What open source virtual private server program do you recommend with windows as host [closed]

Question

I am looking to have 4 Virtual servers(various linux flavors) running on a Windows server 2003 R2 64 bit edition server located at a datacenter. I can also purchase a 2008 server or 32 bit 2k3 if needed. They would each have their own ip address for networking so that they could be publicly accessed. I do not know much about VPS software but have worked with it before.

Answer 1

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 is free (registration required) and supports x64 hosts. It does not support x64 guests.

Windows Server 2008 includes Hyper-V, Microsoft's new virtualization technology, which supports x64 guests and multiple virtual processors. There are editions without Hyper-V as well, for marginally less money, to satisfy the anti-trust authorities. The Hyper-V update has to be downloaded as it was completed after the rest of Windows Server 2008 was released.

VMware Server is also free. It supports (experimentally) up to 2 virtual CPUs.

To get best performance you need drivers and patches in the virtual machine which work well with the virtualization environment. In Virtual Server these are called Additions, in Hyper-V they are Integration Components, and for VMware, VMware Tools. Because of the nature of kernel binary compatibility (there are no guarantees), only specific distributions are generally supported.

• Download Virtual Server Additions for Linux
• Download Hyper-V Linux Integration Components

Answer 2

Unfortunately, the only way you are going to get decent performance is by using Linux as the host and Windows as the guest. The signed driver requirement on x64 essentially prevents any open source implementation from having reasonable performance.

Answer 3

If you're going to run 4 virtual servers all of which are going to be linux flavours why wouldn't you run the host in a linux as well?

If for what ever reason you have to use a Windows box, I would say grab 2003 32bit the signed drivers are really only a problem on 2008, but even in 2003 I can't really recommend 64bit unless there is a pressing requirement (like Exchange 2007)