Question: OMV + KVM, Raid/Smart question

sloppyg · 6. Juni 2014

Hi All,

I've been using Freenas for a couple years and have been pretty happy with it, but think I'm going to rebuild my NAS using OMV as linux is a bit more familiar to me than BSD.

One option I really like the idea of is using KVM (possibly Proxmox?) and run OMV as a guest within it. This would allow me some flexibility in adding a tv headend guest later if needed without mucking around too much on the client that's running the NAS.

That said, I'm trying to figure out if there are any major drawbacks?

Mainly:
1 - Does SMART error reporting still working when OMV is a guest OS?
2 - Do power states/hard drive shutdowns still work properly as well?
3 - Alternatively.. I THINK I'm seeing that some people run OMV as the HOST OS for KVM guests? If this is possible, perhaps this would be better (as OMV would have direct access to everything instead of it being virtualized.

I will be installing this on modern hardware (ivy bridge) that supports VT-X (only hardware detail that I think may be relevant).

I appreciate any responses, and I apologize for my first post to be a question. Just wanting to understand any trade-offs before I start.

Note that I did google for this and found others asking similar questions, but no specific answers.

Thanks again!

ryecoaaron · 6. Juni 2014

I don't think the guest could do that things you want. Why not use OMV as the host with the virtualbox plugin for clients?

sloppyg · 6. Juni 2014

Thanks, exactly what I was looking for.

Just install OMV as usual and use VB plugin to host guests. No need to overcomplicate things

Cheers and thanks again for the quick response!

Karle · 7. Juni 2014

Hi !

at the moment i run a ubuntu server with a KVM VM (mail server).

I want to switch to OMV when version 1.0 is final.

Does it make sense to use Vbox for the VM (i think this woul be very easy) or is it complicated to install the stuff to run my KVM VM on Kralizec?

Greets karl

ryecoaaron · 7. Juni 2014

I ran my mail server on a virtualbox VM for a long time. So, yes it would work fine.

Karle · 7. Juni 2014

i always thougt that KVM has more performance than Vbox.

I do not know if that really matters in that case.

ryecoaaron · 8. Juni 2014

KVM is definitely faster but it doesn't matter if you have hardware that is fast enough. virtualbox is fast enough and stable.

joace · 8. August 2014

Hi OP, if you want to try OMV as a KVM guest, and expect the HDD power, spinning status reported correctly, you may need a HBA pass throughed in host, which means your CPU, motherboard, BIOS/EFI should support VT-d, not just VT-x functionality. I have tried OMV in Proxmox 3.1, but finally switched to VMware ESXi, as it works more well on my hardware.

Amuzed2pieces · 12. August 2014

I am planning on doing the same thing, but plan on running OMV on Promox under OpenVZ because its more transparent (Promox supports both KVM and OpenVZ), and is faster with Linux than KVM. Since both OMV and Promox run on Debian base (although different Kernels) it should be fairly seamless.

Why KVM and not OpenVZ?

See here: http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Co…r_and_Full_Virtualization

ppfdez · 14. August 2014

By my own knowledge and own tests, OpenMediaVault don´t runs properly on a PROXMOX OpenVZ container. It don´t manages NICs and other stuffs.
But it runs nicely on a PROXMOX VM (KVM).

Sodden · 16. August 2014

I'm running OMV on ProxmoxVE and so far I haven't noticed a difference with it being virtualized or running on bare metal. You need pci passthrough for SMART data. Other than that it's the same as running it the normal way.
I have 2 VM's constantly running along OMV, one win7 client and a ubuntu server. Proxmox is a lot more comfortable to manage than Virtualbox, the web UI is just more mature.

It all really boils down to what you want to do. If you don't use virtualization that often the Virtualbox plugin would be enough. But If you constantly try out new systems or need to prepare a VM for production use, Proxmox is the way to go. The only downside to Proxmox so far is it's lack of OVA/OVF support.

riquet78 · 29. Dezember 2014

Zitat von Sodden

I'm running OMV on ProxmoxVE and so far I haven't noticed a difference with it being virtualized or running on bare metal. You need pci passthrough for SMART data. Other than that it's the same as running it the normal way.
I have 2 VM's constantly running along OMV, one win7 client and a ubuntu server. Proxmox is a lot more comfortable to manage than Virtualbox, the web UI is just more mature.

It all really boils down to what you want to do. If you don't use virtualization that often the Virtualbox plugin would be enough. But If you constantly try out new systems or need to prepare a VM for production use, Proxmox is the way to go. The only downside to Proxmox so far is it's lack of OVA/OVF support.

Hi Sodden,
How do you make a pci passthrough for this

Having same issue with SMART and OMV Guest under Proxmox.
Actually I solved it by "qm set" my 4 hdd by-id and I used the scsi driver and ids (my hdd provide ata and scsi id !).
SMART does not work in ata, virtio, not enough ide ports to test.
But it works with SCSI hope this help...

Sodden · 29. Dezember 2014

Hey,

for pci passthrough just follow the official guide.
But I ended up passing the HDD's via device-by-id because pci passthrough was corrupting my data.

Thanks for the tip with SCSI I'll try that some time.

Jetzt mitmachen!