With free esxi over, not shocking bit sad, I am now about to move away from a virtualisation platform i’ve used for a quarter of a century.

Never having really tried the alternatives, is there anything that looks and feels like esxi out there?

I don’t have anything exceptional I host, I don’t need production quality for myself but in all seriousness what we run at home end up at work at some point so there’s that aspect too.

Thanks for your input!

  • vegetaaaaaaa@lemmy.worldEnglish
    171·
    9 months ago

    /thread

    This is my go-to setup.

    I try to stick with libvirt/virsh when I don’t need any graphical interface (integrates beautifully with ansible [1]), or when I don’t need clustering/HA (libvirt does support “clustering” at least in some capability, you can live migrate VMs between hosts, manage remote hypervisors from virsh/virt-manager, etc). On development/lab desktops I bolt virt-manager on top so I have the exact same setup as my production setup, with a nice added GUI. I heard that cockpit could be used as a web interface but have never tried it.

    Proxmox on more complex setups (I try to manage it using ansible/the API as much as possible, but the web UI is a nice touch for one-shot operations).

    Re incus: I don’t know for sure yet. I have an old LXD setup at work that I’d like to migrate to something else, but I figured that since both libvirt and proxmox support management of LXC containers, I might as well consolidate and use one of these instead.

    • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
      3·
      9 months ago

      Ooh, didn’t know libvirt supported clusters and live migrations…

      I’ve just setup Proxmox, but as it’s Debian based and I run Arch everywhere else, then maybe I could try that… thanks!

      • vegetaaaaaaa@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        9 months ago

        In my experience and for my mostly basic needs, major differences between libvirt and proxmox:

        • The “clustering” in libvirt is very limited (no HA, automatic fencing, ceph inegration, etc. at least out-of-the box), I basically use it to 1. admin multiple libvirt hypervisors from a single libvirt/virt-manager instance 2. migrate VMs between instances (they need to be using shared storage for disks, etc), but it covers 90% of my use cases.
        • On proxmox hosts I let proxmox manage the firewall, on libvirt hosts I manage it through firewalld like any other server (+ libvirt/qemu hooks for port forwarding).
        • On proxmox I use the built-in template feature to provision new VMs from a template, on libvirt I do a mix of virt-clone and virt-sysprep.
        • On libvirt I use virt-install and a Debian preseed.cfg to provision new templates, on proxmox I do it… well… manually. But both support cloud-init based provisioning so I might standardize to that in the future (and ditch templates)
        • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
          31·
          9 months ago

          LXD/Incus provides a management and automation layer that really makes things work smoothly essentially replacing Proxmox. With Incus you can create clusters, download, manage and create OS images, run backups and restores, bootstrap things with cloud-init, move containers and VMs between servers (even live sometimes) and those are just a few things you can do with it and not with pure KVM/libvirt. Also has a WebUI for those interested.

          A big advantage of LXD is the fact that it provides a unified experience to deal with both containers and VMs, no need to learn two different tools / APIs as the same commands and options will be used to manage both. Even profiles defining storage, network resources and other policies can be shared and applied across both containers and VMs.

          Incus isn’t about replacing existing virtualization techniques such as QEMU, KVM and libvirt, it is about augmenting them so they become easier to manage at scale and overall more efficient. It plays on the land of, let’s say, Proxmox and I can guarantee you that most people running it today will eventually move to Incus and never look back. It woks way better, true open-source, no bugs, no holding back critical fixes for paying users and way less overhead.

        • mlaga97@lemmy.mlaga97.spaceEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          they need to be using shared storage for disks

          You can perform a live migration without shared storage with libvirt

    • anamethatisnt@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      9 months ago

      I use cockpit and my phone to start my virtual fedora, which has pcie passthrough on gpu and a usb controller.

      Desktop:

      Mobile:

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        We use cockpit at work. It’s OK, but it definitely feels limited compared to Proxmox or Xen Orchestra.

        Red Hat’s focus is really on Openstack, but that’s more of a cloud virtualization platform, so not all that well suited for home use. It’s a shame because I really like Cockpit as a platform. It just needs a little love in terms of things like the graphical console and editing virtual machine resources.

    • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
      33·
      9 months ago

      Re incus: I don’t know for sure yet. I have an old LXD setup at work that I’d like to migrate to something else, but I figured that since both libvirt and proxmox support management of LXC containers, I might as well consolidate and use one of these instead.

      Maybe you should consider consolidating into Incus. You’re already running on LXC containers why keep using and dragging all the Proxmox bloat and potential issues when you can use LXD/Incus made by the same people who made LXC that is WAY faster, stable, more integrated and free?

      • MDKAOD@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        9 months ago

        Hey look, it’s the Incus guy. Every time this topic comes up, you chime in and roast Proxmox and it potential issues with a link go a previous comment roasting Proxmox and it’s potential issues and at no point go into what those potential issues are outside of the broad catch all term of ‘bloat’.

        I respect your data center experience, but I wish you were more forward with your issues instead of broad, generalized terms.

        As someone with much less enterprise experience, but small business it administration experience, how does Incus replace ESXi for virtual machines coming from the understanding that “containerization is the new hotness but doesn’t work for me” angle?