Building an IKEA table-rack mounted lab for virtualization, CCNA-CCNP studies, and ZFS

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Austria Donkey Learning IT
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Published on ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrUZkIps2yM


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This is part 3 of a video log, where I put together on the cheap a home lab. With this lab I would like to study different virtualization technologies, in particular focusing on Linux KVM and GNS3 for Cisco CCNA-CCNP certifications. In this episode the build process of the server is being presented next to the reason why I have built this second machine. The virtualization server is built into a small chassis with ears from Cisco switches, so it can be rack mounted in an IKEA Lack table converted into a lab rack for studying. Having a separate rack-mounted server in a different room helps a lot to reduce the noise, so that you can sit in a quiet and relaxed environment, and concentrate on your studies.

In addition to the virtualization server, currently there are four Cisco 3750G Layer3 switches installed in the IKEA table-rack, and an APC 7920 PDU. Soon I will change two or three of the Cisco 3750G switches to reduce power consumption and noise, and to be able to run IOS version 15, because the current switches only run IOS version 12.
There will be also a RaspberryPi built into the rack, which will be the serial terminal server, acting as SSH relay, Nagios and Ganglia monitor etc.

COMPONENTS I HAVE USED:
==========================
CPU: AMD FX8350 (has AMD-v, IOMMU and ECC support, and 8 corelets)
CPU cooler: Alpenföhn Brocken with 12cm fan (very quiet, fits into the small case)
MoBo: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 Rev. 3 (IOMMU support and AMD-v work fine)
MoBo also has lots of PCI-e lanes routed to the PCI-e slots, so VM passthrough is working
MoBo does not support SR-IOv, so you cannot share a PCI-e card among multiple VMs
RAM: 2* 8GB of Crucial Ballistix Sport DDR3 (no ECC, should extend it to 32GB)
Video: old 32-bit PCI VGA (Gigabyte MoBo does not boot without video!!!)
Network: 3* Quad Gigabit HP NC364T + onboard Realtek GbE LAN
Storage: 32GB USB stick for hypervisor + 4 mechanical disks in RAIDZ-1
Storage read/write cache: 128GB SSD partitioned for ZIL and for L2ARC
Case: cheap ATX chassis, bought used, converted to be mountable in an IKEA "Lack" table rack
PSU: Corsair VS550
IPMI substitute: native serial console
InfiniBand: still hunting for cheap Mellanox full-height QDR cards with VPI and cables



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Tags:
virtualization
GSN3
home lab
Cisco CCNA
CCNA lab
ZFS
VT-x
AMD-v
VT-d
IOMMU
SR-IOv
VMD-q
howto
Linux KVM
KVM hypervisor
ESXi
VMware