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**TeleFragger** · November 2, 2010, 06:40 AM

Originally posted by Moskus View Post

1. Where do you draw the line?
I mean; it's very easy to add a new virtual machine for every "feature" you want, like separate machines for HomeSeer, SageTV, FTP-server, WebcamXP/ZoneMinder, and so on, but it has to stop somewhere?

why does it have to stop? if you have a beefy enough box.. then you can run whatever you wish...

you dont "Have" to run a box for each of what you listed.. you could put some together.. or you dont.. that is the beauty of vm....just draw up what you want... another nice thing of individuals.. is if you find something out there that you may want to use instead of what you are now.. you dont have to worry about multiples on one box...

2. How do you configure virtual Windows machines?
I'm thinking about using Windows XP as I consider it the most stable Windows (except for Win7) using the least resources. But which services do you disable? Would you run antivirus software on the VMs?

well you would run it like you normally would on a desktop... i disable computer browser, alert, windows wireless config and a few others... this is another what you feel you need....
now on AV... you dont HAVE to have AV on each machine.. but remember if you do any surfing or remoting in and using that box.. it can become easily infected... now even if you dont rdp into it.. it can still be infected...

3. What's really the difference between "bridged", "host only" and "NAT"?

I forget which is which off the top of my head (no coffee yet) but one.. i believe bridged, allows you to use the NIC and give it its own IP address as if it were a true computer and not a VM.. I believe NAT (network address translation???) is where your VM would utilize your IP address on the host and do all its networking... not good for say a web server.. but would be fine for internet browsing.... i believe that is it.. i never use NAT..

4. How can I connect USB-devices to the virtual machine? When I press the USB device icon the "Connect" option is grayed out...

ok so you take this thing called a usb cable end and plug it into the computer... hah had to do it... just messing with ya...
you stated running vm server... from what i remember when i was using it and same as workstation... you plugin the device... DO NOT LOAD DRIVERS IN THE HOST OS!!!! up in the menu you will find where you will see all devices.. place a check next to USB device and viola...

example..
i plugged my rfx 433 unit in... loaded drivers in my host and couldnt get it to work in the VM... said resources in use or something like that.. then i uninstalled the drivers on the host... put a check in the menu.. then viola.. it said new hardware found... loaded drivers in vm and done...

5. Is there anything else I need to know about VMware Server 2.0? Any do's or dont's?

do - have fun
dont - back down
sorry another had to.. really not everything will work in VM server... most will... that is why some of the guys got the serial to IP and all that... pretty sure most usb/serial and stuff work.. i even had a 2 port serial card working.....

6. Is there anything else I'm forgetting?

dont think so... i wouldnt jump into the fire and try to take down your old machine.... just get everything running and make sure you can get all drivers working before you get too deep in and cant get it working...

i tried esxi (also free) but the cctv card wouldnt work.. so backed off of my vm plans for now.. waiting for esxi 5 (supposed to handle better support for pci cards)

**dmurphy** · November 2, 2010, 07:33 AM

Originally posted by Moskus View Post

:

1. Where do you draw the line?
I mean; it's very easy to add a new virtual machine for every "feature" you want, like separate machines for HomeSeer, SageTV, FTP-server, WebcamXP/ZoneMinder, and so on, but it has to stop somewhere?

Remember each VM will add a 10% or so penalty in terms of performance. i.e. for each program you run in a VM it will have an overhead that slows it down relative to the same program running directly on the host.

Given the issues lots of us are having with HS delays in the Beta versions of the tool slowing things down may not be something you can afford to do..

D.

**heatvent** · November 2, 2010, 09:46 AM

Moskus,

A few comments on your plan (as I have fiddled with most of this).

* When you install WHS, don't add a bunch of drivers and programs - you are asking for trouble. Keep it simple. Install the base OS and just and absolutely necessary drivers (LAN may be the only one, don't do video, just use the generic one that installs).

* Don't put SageTV on a VM! The WHS Sage version works excellent but you will need to go with extenders. I use mine with the HVR-2250 and it uses very little resources and the drivers work fine. Not sure if the Hauppauge USB drivers work with WHS. If you can swing it the HVR-2250 is a nice setup and supports Sage hardware acceleration so resource needs are light.

* I would suggest a separate drive for SageTV that is not part of the WHS pool. I personally don't want that much activity on my data drives so I keep them separate. Easy to do, just install the drive AFTER you have installed WHS and don't add it to the pool. If you install the drive before, WHS will automatically format and add the drive.

* I would recommend XP for the reasons you noted for the VM.

* If you can dump the Belkin USB hub. The connection software is lacking and if I remember right, it doesn't autoconnect upon boot. The Silex 3000G may be a better option for USB.

* Bridged vs NAT - briged will give the VM a separate IP address as if it were another physical machine. NAT shares the host IP address. I used bridged in the past.

Finally, let me know how the video server boxes work. Haven't seen those before. What kind of video quality do you get?

**billt** · November 2, 2010, 10:22 AM

Originally posted by heatvent View Post

Moskus,
* If you can dump the Belkin USB hub. The connection software is lacking and if I remember right, it doesn't autoconnect upon boot. The Silex 3000G may be a better option for USB.

I use the Belkin USB hub on an XP home netbook and it works fine and reconnects reliably on startup. It has a usb soundcard (for Homeseer announcements, an RFXcom USB interface and a USBUIRT on it and it hasn't given any problems. I don't see why it shouldn't work just as well in a virtual machine. (Mind you, I'm still at a loss to see why anyone wants to virtualise a Homeseer machine, apart from "because I can".)

**heatvent** · November 2, 2010, 10:35 AM

I must have just had troubles with mine. Now that I am thinking of it, I may have been trying to use it with WHS and the issue was trying to get it to work reliable installed as a service. Which also reminds me of what Moskus is not thinking of.

WHS likes to run as a service, i.e. noone is logged into the system. You will either need to (1) use use the M$ powertoy TweakUI to autologon a user to start the VM or (2) find some way to have VMWare run as a service. Perhaps this is simple with the Server edition.

**Moskus** · November 2, 2010, 11:08 AM

Thanks for all your answers, Telefragger.

Originally posted by TeleFragger View Post

DO NOT LOAD DRIVERS IN THE HOST OS!!!!

Argh! Keep forgetting about that...

Originally posted by dmurphy View Post

Remember each VM will add a 10% or so penalty in terms of performance. i.e. for each program you run in a VM it will have an overhead that slows it down relative to the same program running directly on the host. Given the issues lots of us are having with HS delays in the Beta versions of the tool slowing things down may not be something you can afford to do..

My machine is not powerfull at all. I have one running for HStouch, and I'll add another for HomeSeer.

Originally posted by heatvent View Post

Moskus,

A few comments on your plan (as I have fiddled with most of this).

* When you install WHS, don't add a bunch of drivers and programs - you are asking for trouble. Keep it simple. Install the base OS and just and absolutely necessary drivers (LAN may be the only one, don't do video, just use the generic one that installs).

* Don't put SageTV on a VM! The WHS Sage version works excellent but you will need to go with extenders. I use mine with the HVR-2250 and it uses very little resources and the drivers work fine. Not sure if the Hauppauge USB drivers work with WHS. If you can swing it the HVR-2250 is a nice setup and supports Sage hardware acceleration so resource needs are light.

* I would suggest a separate drive for SageTV that is not part of the WHS pool. I personally don't want that much activity on my data drives so I keep them separate. Easy to do, just install the drive AFTER you have installed WHS and don't add it to the pool. If you install the drive before, WHS will automatically format and add the drive.

* I would recommend XP for the reasons you noted for the VM.

* If you can dump the Belkin USB hub. The connection software is lacking and if I remember right, it doesn't autoconnect upon boot. The Silex 3000G may be a better option for USB.

* Bridged vs NAT - briged will give the VM a separate IP address as if it were another physical machine. NAT shares the host IP address. I used bridged in the past.

Finally, let me know how the video server boxes work. Haven't seen those before. What kind of video quality do you get?

Thanks for your input, heatvent!

The idea about putting SageTV on a VM came to me when I began thinking of codecs, drivers and whatnot I've installed to make SageTV work like I want it to. And there's what I'd do about that when I'm installing WHS2 which is 64-bit only. But I can burn that bridge when I get to it...

I've only had the Belkin USB hub for a few hours, so I can't really say if it's stable or not, but it seems rather good to me. And it's available for purchase here i Norway, I haven't found the Silex 3000G in any stores yet.

I'll let you know about the image quality (and framerate) for the IP9100As when they arrive sometime next week (hopefully).

Originally posted by billt View Post

I use the Belkin USB hub on an XP home netbook and it works fine and reconnects reliably on startup. It has a usb soundcard (for Homeseer announcements, an RFXcom USB interface and a USBUIRT on it and it hasn't given any problems. I don't see why it shouldn't work just as well in a virtual machine. (Mind you, I'm still at a loss to see why anyone wants to virtualise a Homeseer machine, apart from "because I can".)

Thanks, billt! I'm also planning to use a RFXCOM usb interface and USB-UIRT with it. Great to know that it's working!

My main reasons to start virtualizing is:
1. The easist backup and restore process
2. Fewer problems with hardware and device drivers (and 64-bit compability when WHS2 arrives) as most of the equipment is IP-based.
3. The virtual machine can actually be moved from one physical machine to another if necessary. I'm striving to get a 100% uptime for HomeSeer.

The world is moving to 64-bit. And that's fantastic!
But it's a slow transittion...

**Ltek** · November 3, 2010, 01:02 AM

Sounds like you want to use a shotgun to kill an ant. The computer you will need to run several VM will be 5x the power needed just to run it all locally. IMO (having done a lot with VMware for my profession), you will be spending a ton of time and money on something that will not provide you any real world benefit.

If you are doing this for 'fun' and/or a learning experience... go for it. Otherwise, you will find video in a VM is bad (you cannot use native video card drivers), vm backup recovery is a non-issue (use RAID & system backups to ensure integrity & recoverability) unless you are constantly hosing your setup - a totally different problem fixed simply by just not breaking things.

I almost did not even post since you started off my saying "keep this simple" regarding a subject that is very complicated (virtualization) and you even asked basic questions that tell me you don't understand, at all, how vmware works. It is complicated by nature.

I'm not trying to be mean, just honest. If you want to learn vmware, cool, do it... if you want to have a stable, easy to use, easy to maintain, HA/media center... forget virtualization.

KISS method is always best.

**Moskus** · November 3, 2010, 03:58 AM

Originally posted by Ltek View Post

Sounds like you want to use a shotgun to kill an ant. The computer you will need to run several VM will be 5x the power needed just to run it all locally. IMO (having done a lot with VMware for my profession), you will be spending a ton of time and money on something that will not provide you any real world benefit.

If you are doing this for 'fun' and/or a learning experience... go for it. Otherwise, you will find video in a VM is bad (you cannot use native video card drivers), vm backup recovery is a non-issue (use RAID & system backups to ensure integrity & recoverability) unless you are constantly hosing your setup - a totally different problem fixed simply by just not breaking things.

I almost did not even post since you started off my saying "keep this simple" regarding a subject that is very complicated (virtualization) and you even asked basic questions that tell me you don't understand, at all, how vmware works. It is complicated by nature.

I'm not trying to be mean, just honest. If you want to learn vmware, cool, do it... if you want to have a stable, easy to use, easy to maintain, HA/media center... forget virtualization.

KISS method is always best.

I'm not sure I agree with you. I'm not planning to run video intensive software on the server(s) (why should I?), backup of host OS is an issue (repeat after me: RAID is not backup!) at least for me until WHS2/Vail arrives, and "not breaking things" is the plan of course, but not always an option.

You're right about me not knowing much about VMware. But I didn't know anything about HomeSeer either when I started using it, but should that stop me? The world is virtualizing more and more, and I want to know what it's all about. And of course, use it to my benefit.

Virtualizing will ease backup routines and provide me with the option to move the HS-server without any hazzle.

And moving to IP-based solutions has proven to give less strain and memory issues on the server. I will benefit even if I decide against virtualizing in the future.

I've been running HStouch via RDP for three different clients on a VM running XP. If it wasn't for virtualizing, I would have to get another physical machine to be the "HSTouch server". I won't run any CPU/memory intensive software on my virtual machines, HomeSeer is not the problem on my server, usually using just 2-5% of the CPU.

At the moment my WHS-server is not exactly ready for virtualization. But you can bet that when I upgrade the next time, I will get hardware that support virtualization if I can.

I value your input. And I'll try to keep it simple!

**Pete** · November 3, 2010, 06:50 AM

Great discussion.

I recall early HSTouch / Touch screens to HS utilizing RDP. Do a quick search to the early 2000's on this forum.

Virtualization has evolved and matured over the years. My use of it in a production environment with numerous VM's was always related to typically one server/one simple application (always W2003) - nothing really complex though. At the time also utilized Citrix servers (RDP) and virtualized Citrix servers (playing). I liked the ability to try to get the best out of both of these worlds (had some issues though sometimes).

Relating to a NAS I'm still playing and have various flavors still running. I don't see a problem running a NAS in a VM but would prefer now a days to keep it to one piece of HW doing the NAS whether that be a Windows or Linux or BSD version OS NAS. I like that I can keep TB's of data stored in a Raid array with an embedded OS with minimal HW. After all its only function is the storage of data and added ability to keep the data in a RAID array. I still prefer to stream audio / video from a dedicated box rather than streaming it from a NAS (but do this as well). I think Windows Home server is a great idea for the typical and current home environment. I personally didn't get any more from it than I already had. With WHS multitasking abilities and dependancies I would still keep this on its own device (I am not a server hugger) rather than a VM more related to its dependancies than what it can or cannot do in a VM.

Relating to HS Touchscreens in general and the possibility of getting the most bang for the buck I can see how RDP's or VM's would work for HS Touchscreen applications. On the HS server side of things with the ability to migrate all of the connections to one or two USB ports has a great potential and a VM also has some good potential. It would be much easier to manage a number of HS Touchscreens and each of the touchscreens from one box rather than many boxes. (almost taking this back to the old Unix days with serial terminals attached to one box).

When testing with VMs / application servers I preferred (for the sake of speed) tweaking the server with the ability to fall back to a VM snapshot prior to tweaking. I can though do the same now in a similiar fashion with either W2003, W7 (stated but not attempted) or XP doing compressed snaphots of my configurations (almost the same timeframe is involved for the snapshot).

MM Video for me is still not there totally yet in the VM world. I can create a Zoneminder server VM with just IP Cam devices. On the other hand I have tried a VM client running just TVersity and it does OK only (its not great).

One of my recent endeavors relating to HS though was getting HS to run on the smallest piece of HW I could find. Both dual core mITX and Atom based mITX worked as planned.

For FL I don't have the room to put in a server running VM and would prefer to hand a small box on the wall with just one function and a very small footprint. Here in the MW I have the room for a box with a quad core processor / much memory and storage to play with VM and have given HS a test try and it worked just fine utilizing only one USB virtual port. Using VM with HS opens up some major possibilities of being able to test various flavors of configurations or versions of HS (like a standard version of HS verus a beta version of HS). On the other hand though you may want to keep a stable HS VM version running in a VM or standalone while playing with the ability to add more devices, events, etc to a test VM of HS.

**jackpod** · November 5, 2010, 09:48 PM

Wow, I missed this thread! Virtualization stops when you run out of system resources, first to go will be your ram, but here is something to think about, while VM Server is a great product it is not meant to be your base for a virtualized environment. Think of it this way, so you take a box running XP, first if you are running 32 bit all you can have is 4 gigs of memory but you have a complete install of XP that you then put VM Server on top of, so yes one or two VM's depending on what apps you are running is your limit. VMWare ESXi is a very small Linux kernel that takes minimal resources which leaves you the majority of your resources to utilize as guests. The same applies to hyper v, although hyper v comes in 3 flavors 1) as a role on server 2008 R2 2) as a role in a core install, and 3) as a bare metal hypervisor, but hyper v requires SCVMM (System Center Virtual Machine Manager) which is a total PIG on a separate box. An example at work we have both ESX and Hyper V, I installed hyper v (full server install) on a dell 710 with 4 processors and 72 gigs of ram, with just server 2008 R2 loaded, no guests the OS is eating 18 gigs of ram! so 1/4 of my ram resources are gone just to have the foundation to run guests, that is insane! a bare metal hypervisor such as VMWare ESX(i) uses a couple hundred megs of ram, leaving the rest for guests and hyper v does not support thin provisiong so if you assign a guest a gig of ram, that gig is gone even if the guest is only using a couple hundred megs. At home I have 2 dell poweredge 860's (quad core 2.4 Xeon w/ 8 gigs of ram) one host is running 6 guests of server 2003 server (all 32 bit) and I am using 4.4 gigs of the 8 gigs. The other host is running 2 32bit server 2003, 1 64bit server 2003 and an instance of Solaris 10 64bit and using 4.3 gigs of the 8 gigs.

For an efficient virtualized environment you don't want to have all your resources eaten by the base OS foundation and with VM Server that is what you have. The same applies to the Microsoft products like Virtual PC and Virtual Server. A couple hundred bucks on a small server and you can have several guests....

**jackpod** · November 5, 2010, 10:34 PM

Originally posted by Ltek View Post

Sounds like you want to use a shotgun to kill an ant. The computer you will need to run several VM will be 5x the power needed just to run it all locally. IMO (having done a lot with VMware for my profession), you will be spending a ton of time and money on something that will not provide you any real world benefit.

If you are doing this for 'fun' and/or a learning experience... go for it. Otherwise, you will find video in a VM is bad (you cannot use native video card drivers), vm backup recovery is a non-issue (use RAID & system backups to ensure integrity & recoverability) unless you are constantly hosing your setup - a totally different problem fixed simply by just not breaking things.

I almost did not even post since you started off my saying "keep this simple" regarding a subject that is very complicated (virtualization) and you even asked basic questions that tell me you don't understand, at all, how vmware works. It is complicated by nature.

I'm not trying to be mean, just honest. If you want to learn vmware, cool, do it... if you want to have a stable, easy to use, easy to maintain, HA/media center... forget virtualization.

KISS method is always best.

Sorry, but I respectfully disagree. For example, before I virtualized I had a box for Homeseer, another for MLServer, another for a web server, another to run my thin clients (so I didn't have to run more boxes for remote mainlobby clients) 3cx and on and on. The boxes had to be beefy enough to run the applications, but I had resources that weren't being used in all of the boxes (a gig of ram in the HS box that usually hung out at 550 to 600 megs, hard drive space here and there) being virtualized the ram is in a pool, whoever needs it gets it, same with HD space. Now I never said that every single computer has been virtualized. I have the VM Hosts running most things. I have a separate music server that has 1tb of storage and only on when I am streaming music throught the whole house audio system. I also have my video server with 6.5tb that again is only on when I'm watching a movie and my exchange 2010 server is also on its own box because of resource requirements and my Iscsi san is yet on another box. There is no way I will ever be totally virtualized but having HS, Mlserver, 3CX IP PBX, web server, Solaris (for the thin clients) the terminal server, a remote access server, domain controllers and OCS virtualized not only saves power consumption but also hardware costs. Eventually all drive space will be on the Iscsi san, but I am not there yet. I know I am on the eccentric side, but virtualization has allowed me to do what I have done that would have been cost prohibited if everything was physical

**Moskus** · November 10, 2010, 04:42 AM

Update!
I just have to tell you about this, because it just is awesome!

My system is now almost completely IP-based, just waiting for a GlobalCache WF2IR unit which should arrive tonight or tomorrow.

Everything is playing nice together. Memory and CPU load on the server has dropped significantly, and that I like! I'm still using WebcamXP and its the CPU load dropped from 12-17% to 1-2%!!

Quatech QSE-100D
Based on a tip from this forum, I picked one up from eBay for $20. Works beautifully with my CM11.

Belkin Network USB hub
... is a neat peace of hardware. I haven't had a problem with it, and I use it for a 311 MHz RFXCOM receiver with USB interface, joystick (with the Direct Input connector), MaxiBee (for LEDs) and my weather station (Oregon Scientific with Weather Display).

Aviosys IP9100a plus
Two arrived yesterday, again from eBay at $85 a piece, and I have to say: I should have bought this a long time ago instead of fiddling around with PCI capture cards.

Sure, the frame rate stinks compared to fairly OK capture card (I used this card), so if you care much about FPS then forget the IP9100. If you just want something that works and takes the load of your CPU, then buy one and install Yoics firmware.

Global Cache WF2IR
... will probably replace my USB-UIRT. Looking forward to play with it.

When everything is running smooth, I'll try to move it to a virtual machine.

**jackpod** · November 10, 2010, 08:20 AM

Outstanding! In my case, the IP based devices just flat out work.

Let us know your progress!

Thanks for the tip on the Aviosys IP9100a plus, I just might have to pick one up. video is one area I never got into with my HS system, but this device looks like the ticket

**Pete** · November 10, 2010, 09:54 AM

Good new Moskus!

Another device which works is the Digi Anywhere USB device (two Digi USB to RS-232 8 port boxes to one DigiAnywhere box). This like the Quantech found on Ebay at a fraction of the cost or original. First "IP" testing I did was using a program called GPS Gate many years ago which really was meant for one way communication but it split a serial port and made it somewhat virtual.

http://gpsgate.com/products

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