ESXi only runs on a bare metal server. It’s a Type 1 Hypervisor (i.e. it’s the base OS that the machine boots into). This is opposed to a Type 2 Hypervisor like VirtualBox or HyperV.
Assuming that it supports ESXi. They don’t run on all hardware and in particular can be picky about network drivers. But ESXi isn’t the only choice. There is Xen and KVM. KVM would probably be your best bet as I think it’s closer to a stock Linux.
No, they offer a free license to individuals. There are some limitations but they don’t impact me as they mostly have to do with stuff like VM migration between machines and tools that are more useful in a data center where you have lots of machines instead of just one. It does everything I need it to.
IIRC the server came without OS which was nice and probably helped make it cheaper.
You can give one of the hypervisors a try and see if they work. They are usually pretty light weight and as long as your CPU supports the necessary virtualization feature sets (on Intel it’s VT and VT-D) VMs you should be fine.
You can open a new thread or send PMs. If I don’t have time, I’ll wait to reply, but I usually always reply.
Close. The Debian is OpenMediaVault (a NAS system). Everything else is running some flavor of Ubuntu 18.4. But yes, I dedicated one VM to running all my home automation stuff.
- Home automation: 8 GB
- media: 4 GB
- OMV: 2 GB
- Virtual Desktop: 8 GB
- CGM: 2 GB
NOTE: With ESXi you can over subscribe the RAM so that the total amount allocated is more than the physical amount available. But that only works if the amount actually used is less than the total physical amount. Also, if I find I ever need more, I can allocate more CPU cores and RAM to any given VM. The numbers above is the max amount of RAM the VM can use, not necessarily the max amount it’s actually using.
Yes. Here’s the stats on my home automation server.
###############################################################################
############### argus #######################################################
###############################################################################
## Ip = <some number>
## Release = Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
## Kernel = Linux 5.0.0-25-generic
## Platform = VMware Virtual Platform/440BX Desktop Reference Platform
## Uptime = 27 day(s). 19:18:21
## CPU Usage = 35.2% avg over 2 cpu(s) (1 core(s) x 2 socket(s))
## CPU Load = 1m: 1.34, 5m: 1.05, 15m: 1.02
## Memory = Free: 1.25GB (16%), Used: 6.53GB (84%), Total: 7.78GB
## Swap = Free: 3.95GB (99%), Used: 0.04GB (1%), Total: 3.99GB
## Root = Free: 212.46GB (90%), Used: 21.96GB (10%), Total: 247.04GB
## Updates = 0 apt updates available.
## Sessions = 2 session(s)
## Processes = 286 running processes of 32768 maximum processes
###############################################################################
rich@argus:~ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
aa42c13f074e migoller/shinobidocker "/opt/shinobi/docker…" 33 hours ago Up 33 hours 0.0.0.0:9090->8080/tcp shinobi
59499c0717fe openhab/openhab:snapshot "/entrypoint.sh gosu…" 33 hours ago Up 31 hours openhab
84af1f37e2a6 eclipse-mosquitto "/docker-entrypoint.…" 33 hours ago Up 33 hours 0.0.0.0:1883->1883/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8883->8883/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9001->9001/tcp mosquitto
a507a9fb84e9 influxdb "/entrypoint.sh infl…" 7 days ago Up 33 hours 0.0.0.0:8086->8086/tcp influxdb
778ef3c70eee grafana/grafana "/run.sh" 9 days ago Up 33 hours 0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp grafana
rich@argus:~