virtualbox.org

Hello All,

first post, so be easy on me
I would like to consolidate my webserver and my firewall into one box, and I have chosen a good old server with a fast processor for this purpose. The processor does not support VMX, so Xen (and vmware) were out of question, that's how I ended up here. I have heard about virtualbox before, and it always seemed to focus more on desktop virtualisation than on servers. I have just read that technically it is possible to set up (http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=7471) what I want but my real question would be whether it will be useable at all. Will it be reliable? Will it be fast? Does it help if I will have the same linux distro on both VMs and also on the host? Is there anything else to consider?

Well it really depends on your load and what resources you have.
I can tell you that I run A streamed down Debian 5 host and have (2) Ubuntu Servers running LAMP. I usually have around (2) months 24/7 with no interruptions then I get antsy and update it and reboot. (phpBB, MySql, Jabber, Squirrel mail, mediaWiKi, WordPress, and eGroupware split amoung them). Very reliable. The more load the more RAM is just about it. Processor power does not seem to matter a lot, but do try to run servers with no desktop because that does produce a performance hit.

i'd say look into openvz instead of its just going to be linux on linux and headless of course if its a webserver, you'll get 99% performance and no need for vt-x etc.

http://wiki.openvz.org/Main_Page

openvz even has preconfigured "templates" for centos, debian and ubuntu server: http://download.openvz.org/template/precreated/