# FreeBSD jails vs virtualization



## fred974 (Mar 26, 2013)

Hello,

I'm looking at various way to do my second install on a physical server.

I need to have the following

web Server (Nginx + Tomcat + Wordpress + Joomla)
mail Server (incl AV, spam,....)
Database Server (MySql + postgres) 
File Server (FreeNAS)
Now my hardware is limited to HP proliant microserver N36L (AMD Turionâ„¢ II Neo N54L (2.2GHz - 5GB RAM - 2x 1Tb HDD + 1x160G) there is another free slot in the server for one more disk.

I need to have raidz2 in order to have data redundancy.

Should I be using visualization via XEN and have VM running or should I be installing FreeBSD as OS and run everything else inside a jail?

I know you can compile FreeNAS in FreeBSD but will FreeNAS run instead FreeBSD jail?

And if you wonder why FreeNAS, it's because I really like the web management interface and I do not have the skill to write anything like it. Is there any impact on performance between the two methods?

Thank you all in advance


----------



## estrabd (Mar 26, 2013)

I would recommend a jail for more efficient use and coordination of hw resources through the OS. Depending on your security model, you may end up having several jails. I don't know anything about FreeNAS, though.

Brett


----------



## fluca1978 (Mar 26, 2013)

fred974 said:
			
		

> - Database Server (MySql + postgree)



Please....*PostgreSQL*! And I don't think having two databases is a good design choice, but I'll assume you are forced to do so.



			
				fred974 said:
			
		

> Should I be using visualization via XEN and have VM running or should I be installing FreeBSD as OS and run everything else inside a jail?
> 
> I know you can compile FreeNAS in FreeBSD but will FreeNAS run instead FreeBSD jail?



Seems to me more a FreeNAS question, so you should ask on their forums.
While I've used FreeNAS for years, I've never installed a jail on it, but accordingly to this it is possible via a plugin.

Now back to the real question: having a jail or a full virtualization depends, in my opinion, if you are going to move the guest machine or not. If you'll never detach the guest from the FreeBSD host, than jails should provide you some more performance.


----------



## Savagedlight (Mar 26, 2013)

fred974 said:
			
		

> Now my hardware is limited to HP proliant microserver N36L (AMD Turionâ„¢ II Neo N54L (2.2GHz - 5GB Ram - *2x 1Tb HDD* + 1x160G) there is another *1 free slots* in the Server for 1 more disks
> 
> I need to have raidz2 in order to have data redundancy.



RaidZ2 provides 2-drive redundancy, meaning it requires at least three drives to work at all, although a minimum of 5 is recommended. If you're limited to three drives, it's better to use a 3-way mirror as it'll provide the same redundancy (and storage space) but with much less overhead.

RaidZ1 provides 1-drive redundancy, and requires a minimum of 2 drives, although a minimum of 3 is recommended. Again, if you can only use 2 drives, a 2-way mirror is recommended for the aforementioned reasons.


----------



## kpa (Mar 26, 2013)

Go with jails. Full virtualizations is not needed if all you want is to host a few services that will have identical configurations to what they would have if they were running on the real host.


----------



## nekoexmachina (Mar 26, 2013)

> I need to have raidz2 in order to have data redundancy.


You won't, with 4 HDDs.
You can have a mirror setup with 2TBs max or a raidz setup with 3TBs max, however every 'max' option will need you to replace 160g with Tb disk.


----------



## rusty (Mar 26, 2013)

There's a very good article here [dtrace.org/blog/brendan] comparing the performance of different virualization options.
Near the end of the article there's a network throughput benchmark, the results speak for themselves.


----------



## fred974 (Mar 26, 2013)

*C*ool, thank you very much, guys.

@fluca1978, I'm trying to switch from *F*ree*NAS* to *F*ree*BSD*, so my question is not twisted in any way. I tried to run all my servers from the FreeNAS plug-in jail and it simply doesn't work. *I* had loads of issues with it. I guess *I*'ll have to play with Samba to get the file server running.


----------

