From Proxmox to FreeBSD and Sylve in Our Office Lab

(iptechnics.com)

37 points by arch1e2 days ago

4 comments

dizhn1 hour ago
Sylve looks like a decent project with a promising future but this article really doesn't explain why they picked it over Proxmox at all. They explain a lot of things but I can't see the advantage over prox other than they wanted to use it.
- TacticalCoder0 minutes ago
 > They explain a lot of things but I can't see the advantage over prox other than they wanted to use it.A huge, totally obvious, advantage is that FreeBSD isn't using systemd. I'm now nearly systemd-free, if not for Proxmox. But my VMs are systemd free. And, by definition, my containers too (where basically the entire point is that there's a PID 1 for the service and that PID 1, in a container is not systemd).So the last piece missing for me is getting rid of Proxmox because Proxmox is using systemd.I was thinking about going straight to FreeBSD+bhyve (the hypervisor) but that felt a bit raw. FreeBSD+Sylve (using bhyve under the hood) seems to be, at long last, my way out of systemd.I've got several servers at home with Proxmox but I never, on purpose, relied too much on Proxmox: I kept it to the bare minimum. I create VMs and use cloudinit and tried to have most of it automated and always made it with the idea of getting rid of Promox.I've got nothing against Proxmox but fuck systemd. Just fuck that system.
- Cyph0n1 hour ago
 Sometimes unification can be an advantage.I run Proxmox at home, but now that I have been drinking the NixOS koolaid over the past 2 years, all of my homelab problems suddenly look like Nix-shaped nails.
 - EnigmaCurry46 minutes ago
 Same. Here's how I scratch the NixOS itch on Proxmox and/or libvirt[1]. One interface for both targets.[1] <a href="https://github.com/EnigmaCurry/nixos-vm-template" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/EnigmaCurry/nixos-vm-template</a>
 - dizhn18 minutes ago
 That feature list looks really good. It would actually be really nice to standardize the guest operating systems in such a way.I actually have a few hosts that only run docker. I might be able to test with those.
 - dizhn59 minutes ago
 I have the same thing with proxmox especially after I realized how well it integrates with proxmox backup server. And I haven't even gotten into clustering yet. It really is a very solid product.
 - Cyph0n30 minutes ago
 Indeed, Proxmox VE is an amazing product.
gcifuentes1 hour ago
Bhyve doesn't feature nested virt though.
- liendolucas47 minutes ago
 Honestly asking, in which cases nested virtualization is useful?
 - belthesar28 minutes ago
 Nested virtualization can be very handy in both the lab and in production. In the lab, you can try out a new hosting platform by running one atop the other. IE: Proxmox on VMWare, Hyper-V on KVM. This lets you try things out without needing fresh bare metal hardware.In prod, let's say you run workloads in Firecracker VMs. You have plenty of headroom on your existing hardware. Nested virtualization would allow you to set up Firecracker hosts on your existing hardware.
 - zenoprax28 minutes ago
 One example: when learning Proxmox itself. I was able to set up a multi-node cluster with more complicated networking than I was normally comfortable with and experiment with failures of all sorts (killing a node, disabling NICs, etc.) without needing more hardware or affecting my existing things.Outside of learning and testing I am not sure of what uses there might be but I'm curious to know if there are.
KaiserPro1 hour ago
What does Sylve provide that proxmox doesn't?Or better, how does it do it better than proxmox?This isn't to say that proxmox is the best thing since sliced bread, I'm curious as to what makes sylve better, is it the API?
- evanjrowley1 hour ago
 Without looking at the Sylve docs, I'll conjecture that it has deeper integration with ZFS. With a foundation on FreeBSD, there is a likelihood Sylve can support ZFS-on-root rollbacks better than hacking it into Proxmox. A rollback capability is why I'm looking for Proxmox alternatives. In the Linux world, Talos Linux and IncusOS provide A/B updates which achieve a similar rollback capability. With something based on FreeBSD, your "immutable" OS and all of it's data can be treated equally as ZFS datasets. There's also a higher risk that a Linux kernel update will break ZFS.
 - justsomehnguy56 minutes ago
 > Sylve can support ZFS-on-root rollbacks better than hacking it into ProxmoCan you explain your use case when you absolutely can't provide a separate M.2 drive solely for the OS?
 - evanjrowley20 minutes ago
 Regardless of the number of drives available, you gain an advantage when your file system can leverage snapshots to roll backwards or forwards. There are other Linux-native filesystems that can provide this capability too, but many admins prefer ZFS because the full range of capabilities is unparelleled.
 - Havoc4 minutes ago
 Perhaps I'm missing your point, but proxmox+lxc on zfs storage works fine in proxmox? If just looks like any other storage in proxmox and on commandline you've got all the usual zfs tools
sidkshatriya1 hour ago
I love FreeBSD but Linux just provides every feature under the sun when it comes to virtualization. Do you find any missing features on bhyve ? Is bhyve reliable ? I can't imagine its been tested as thoroughly as KVM ...
- gcifuentes1 hour ago
 Bhyve is quite cool but no nested virt which means you cannot nest vm_enter/exit calls with EPT pages so you cannot virtualize within those guests. I found this crucial. For instance Qubes OS won't run in Bhyve by any means.
 - rwmj1 hour ago
 Or Windows VBS, if you need to run full-featured Windows VMs.
 - seanw4441 hour ago
 Do they have any near-future plans to resolve that?
- evanjrowley1 hour ago
 Anecdotally, Bhyve has worked in FreeBSD for a decade now. Eventually it got ported to Illumos because it was better than their implementation of QEMU.
- MisterTea1 hour ago
 If you are unsure of bhyve's abilities then why not test yourself? Speculation and guessing about stability or testing is useless without seeing if it works in your application.
 - sidkshatriya42 minutes ago
 > If you are unsure of bhyve's abilities then why not test yourself?It is not possible to come to a conclusion about everything in the world yourself "from scratch". No one has the time to try out everything themselves. Some filteration process needs to be applied to prevent wasting your finite time.That is why you ask for recommendations of hotels, restaurants, travel destinations, good computer brands, software and so on from friends, relatives or other trusted parties/groups. This does not mean your don't form your opinions. You use the opinions of others as a sort of bootstrap or prior which you can always refine.HN is actually the perfect place to ask for opinions. Someone just said bhyve does not support nested virtualization (useful input !). Someone else might chime in and say they have run bhyve for a long time and they trust it (and so on...)So I can't agree with your viewpoint.