Question, I use VirtualBox and PHPVirtualBox on multiple servers right now. Love it and it works great but I'm wondering if anyone knows any good alternatives?

Requirement is that it's open source :)

Proxmox uses kvm, but isnt full opensource.

@stop Too bad for me then but thanks for the suggestion anyways!

@Condor Does that one also have a graphical interface and portforwarding and such? :)

VMware would be the best I’ve used but not open 😞would be so much better if open sourced.

Virtualbox would be the nicest second I’ve come across, I would be interested in any others that are rated well.

@C0D4 Oh the best I've used is VirtualBox by far and would try out VMWare again (it fucked everything up during my exams) but yeah I am definitely not going to run closed source software on a fucking production server haha :P

On Linux, I always use QEMU with KVM. On top of that libvirt (and its CLI virsh) + virt-manager (for UI) which allows for most of the configs. Nice thing about the virt-manager is that it is a great resource for learning libvirt management (e.g. you configure your VMs from UI, then export its descriptor and tweak it further - once you have this under control, you will just replicate your configs for whatever VM you use).

Proxmox is a GUI that manages stuff arround the VMs like storage, backups and network, vm creation etc. In your browser and uses either qemu for kvm virtualization or lxc for container based virtualization. You can run both at the same time and manage them almost the same way

@Jilano Yeah I know but I can't install the server through a custom ISO :/.

I've used it and installed it before :)

Edit: nevermind, you can install it on a debian machine without ISO I see now!

@Jilano Sure haha!

@Jilano @linuxxx proxmox is just a kernel + some user land packages, install proxmox-ve and you should be good to go
Maybe add the pve repository tho

Docker.

@codebaker The last few times I've used it, huge memories came up. Also, specifying the amount of space allowed per vm/container is a requirement for me :/

I personally lile to run VM's having `boot2docker` on them and the docker for the apps. So far proxmox is the easyest, but IMO, you can handle it with `Vagrant` just as well.

Check out building an oVirt cluster. It’s the open source project of RHEVM.

people like to talk about kvm, ig
all i use is virtualization

@wolt Awesome! Why the fuck would I use closed source operating systems though? I'd like to keep my servers malware/spyware free ;)

May I ask what your use case is? What are you using this setup for or what are you planning to do with it?

@3141 This server is not for me but for a friend. It'll run multiple vps's with different purposes (hosting, specific web applications, email etc)

@linuxxx Are the VMs for security or for logical separation (to avoid port conflicts for example)?

@3141 Both really

@linuxxx If you (or your friend) are willing to compromise a little on the security front (meaning a shared kernel), Docker (better yet, Docker Compose) would probably make your life a whole lot easier. Administration is really easy, you save the cost of virtualization and in addition you get a powerful networking model. The security implications should be negligible since all containers are controlled by the same person.

If you really want a virtualization solution, you could have a look at OpenStack via DevStack. That, however, can become really complicated really fast.