After Broadcom increased the license fees, other virtualization solutions than VMware ESXi become very popular. I already talked about other solutions like CBSD, running on FreeBSD using bhyve for virtual machines (VM) workloads or Harvester, as an HCI solution that also allows you to run VM in a different approach. However, we mostly hear Proxmox in one of the first sentences when it comes to VMware ESXi replacements and Proxmox is a really great software based on KVM. However, there're also other solutions around and an also outstanding one is definitely XCP-ng. XCP-ng is based on Xen and follows a completely different approach than Proxmox with KVM. XCP-ng (Xen Cloud Platform - Next Generation) is an open-source virtualization platform which is created from the XenServer hypervisor. It is designed to offer a powerful, robust and also cost-effective solution for managing virtualized environments. Based on the popular Xen hypervisor, XCP-ng benefits .... [read more]
ProxLB (PLB) is an open-source Proxmox loadbalancer, but different! ProxLB is an application created to optimize the distribution of virtual machines (VMs) across Proxmox cluster nodes for significantly enhancing efficiency and performance. Utilizing the Proxmox API, ProxLB gathers and analyzes a comprehensive set of resource metrics from both the cluster nodes and the running VMs, including CPU usage, memory consumption, and local disk utilization. A key feature of ProxLB is its intelligent rebalancing capability, which redistributes VMs based on their memory, disk, or CPU usage. In those cases, the real memory consumption from the VM is taken instead of the potential maximum usage. This ensures no single node is overburdened while others remain underutilized, significantly enhancing cluster performance and reliability. By evenly distributing resources, ProxLB helps prevent performance bottlenecks and improves the overall stability of the cluster. Efficient rebalancing leads to better utilization of available resources, potentially reducing the need .... [read more]
After Broadcom increased the license fees, other virtualization alternatives become very popular. While I previously already evaluated various virtualization platforms, including Proxmox, as well as other solutions that are based on FreeBSD, such as bhyve-webadmin (BVCP), and ClonOS there are of course also several other ones and it is worth noting another noteworthy option in the landscape of hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). Harvester is an innovative, open-source HCI platform that is built atop of Kubernetes, offering a cloud-native approach to infrastructure management. It is tailored for operators who are in search of an open-source HCI solution that can seamlessly integrate with their existing systems. Harvester is engineered to be deployed directly on bare metal servers, where it provides a combination of virtualization and distributed storage functionalities. This solution is not limited to managing traditional virtual machines, it also embraces the containerization trend by facilitating containerized workloads through its integration with Rancher. .... [read more]
In the realm of virtualization, there are already several robust and well-established platforms like Proxmox and OpenStack. These solutions have paved the way for efficient and comprehensive management of virtual environments, primarily on Linux-based systems. However, for those who appreciate the power and elegance of FreeBSD, there has been a notable absence of a comparable tool that leverages this operating system's unique strengths. With ClonOS (mainly written by Oleg G. and Oleg M.) an innovative open-source solution that fills the gap by offering a turnkey solution based on FreeBSD and the CBSD framework, we are finally receiving a solution that also offers the missing enterprise features like multiple node support to create clusters and live migrations for virtual machines. ClonOS is designed to provide seamless control, deployment, and management of FreeBSD jails containers, but also of virtual machines (VMs) with bhyve to create virtual environments. Built on the powerful CBSD .... [read more]
In today's digital landscape, ensuring the security of online communications is paramount, and SSL certificates play a crucial role in this process. Monitoring these certificates to prevent unexpected expirations is essential for maintaining uninterrupted service and trust. This HowTo guide provides a step-by-step approach to setting up monitoring for SSL certificates, ensuring you receive timely alerts before they expire. By utilizing powerful tools such as Blackbox Exporter, Alertmanager, Prometheus and Grafana, you can automate the notification process, allowing for proactive certificate management. This guide simplifies the setup process, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced professionals. With these instructions, you can enhance your security posture and avoid the risks associated with expired SSL certificates. How to receive alert messages from Grafana in your Matrix chat may also be interesting - I already covered that one here . Screenshot General This howto expects you to have an already working installation .... [read more]
Freedive emerges as an innovative standalone tool for FreeBSD, offering a graphical user interface (GUI) that revolutionizes the way systems are managed, enabling both newcomers and experienced users to administer their FreeBSD installations with ease. This GUI, accessible through a mobile-friendly web interface, democratizes the use of FreeBSD by allowing beginners to engage with the operating system without the need to delve into the complexities of the command-line shell. Designed with responsiveness in mind, Freedive's interface adapts seamlessly to various screen sizes, ensuring that system administrators can perform essential tasks from virtually any device, be it a smartphone, tablet, or desktop. The intuitive design of Freedive's web interface lowers the entry barrier for managing FreeBSD systems, making it more approachable for users who may not be familiar with Unix-like environments. By providing a full spectrum of system management capabilities through its GUI, Freedive empowers users to perform tasks ranging from .... [read more]
In today's interconnected world, ensuring high availability (HA) across multiple sites is crucial for businesses to maintain continuity and reliability. While traditional solutions often rely on complex protocols like BGP or GRE tunnels, implementing a cost-effective HA setup using WireGuard VPN tunnels provides a simpler yet robust alternative. This solution leverages the flexibility of WireGuard VPNs to create secure connections between multiple sites, with the added benefit of easy setup and management but also keeping the overall costs low. Within this solution all traffic terminates on public IPv4 and IPv6 IPs and will be routed or NATed (depending on the operators personal decision) to the desired endpoint. In this solution any endpoint can be used, even behind a (CG)NAT, because the site endpoint will initiate the VPN connection to the main Wireguard VPN server which holds the public IPs. In this example, a simple webserver will be made available in .... [read more]
Unfortunately, Grafana does not support Matrix notification by default. While Matrix is originally a free and open-source chat service, it also provides API and Bot support which makes it handy for service notifications. With End-to-end encryption, open-source, self-hosting possibilities and multi client support it provides all necessary features to integrate this as a fast and reliable notification solution to receive any kind of monitoring alerts. With the grafana-matrix-forwarder by Hector S. , a Grafana integration for Matrix alert notifications can be easily done within just a few minutes. In this case, the grafana-matrix-forwarder (written in Go) just runs as a dedicated binary and accepts requests by http on port tcp/6000. The integration will follow as a webhook in Grafana. The installation and configuration of this forwarder is pretty easy and straight forward. The binary will just be copied and executed by a dedicated user. useradd -m grafanamatrixforwarder -s /bin/nologin cd .... [read more]
BoxyBSD is a non-profit project dedicated to providing free virtual machine (VM) hosting on IPv6, with a particular emphasis on BSD-based systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. The project's primary objective is to contribute back value to the open-source community by offering a platform where beginners and newcomers can learn and educate themselves using real systems. By offering free virtual machine hosting, BoxyBSD aims to remove financial barriers that often deter individuals from gaining hands-on experience with BSD-based systems. This initiative allows users to explore, experiment, and learn about these systems in a practical and interactive manner. BoxyBSD's focus on BSD-based systems ensures that users have access to a diverse range of operating environments, enabling them to familiarize themselves with different BSD distributions and their respective features. This approach not only promotes knowledge and understanding within the community but also encourages collaboration and innovation among enthusiasts, students, and professionals .... [read more]
Proxmox just released its new import wizard which makes it much easier to migrate virtual machines from a VMware ESXi system to a Proxmox environment. This being said, it also offers the general support of live importing virtual machines. Migrating VMs to the Proxmox environment uses the official ESXi API through a user space filesystem with a fine-tuned read-ahead cache which is fully written in Rust. Unlike before, this solution does not require the manual steps of copying the virtual machine's image file, converting (depending on Proxmox version), importing and assigning anymore and streamlines the whole user experience within the Proxmox webui. Requirements * PVE 8+ * pve-manager 8.1-8 * libpve-storage-perl 8.1.3 * pve-esxi-import-tools Installation Integrating this is pretty straight forward: pve-esxi-import-tools is already available within the pvetest and pve-no-subscription repositories and can easily be installed (to do on each Proxmox node) by running to following commands: $> apt-get update .... [read more]
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