HomeServer + KVM - does this setup make sense or am i crazy?

[gerni]

I want to assemble a new homeserver and thought about using KVM with some dedicated VMs.
In comparison to my traditional server where every service runs on the same system i want to gain:
- security
- flexibility

Please tell me if this make sense or is it better to do this another way.
I've also have to say that i'm a bit paranoid and i like playing with linux *g*

As host system i'd like to use a very minimal gentoo system. This system should simply forward all traffic to my first guest system where i want to run an IPCop-Firewall. I Like IPCop because ist's so easy and powerfull. The guestsystem also should manage my RAID+LVM setup. The IPCop host routes the traffic to the corresponding other hosts and the other way.

I thought about a virtual machine that only serves scalix (the Groupware Software), another dedicated VM that serves my personal data and other sensitive things where i am the only one that has access to the host, and one VM where "insecure" services can run (like teamspeak, some httpd, ftp...)

Illustrated:

[poly_poly-man]

If you are going the virtualization route, I must suggest XEN - apparently, that can get nearly 100% performance with one client and no host software running.

If you're alright with a slight performance loss and a huge load of setup, it's a good idea - think about what happens if one crashes!

Leave ssh open to the host, tho.

poly-p man
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[gerni]

[poly_poly-man]

By kvm, you do mean qemu with KVM, right?

KVM, kernel virtual machine, is simply an interface between userspace, the kernel, and ultimately to the virtualization extensions in the cpu. The most common system to use with this is qemu (the kvm command on the command-line starts qemu with kvm extensions), however things like virtualbox and vmware (AFAIK) support kvm.

First off, what processor are you planning to run on this server? If it has no virtualization extensions, I must highly recommend XEN instead... if it does, as long as you get decent performance and can set it up like you want, go for a kvm system.

But above all I must recommend leaving ssh open to the host OS - Keep in mind, if one VM crashes, you should be able to remotely restart it; also, from the host box, you can ssh into the other VM's and do direct maintenance there.

poly-p man
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avatar: new version of logo - see topic 838248. Potentially still a WiP.

[gerni]