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Thinking of doing Xen Hosting - Am I crazy?
I've just acquired a dedicated server with the following specs:
Intel Core i7-3930K Hexacore
RAM 64 GB DDR3 RAM
Hard disks 2 x 3 TB SATA 6 Gb/s HDD
7200 rpm (Software-RAID 1)
I'm thinking of installing Xen and doing a little VPS hosting for friends, family and maybe some clients.
I have some experience with Linux and servers, but from what I've seen the hosting business can be fraught with dangers and problems.
My Questions are:
- Is it worth doing considering the issues one might run into? Or should I stick to using other peoples VPS hosting?
- How much will I have to pay for the other hosting tools, SolusVM and WHMCompleteSolution for example? Any others needed?
- Are there any good tutorials, IRC channels, forums to help with ideal set ups?
- What do you use to monitor abuse?
Further information:
Thinking of keeping it very small and will probably never exceed 100 accounts. Perhaps that will make it more achievable.
Please shoot me down if you think it is a silly thing to do. Any criticisms or advice are very welcome.
Comments
I alway have the same thought too. But I never get started. I guess it's because I cannot take the risk.
2x 3 TB 7200 rpm (Software-RAID 1)
Don't think that will go so well.
Can you elaborate please?
Another hetzner server..
Okay lets get off the bat..
around 12$ for WHMCS (if you get it from LicensePal)
SolusVM with master + slave 12,50$
That should be good..
Oh if your using hetzner network: Assigning the routing for the IPs is a little tricky. I can help you if you need help.
You would be better of with 4 x 1TB on RAID10 (hardware)
Software RAID1 on Xen is not a good idea.
Great replies, thanks for that and especially for the offer of help! I did read that routing the IPs wasn't straightforward. I guess I can reconfigure my server to 4 x 1 TB at a price.
I should also mention, I'm going to learn as much as I can first, even if this should take 6 months of hard work before I get going. I'm not about to rush into anything.
I hate hate hate hate hate managing/monitoring Xen. If I could do it all over again I would only offer OpenVZ.
No KVM love?
Could you tell me why it's such a pain?
Because you have to SSH in to the hardware node to get any useful info. SolusVM > Xen = RUBBISH.
Same with KVM.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Xen doesn't run the VMs in the user land, its pretty hard to monitor the VPSs
KVM is easy to get info for.
Yeah, via SSH. Not with SolusVM (Which is the problem with both virt types)
Ah fair do's, although even in SSH KVM is easier then Xen.
It is and it isn't in my opinion. You can work wonders with xml files and pulling stats, but it gets a bit heavy when loads of domains are involved. Until somebody develops a decent panel that is KVM specific.
Virt-top and IOTop are lifesavers though
Ooh iotop, looks interesting? KVM is easier to manage in terms of memory I guess compared to Xen.
Yeah i think so too. I used to monitor CPU usage with just top (Checking the processes) until i found virt-top. I was shocked it wasn't included with the KVM module/SolusVM package.
IOTop has saved me a lot of hassle tracking down iowait
I prefer htop.
Nah, at the time KVM wouldn't run on our blades very well but Xen PV did. Xen PV still runs really nice, just hate it when I have to touch them (which is very rarely but if you followed our DC move I almost gave up on Xen that night).
Compared to OpenVZ it's just a nightmare. Monitoring software is almost non-existent and making some changes to a VPS is a chore.
SolusVM is horrible for anything other than the client-side of things. Even with OpenVZ you're better off using CLI for more accurate results. I never use SolusVM as a monitoring tool and always assume their reports/stats are incorrect (because I'm more right than wrong when I assume that).
SolusVM still does not support VirtIO (last time I checked), which makes KVM so much nicer.
virt-top is the best script out there for Xen IMO. Although the latest version doesn't show IO reads/writes (and the old version doesn't show network up/down). Also, iotop is nice but does it show which VPSs are using it? I thought iotop only showed processes on the DomU (or whatever the KVM equivalent is)?
Don't you use xentop? KVM Servers are a process remember so its easy to link them to a KVM domain
We should write an open-source replacement. We could call it Solace :-)
what about OpenSolace
I think you missed the pun.
I got the pun, don't worry. I guess you didn't get my pun.
Both very punny, lol
ya i can't wait until virtio on solus
xm-top isn't really easy to read compared to virt-top.
I need to remember to bring my dev server home to start testing my SolusVM replacement.
I think with 64GB of ram only having 7.2k drives is going to screw you over. Your %wa will go up in no time.
You have non enterprise hard drives ... plus 2 harddrives ... bottle neck. You got the wrong server.