Running a Virtual Network

I wanted to get more experience with servers and thought perhaps i could get a maxed out laptop load virtual box on it and run one server with a Vista and 7 Machine virtualized as well. Is this possible?

Also, I understand what DNS, DHCP,exchange servers are but are they just services I can run on a server...which in this case would allow me to run them or do they need to be on seperate machines.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments

Nobylspoon

If your laptop is "maxed out" then you will have no issues running that and more.

My home lab is a virtual environment running on an older dual core processor and 8GB of ram. I run the following at one time:

3 Server '08 (one is core install)
1 Server '03
2 XP
1 Win 7
1 Linux (Backtrack)

Everything is networked with virtual switches.

My processor is the weakest link but still keeps everything running pretty smooth. Although I plan on upgrading to a six core soon.

I use VMWare Workstation for this. Not too familiar with Virtual Box but from what I am told, you can do all the same stuff.

SephStorm

how do you run virtual switches?

and is there a way to have virtual routers in the mix as well?

Nobylspoon

It is just a built in part of VMWare Workstation. It is just a generic virtual switch. Don't know about virtual routers though.

ehnde

If you want less overhead, VMWare ESXi or Proxmox Linux are your best solutions. However, both of these options take over your computer completely.

I have a machine dedicated to virtualization and GNS3. I'm using Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V right now, but that changes like the wind.

I only have a dual core cpu and 6b of ram and it works well running 5 or 6 VMs. The VMs are on their own hard drive. Disk IO can be a bottleneck too, but the CPU with hardware virtualization and RAM are more important.

MentholMoose

Nobylspoon wrote: »

It is just a built in part of VMWare Workstation. It is just a generic virtual switch. Don't know about virtual routers though.

Regular VMs can function as routers, for example with Windows setup RRAS, or with Linux use iptables. There are also Linux and BSD distributions purpose-built for this task, for example:
www.vyatta.com
m0n0wall
Express Open Source Firewall Project
pfSense Open Source Firewall Distribution