtualized pfsense on another physical server.
You have a separate virtual machine for Gitea. Is it necessary? I ran a regular Linux on my personal server (real PC, no VM) and I had two choices for Gitea: AUR and Docker. And it seems like even using Docker is waste of disk space, so I just installed the AUR version. Gitea has been running fine and it gets updated when I update the server.
So you backup your vm’s to file server?? I’ve thought about that and then backup file server to minio and sync minio to back blaze for offsite. (Xcpn - truenas -minio) 3 bareme tal platforms!!
Love the video. My organization is using XCP-ng in production and I like it a lot. We also use CEPH storage and DRBD. Do you have any videos on those technologies? Thanks, SpaceRex!!
I all of the content I've seen on XCP-NG, there is never any discussion about how _clients_ establish their graphical sessions with the hosted VM's from other physical machines (beyond SSH), and best practices around that. Is it simply a matter of using remote-control / virtual desktop software like VNC, RDP, or something else?
So this is going to be the same regardless of your hypervisor. But pretty much it’s all SSH/RDP/VNC At the end of the day you basically have a computer without a monitor you need to connect to
Is there a reason you are not applying your pool patches? 44 missing patches on VM02 and 15 on vm01. I always apply them when I see they are available.
I've actually virtualized my OpnSense firewall on my synology NAS, everything is great, but you have to have a backup gateway for when you update to something like 7.2. Otherwise you're dead in the water. Thankfully I have two gateways, an ubiquiti dream machine and Opnsense.
Can you make a video about making Synology Nas that come only with 1gb lan to 2.5gb or 5gb since u recommend it was a better option than than 10gbe route... I only found 10gb expansion cards from Synology . Also what do we need for an easy setup ? Thanks
Thanks Will, an interesting introduction... like @Stuart Bush i am most firmly an advocate / afficianado of Proxmox and would be equally interested to know what features of Xen have swayed your preference for Xen over Proxmox (presuming you've used it in earnest). In any event, I look forward to seeing a follow-up video, drilling a bit deeper into Xen Orchestra & XCP-NG
Great intro to Xen! I have only used EXSi, but looking for other options. XEN worries me a little in that it is web based. Is there any way to manage a local server if you don't have internet? Is the management page local? Also, it looks like they don't support any type of 2fa (but do support SAML which would be more useful for larger companies for sure).
So by internet do you mean LAN or internet? Its just a webpage hosted on the box itself! You can SSH in if you need to. I would not expose this page to the internet, only through VPN
Storage setup is something I really struggled with in my XCP-NG configuration. I can't find the best of all worlds like I want. I have 2 XCP-NG hosts. My first one is a Dell R720-XD with 2 SSDs in the back in raid1 for local storage and 12 4TB SAS 3.5" drives in a 5X RAID 10 + 2 dynamic spares. My PERC raid controller does not support drive pass through and raid is managed by the hardware. The raid 10+2 spares has really saved my butt because I have had at least 6 drives fail in the past year and a half and I get a flashing light on the front of the server telling me a drive is bad. Just pop in a new one and you are good to go. But what I hate about this setup is XCP-NG uses it as thick provisioned and snapshots just destroy the free space in no time. My 2nd host is a Dell R7910 that for all practical purposes is a Dell R730. I upgraded it with a R730 16 bay 2.5" SAS backplane kit which added 8 more 2.5" drives for a total of 16. I have a m.2 NVME addin card that has 2 drives in raid 1 for local storage. I have the PERC controller that does allow for drive passthrough in this host. I also added a Dell Powervault 24 bay 2.5" expansion unit to it and I have them almost full with a total of 32 15K 600GB SAS drives in a raid60 configuration. I configured the raid60 in XCP-NG with MDADM. It is all working well and XCP-NG uses thin provisioning which is nice but I worry I won't see an email alert if any drives fail. So far none have and I do have dynamic spares configured, but I feel like I need to always log into the XCP-NG terminal and manually check the drives. I also have a separate NAS server that XCP-NG backs everything up to. What does your storage configuration look like?
If its ONLY the file server (and not used for anything heavy like editing) I have spun up a OMV box for that before. But a lot of the time I use the company NAS for the backups for the VM's so it needs to be different
Xcp-ng is just a tool. It rather could suite your needs or not. You can do all the mentioned actions with xcp-ng, proxmox or vmware. But if you need vGPU this is not a suitable tool. If you have one or two machines and lacking resources proxmox with LXC could also be a better option.
More Xen videos please! Would be great to see one on running docker containers in Xen Orchestra
I wouldn't mind seeing some discussion on Self-service...
You are educating me beyond belief. My friends ask me how i know so much about Synology NAS drives. All down to you Will and your incredible knowledge. Thank you.
Thanks man!
Great vid! Building my first Proxmox machine changed my Homelab, and dramatically accelerated my learning. Being able to spin up a server on a whim, take snapshots as I build, backup services regularly, and so on simply changed the game.
I'll have to try Xen Orchestra out at some point. Thank you for introducing it to us!
Yeah! Having a solid hypervisor is just awesome!
@@SpaceRexWill can you compare it to proxmox?
Can you explain why you choose Xen vs Proxmox?
For me I really liked the backups that Xen Orchestra allowed you to use
Plus I wanted to be able to manage multiple servers, and do things like clustering down the line. Stuff that I saw Xen being better at then Proxmox.
From what I have seen proxmox is easier to get setup and running for simple setups.
I will say Proxmox is also way easier for stuff like GPU passthrough then Xen is
I'm hooked! GREAT VIDEO!
Agreed, i like it a lot too. Just some weird things like network interfaces that stay put even while they are removed. Sometimes it does not shut down. The continues swapping of harddrive names, so your VM won't start, because it even swapped the system drive into the drive for the vm passed through to the vm. I virtualized PFsense, i'm happy with it, I want to try some failover with another virtualized pfsense on another physical server.
You have a separate virtual machine for Gitea. Is it necessary? I ran a regular Linux on my personal server (real PC, no VM) and I had two choices for Gitea: AUR and Docker. And it seems like even using Docker is waste of disk space, so I just installed the AUR version. Gitea has been running fine and it gets updated when I update the server.
Nicely done sir. I agree! XCP-NG is Awesome!
Yeah its been absolutely awesome for me!
So you backup your vm’s to file server?? I’ve thought about that and then backup file server to minio and sync minio to back blaze for offsite. (Xcpn - truenas -minio) 3 bareme tal platforms!!
Love the video. My organization is using XCP-ng in production and I like it a lot. We also use CEPH storage and DRBD. Do you have any videos on those technologies? Thanks, SpaceRex!!
I all of the content I've seen on XCP-NG, there is never any discussion about how _clients_ establish their graphical sessions with the hosted VM's from other physical machines (beyond SSH), and best practices around that. Is it simply a matter of using remote-control / virtual desktop software like VNC, RDP, or something else?
So this is going to be the same regardless of your hypervisor. But pretty much it’s all SSH/RDP/VNC
At the end of the day you basically have a computer without a monitor you need to connect to
Great video, Xen Orchestra UI looks so slick.
If I may, you are a touch overexposed on your skin. I'd tone it down half a stop to a stop. Thanks!
Is there a reason you are not applying your pool patches? 44 missing patches on VM02 and 15 on vm01. I always apply them when I see they are available.
I've actually virtualized my OpnSense firewall on my synology NAS, everything is great, but you have to have a backup gateway for when you update to something like 7.2. Otherwise you're dead in the water. Thankfully I have two gateways, an ubiquiti dream machine and Opnsense.
Hi Will,
Excellent overview!
Can the hypervisor be installed directly on the hardware?
So without installing an Os first?
yes! So XCP-ng is the OS you install on the server!
@@SpaceRexWill is it possible for me to install XP-ng on a NAS - much like the Virtual Manager on Synology?
@@southernson709 no
Can you make a video about making Synology Nas that come only with 1gb lan to 2.5gb or 5gb since u recommend it was a better option than than 10gbe route... I only found 10gb expansion cards from Synology . Also what do we need for an easy setup ? Thanks
Thanks Will, an interesting introduction... like @Stuart Bush i am most firmly an advocate / afficianado of Proxmox and would be equally interested to know what features of Xen have swayed your preference for Xen over Proxmox (presuming you've used it in earnest).
In any event, I look forward to seeing a follow-up video, drilling a bit deeper into Xen Orchestra & XCP-NG
Yeah, Tom Lawrence has done one of these if you have seen his channel!
Great intro to Xen! I have only used EXSi, but looking for other options. XEN worries me a little in that it is web based. Is there any way to manage a local server if you don't have internet? Is the management page local? Also, it looks like they don't support any type of 2fa (but do support SAML which would be more useful for larger companies for sure).
page is local and you can always ssh into the hypervisor and do everything via terminal
So by internet do you mean LAN or internet? Its just a webpage hosted on the box itself! You can SSH in if you need to.
I would not expose this page to the internet, only through VPN
Storage setup is something I really struggled with in my XCP-NG configuration. I can't find the best of all worlds like I want. I have 2 XCP-NG hosts.
My first one is a Dell R720-XD with 2 SSDs in the back in raid1 for local storage and 12 4TB SAS 3.5" drives in a 5X RAID 10 + 2 dynamic spares. My PERC raid controller does not support drive pass through and raid is managed by the hardware. The raid 10+2 spares has really saved my butt because I have had at least 6 drives fail in the past year and a half and I get a flashing light on the front of the server telling me a drive is bad. Just pop in a new one and you are good to go. But what I hate about this setup is XCP-NG uses it as thick provisioned and snapshots just destroy the free space in no time.
My 2nd host is a Dell R7910 that for all practical purposes is a Dell R730. I upgraded it with a R730 16 bay 2.5" SAS backplane kit which added 8 more 2.5" drives for a total of 16. I have a m.2 NVME addin card that has 2 drives in raid 1 for local storage. I have the PERC controller that does allow for drive passthrough in this host. I also added a Dell Powervault 24 bay 2.5" expansion unit to it and I have them almost full with a total of 32 15K 600GB SAS drives in a raid60 configuration. I configured the raid60 in XCP-NG with MDADM. It is all working well and XCP-NG uses thin provisioning which is nice but I worry I won't see an email alert if any drives fail. So far none have and I do have dynamic spares configured, but I feel like I need to always log into the XCP-NG terminal and manually check the drives.
I also have a separate NAS server that XCP-NG backs everything up to.
What does your storage configuration look like?
At work we virtualize even the file servers. Most file servers tend to nearly sleep anyway.
If its ONLY the file server (and not used for anything heavy like editing) I have spun up a OMV box for that before. But a lot of the time I use the company NAS for the backups for the VM's so it needs to be different
What hardware are you running this on?
This is a old dell R630
that was a bit chaotic
Good info, thanks
Xen = enterprise UX; KVM = intermediate friendly UX; Promox = mainstream UX
It’s what I use….and I agree it’s great
good content , just the audio level is a bit low. you should increase average by about 3dB.
Great!
why not show how to get it and install it?
This video was mostly an overview of what it is. If people are interested I can make a how to
@@SpaceRexWill please do :) XO is more complex to setup compared to something like Proxmox so it would be great to learn from you.
@@SpaceRexWill yea a how-to will be useful.
Xcp-ng is just a tool. It rather could suite your needs or not. You can do all the mentioned actions with xcp-ng, proxmox or vmware. But if you need vGPU this is not a suitable tool. If you have one or two machines and lacking resources proxmox with LXC could also be a better option.
How many times is it it possible to say “easy” in 16 minutes? 😂
Sounds like you are drunk
do you get paid to be horrible?
How do you rate this compared to ESXi and ProxMox ?