Proxmox

1457 readers

17 users here now

Proxmox VE is a complete, open-source server management platform for enterprise virtualization. It tightly integrates the KVM hypervisor and Linux Containers (LXC), software-defined storage and networking functionality, on a single platform. With the integrated web-based user interface you can manage VMs and containers, high availability for clusters, or the integrated disaster recovery tools with ease.

Proxmox VE Official site

K3S on Proxmox LXC

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

nosut@lemmy.world

ikidd@lemmy.world

nosut@lemm.ee

Classroom with thinclients and proxmox-backed VMs - What are my options? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by poinck@lemmy.world to c/proxmox@lemmy.world

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have a room with 30 thinclients currently running Windows with the possibility to open RDP sessions.

The current setup using VMWare is slow even for 2D content. That is why I want to replace it with Proxmox. What can I expect? I suspect the current setup is using SAN, I want to go ZFS on local drives.

I experimented in a homelab on KVM to see how fast the VMs can become. With 8 cores Google Earth becomes somewhat usable over RDP. But imagine 30 students using it on the same VM. The VM is Debian 13 btw.

I also experiemented with spice and 3D acceleration, but it works only locally and does not support multiple logins. What other options do I have. Even when I setup the VM to use virgl it uses software rendering over RDP. I thought of replacing the Windows on the thinclients with Linux, but then I would need individual VMs for every student and a secure spice session. Is that even possible? I would need a potent GPU in the server, maybe more than one. Is a 64 core CPU and 512 GB RAM enough for 30 students?

I've read that proxmox uses temporary .vv files for noVNC in the browser. I hope this can be setup permanently to be accessible over the network.

Any advice or new ideas are welcome!

top 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] NameTaken@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sounds like you want a video card that supports SR-IOV. Any gpu that supports this is going to be pretty pricey. I think the intel flex 140 or 170 are specifically designed for a scenario you describe but are $2 - $7k and are one of the few that don't require any licensing fees. Which can also be significant. There are more powerful options but the price goes up from there.

For that price though you may be better off just buying 30 used mini pcs? Not sure what the budget or design constrains are though.

Hope that helps or at least gets you in the right direction.

[–] KaninchenSpeed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The intel arc pro b50 can do sr-iov according to wendell and its sub 500$

[–] NameTaken@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That is awesome! Thanks for posting. I wonder what the B60 will be able to do! According to the video though this is only good for about 8 VMs at a time and gets a little sketchy/unstable if multiple VMs are trying to max it out. It seems this is early days and the drivers aren't finalized but the future looks bright. This could be a nice addition to a home lab.

[–] KaninchenSpeed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago

I don't think sr-iov even officially in the drivers yet, I would give it a few months to mature. The performance is probably enough for 8 VMs with google earth tho, but you would probably need multiple for 30 people.

[–] poinck@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Thx for the input. It really comes down to not use VMs when 3D acceleration is needed.

[–] stevestevesteve@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What do the students need to do?

You've basically just asked "is an XL tshirt big enough for me" without telling us how big you are.

[–] poinck@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

They need to do GIS (QGIS, R and Python), which is doable with only 2D, but sometimes they rely on some webapps that would benefit from from webgl being not slow.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

bro, did you know that X11 is network transparent for exactly that scenario. the Xclients (running on a central server) can connect to a remote Xserver on the thin client. Xpra can deal with unstable connections. XDMCP can handle multi user environments. It was like magic back in the day. You could have a GUI app running on your workstation in the office displayed in your living room.

AFAIK they have something like that in wayland, too. not sure how complete it is. didn't try it yet.

[–] poinck@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I used ssh -X many times in the past. The setup you are describing sounds fascinating. The only thing I dont know how to allow the students to connect to a different VM the same way. Not evey seminar will be on the same server/VM.

And yes, it seems I was asking for Linux terminal server with GUI login. That would eliminate the possibility to run Windows apps that cannot be emulated.

[–] KaninchenSpeed@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago

I'm currently running gnomes rdp server as a terminal server in a test VM. The rdp performance is so much better than x11 or wayland (with waypipe) forwarding for anything 3d.

Also you get gnomes login screen so you can do active directory/ldap login.

Changing servers is as simple as changing the server ip on the client.

Or if you want to move whole classes/users without user interaction, you can create a dns subdomain for that class/user which points to the correct server for that class/user, which you can change, of cause this only works if each class/user is only using one terminal server at a time.