using virtual machine on a remote server?

tnt · Veteran Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 1222

situation
desktop: gentoo ~x86, tbird 950MHz, 512MB RAM
server: gentoo amd64, athlon64 3000+, 1GB RAM

need
i need to run windows xp in virtual machine and it's very slow on my desktop

intention
to utilise server's CPU power and RAM memory (and probably fast disks on it, too)

question(s)
is there some way to run virutal machine (by using vmware, qemu, virtualbox or similar) on the server that does not have X and to access/use it from my desktop? is there some server-client oriented realisation of virtual machine software?

:roll:

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gentoo user

vandien · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 137

I was able to do a remote Windows install like you're talking about using Xen 3.0.2 and its built-in VNC display support. However, to install Windows, Xen requires a processor that's hardware virtualization capable. Which (I think) means your athlon64 has to be a socket AM2 processor. vmware-server also has this feature I believe, though I have never tried it and it seems to depend on X.

According to this: http://kidsquid.com/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/VNCusage

qemu seems to have this feature as well. might be worth looking into.

tnt · Veteran Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 1222

athlon is not AM2 - it's S939

vmware-server ebuild depends on X

qemu needs gcc 3.x (this could be solved)

any other suggestion?
_________________
gentoo user

vandien · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 137

just curious, what's the server doing that it needs the horsepower? Why not make the athlon64 your "desktop" machine :)

tnt · Veteran Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 1222

matja · n00b Joined: 19 Jan 2007 Posts: 34

vmware-server ebuild depends on server components from X simply for the VMware server console application, not vmware-serverd itself. You can run vmware-server on a headless server just run, without running X. (I have quite a few headless servers running it now, most of which I have never even seen in real-life)