Best VirtualBox host

[Perryg]

Solaris the only OS that will let you run multiple 64-bit VBox Guests concurrently with bridged networking

Can you tell me how you base this statement?

[susu.exp]

Solaris the only OS that will let you run multiple 64-bit VBox Guests concurrently with bridged networking

Can you tell me how you base this statement?

I suppose I should have more properly said, "Solaris the only OS that will let you run multiple 64-bit VBox Guests concurrently with bridged networking irrespective of the Host's physical NICs...".

One can do that with VBox instances installed in Solaris Zones with Crossbow vNICs and IPMP.

Perhaps it's possible in BSD or Linux Containers? Difficult to confirm in the wild.

[Perryg]

Well perhaps you should try it before you sate that it does not work. You wouldn't want to give the wrong impression.

[susu.exp]

Being the first to do something like that is always a chore. I don't know if I have the skillset to pull something like multiple 64-bit Guests with multiple bridged NICs on BSD, but I do know I have this 64-bit Debian Squeeze, OEL6.3-64, Win 7-64, and Win 8-64 along with 32-bit Turnkey Linux Drupal, Wordpress, Tomcat appliances, and a Mint 12 32-bit on this 8-core Solaris server with 32gb ECC RAM. Every Guest has at least 2 bridged NICs, since it's easier to do subnetting with Crossbow vNICs than to keep track of VLANs.

Moreover, since the RAIDz pool the Zone filesystems reside on is L2ARC'ed on a 240-GB Intel 520 SSD, 30 seconds is a long boot time for any of my Guests (or iSCSI targets, for that matter).

All this is out-of-the-box Solaris functionality. Default Solaris commands make short work of it all.

[Perryg]

Nothing wrong with Solairs but you can do the same in Linux. Just pointing out that one should never say it can not be done until you try it. Remember someone may see your comment and think it's correct.

Personally I have various *Nix, and even Windows hosts that can just as easily serve up multiple guests all using Bridged with no issue.

[susu.exp]

Nothing wrong with Solairs but you can do the same in Linux. Just pointing out that one should never say it can not be done until you try it. Remember someone may see your comment and think it's correct.

Personally I have various *Nix, and even Windows hosts that can just as easily serve up multiple guests all using Bridged with no issue.

But your Bridged NICs are limited to your # of Physical NICs, are they not? Can you bridge >1 Guest NIC to a physical NIC? It's almost effortless in Solaris -- type out another vNIC, and Bridge.


And is ZFS on Linux really 'ready for prime time' at this point, especially with Linux Containers and its file systems?







As you can tell by my Guests, I've no problem with Linuxes. But pack a lunch and roll up your sleeves, or check out Solaris as your multiple VBox Host if you're not a practicing software engineer (or even if you are).

[Perryg]

But your Bridged NICs are limited to your # of Physical NICs, are they not?

No

Can you bridge >1 Guest NIC to a physical NIC?

Yes.

[susu.exp]

But your Bridged NICs are limited to your # of Physical NICs, are they not?

No

Can you bridge >1 Guest NIC to a physical NIC?

Yes.

Just as long as you don't want to run more than 1 of the Bridged Guests at the same time, you've cleverly approximated Solaris. And it wasn't difficult at all. I stand corrected.

[Perryg]

I have no idea where you are getting all this rubbish. I am running 5 Bridged guests right now on this workstation.
If you are not going to try it then it is pointless for us to carry on this conversation. It works and works well. Enough said.

[susu.exp]

I have no idea where you are getting all this rubbish. I am running 5 Bridged guests right now on this workstation.
If you are not going to try it then it is pointless for us to carry on this conversation. It works and works well. Enough said.

I may need to file a bug then, because I can't bridge >1 Guest NIC at a time to a given physical NIC on Linux or Windows hosts. If 1 Guest is bridged to the 1 wired NIC on my Windows laptop, I can't bridge another Guest to that same wired NIC and run it at the same time.

[Perryg]

You are in the minority then. Everyone using VirtualBox does this every day. A very few have an issue but this usually is Windows Host and they need to adjust a setting in their registry. It's all in the book. See trouble shooting in the manual.

Anyway this topic has gone so far off track it is not worth keeping open.