Hi all, Thanks to all that responded to my post. I would like to summarize my findings.
I first started using VirtualBox a couple of month ago (v 1.6.x) and was amazed that it allowed me to virtualize Solaris machines on Solaris. However, since I needed Host Interface Networking I had to go through the tap/tun nightmare. I got this working, but from time to time (every few weeks) the complete host system died and one had to reset the machine to get it working again. I never found out why and whether this was due to VirtualBox 1.6.x or the tun/tap stuff. A few days ago I started to experiment with VirtualBox 2.1.0 and was amazed again, since no tun/tap stuff was needed anymore. Host Interface Networking worked just out of the box. Unfortunately cloning virtual machines did/does not work with this release!? The generated duplicates are not bootable (PBR Signal)! I therefore downgraded to VirtualBox 2.0.6 and gave this a try on a X2200 with 8GB RAM. This worked and still works like a charm!! I have a handfull on Solaris instances running now, all with Host Interface Networking, so they are reachable from the outside and can offer services. Dulicating virtual images works with this release. I will never touch the snapshot feature again though, since I lost important data during my tests and moving virtual machines from one host to another. I later learned that this is not really supported yet. I never got the snapshots integrated again. :-( But I can live without snapshots as long as duplicating images works reliably. This is fabulous technology! Thanks Sun!!! My last unsolved problem is realizing a reasonable backup scheme for the images. I am wondering whether pausing the virtual machine, copying the vdi file to another host and then resuming the machine will do the trick!? This could be done by a cron job at midnight. We could live with a downtime of 15 minutes per day (required for copying the image). If machine A dies all we had to do would be to fire up the vms on machine B. What are you guys doing to do backups? Thanks, Andreas _______________________________________________ vbox-users mailing list [email protected] http://vbox.innotek.de/mailman/listinfo/vbox-users
