On a personal note, I rather like the idea of having a Windows-based server at home. But I do miss having the ability to play with Linux hacks. So I was thinking what I could do to have Linux as an option at home when I came with a solution where I could have both Windows Home Server and Linux on my MediaSmart server running at the same time: Virtual Server.

After upgrading the amount of RAM on my MediaSmart served from 512MB to 2GB, I felt this would be a great opportunity to have a Linux system without compromising the features of Windows Home Server. So I have prepared this guide to explain what I have done to run a Linux virtual machine under my Windows Home Server. I part from the principle that you know what you are doing and you have some idea of what virtualisation all about.

Here is what you need:

• Upgrade your server’s RAM. 512MB is unrealistic if you want to do anything with Windows Home Server besides its out-of-the-box features. If you have a HP MediaSmart server, you can find instructions on how to upgrade the server memory here.
• A copy of Microsoft Virtual Server. At the time of writing this post, the last version was 2005 R2 SP1. Virtual Server is free and can be downloaded from here.
• A distribution of Linux. I am a big Ubuntu fan. However I opted to use openSUSE because of the benefits it has from the interoperability agreement Novell has with Microsoft (e.g.: virtual machine additions). You can get openSUSE from here, and Ubuntu from here.

Setup Instructions

1. First and foremost, you must do a remote access to your HomeServer using UltraVNC or Remote Desktop and log in as administrator.
2. Once on the servers desktop, install Microsoft Virtual Server. Reboot the server is necessary and remote desktop into the server again as administrator.
3. On the Servers Start Menu under Microsoft Virtual Server, click on Virtual Server Administration Website.
4. Under Virtual Machines on the left-side menu of the Admin Site, choose click on Create.
5. You must now provide the initial settings of your virtual machine. Here are some of my recommended settings for a simple Unix Server:
   1. Name. The name of the Virtual PC (e.g.: Linux, openSUSE, Ubuntu).
   2. Memory. The amount of RAM you want to provide for the virtual machine, bearing in mind you should leave enough for your server to run smoothly. It really depends of the amount of RAM you have and what you want to do with your Linux server. For example if I only want to use some console (text) applications I would go from a minimum of 256MB to 512MB (if I want to run services for a development environment). If using a graphical desktop and/or some more intensive applications, I might go to 1GB. As I have 2GB for my home server, I prefer to never leave the Home Server operating system with less than 1GB.
   3. Virtual hard disk. You can create the disk to use with your Linux virtual machine now or specify one later.
      NOTE: If you already have or plan to have Linux on an external disk or flash drive, you could create a linked virtual hard disk that points to the Linux you partition you want to use (see point 8 below for further instructions).
   4. Virtual network adapter. Make sure you configure your virtual machine to connect to the external network. This will ensure that the virtual machine can be seen and accessed on your network.
6. Once the machine is created, you will be presented with its configuration page.
7. If you need to install Linux, you need to ensure the virtual machine will be able to initiate the Linux installation process:
   1. If you have a CD/DVD drive on your home server, simply put the disk on the drive and ensure your virtual machine CD/DVD drive properties is configure to use your physical CD/DVD drive.
      NOTE: If you want to use your CD/DVD drive within your Linux virtual machine, you should do this procedure regardless if you need to install Linux or not.
   2. If your home server doesn’t have a CD/DVD drive, you must configure the virtual machines CD/DVD driver properties to capture the ISO image of your Linux install disk.
8. OPTIONAL: If you already have an external disk with Linux installed, or if you want to install Linux on a dedicated disk, you must create a linked virtual disk that points to your existing Linux install:
   1. Plug the external disk with Linux on your home server.
   2. On the Virtual Server Admin Site under Virtual Disks, choose Create then Linked Virtual Hard Disk.
   3. Specify the location name of the file to be saved and the physical drive that will be used for the virtual disk.
   4. Go back to the configuration page of your Linux virtual machine and under hard disks, provide the filename of the file created for your linked virtual hard disk.
9. OPTIONAL: Still on the virtual machine configuration page, you can click on General properties in order to specify a username and password to run the virtual machine upon system start-up. Recommended if you want your Linux virtual machine to be always on (i.e.: starts when the home server start).
10. On the Virtual Server Admin Site under Virtual Server, choose Server Properties.
11. On the bottom of the page under your server Properties, click on Virtual Machine Remote Control(VMRC).
12. On the Virtual Machine Remote Control (CMRC) Server Properties page, ensure you enable VMRC server and specify a TCP/IP port that is not already in use on the server. Then click OK to reflect the changes.
13. OPTIONAL: Back on the left-side menu of the Virtual Server Admin Site, under Virtual Server you could click on Resource Allocation to specify the maximum amount of resources your virtual machines can use in order to ensure resilience to your home server.
14. Once again on the left-side menu of the Virtual Server Admin Site, under Navigation click on Master Status in order to see your recently created virtual machine. Hove the mouse over its title to show its context menu that would allow it to start and stop the virtual machine, as well to Remote Control it.

All done! Once I got my Linux box installed, I was running things like shell scripting, mySQL, Apache, PHP and other nifty tools. I hope you found this little guide useful!

As a next step, you could look into Microsoft Services for Unix for good interoperability between your Linux virtual machine and your Windows hosts. You can find more about Windows Services for Unix here.

If you want to discuss this implementation with other Windows Home Server enthusiasts, there is a forum thread at wegotserved.co.uk (registration required) here. Thanks to Bodog from wegotserved.co.uk for the support!

• Good industry standard support: No proprietary-only stuff, unless it is in addition to standards.
• Reliable: A solid firmware with no bugs.
• Easily expandable: If I add a new disk to the array, I shouldn’t have to format any disks.
• Fast: Both network access and disk access.
• Good support and active community: To have my questions answered and to promote enhancements to the product.
• Extra features: Media streaming, download stations, external USB connections, web server and any other interesting set of features would be a plus.

The first option I came across was Techus, but I dismissed it immediately after some negative reviews. Then after reading some reviews about Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (followed by Infrant’s acquisition by Netgear), I thought I had finally made my choice. But when I called the distributor to place an order, he mentioned that Infrants ReadyNAS was out of stock and they were currently renegotiating their contract with Netgear (Infrant’s new owner). He immediately suggested that I looked at the Synology CS-407 instead, which has a plethora of interesting features.

According to reviews, the CS-407 is quite fast. It also support standard RAID technologies (RAID 1,5). At first I was concerned that the CS-407 had no NFS support, but I have no immediate plans to use NFS in my network anyway and moreover, I found out by reading at some Synology related forms that it is relatively easy to add NFS for it anyway.

As for the RAID methods, what I am really apprehensive about is the ability to expand into my NAS device (i.e.: add more disks) without the need to format any disks, a feature that Infrant claims that their proprietary X-RAID technology (available on the ReadyNAS) can do.

I decided to download the Synology CS-407 User Guide to see if I could get some of my questions answered, and I found some very positive information in there:

• Although the CS-407 doesn’t have the hot-swap trays that the ReadyNAS has, the CS-407 is still a hot-swappable unit. Perhaps not having such trays is what makes the CS-407 smaller than the ReadyNAS?
• The manual clearly explains that it is easy to expand the unit (i.e.: replace disks with higher capacity ones) without having to format the disks. So what’s the deal with ReadyNAS X-RAID you might ask (well I did)? For what I read, it is simply dumb-proof: It changes the RAID technology according to the amount of disks added, and takes care of storage expansion with very little user intervention. Well I think I can handle RAID without needing my mom to change my diapers.

My last concern was with the ammount of built-in RAM. The CS-407 comes with 128MB, compared with the ReadyNAS which comes with 256MB (which you can also add more memory to it). However, CS-407 seems to be doing very well in its reviews, and I guess that the amount needed is really down on how heavyweight (thus RAM hungry) an operating system is; so I guess that I shouldn’t worry about it.

So I got completely sold by the Synology CS-407 unit. Not only it has more appealing features for my needs than theNetgear’s ReadyNAS but it is cheaper too! However, I was about to place an order for the CS-407, when I decided to read about the upcoming Windows Home Server (WHS) Units to be released Mid/2007, which are focusing on Network Storage. I briefly tried WHS Release Candidate 1 and I must say that WHS has some quite interesting features. However, I also have my reservations about certain “features” and claims which, I will be discussing in an upcoming post.