There is sparse documentation on how to setup a virtual network that is private (as in just between the virtual guests) on a single VM Host.  I tried a myriad of methods and none worked for me.  So I tested a few theories of my own, and found something… a method that is ridiculously obvious ...Read More

There are quite a few ways to setup a private, virtual network that is just between virtual guests on a single VM Host.  We’ll explore one very simple way here.  One of the alternatives would be to use VDE (Virtual Distributed Ethernet), but I’ll wait until KVM-73, which will make VDE setup even easier.  For ...Read More

Like any good hypervisor, KVM will support USB pass-through. There are just a few simple steps to make it happen. My example will also addresses an issue with Ubuntu/ Debian, and you may need to make a similar adjustment on other distributions ( I think most require the change). To use USB: Start your Virtual ...Read More

Au Contraire! What an exciting 3 minutes and 8 seconds… Jason Lezak bested the French anchor in the final leg of the Men’s 4 x 100m relay to set a new world record, and return the Gold medal to America in this event, of which the US had won 9 consecutive times since 1964, with ...Read More

Like any good hypervisor, KVM will support USB pass-through.  There are just a few simple steps to make it happen.  My example will also addresses an issue with Ubuntu/ Debian, and you may need to make a similar adjustment on other distributions. First, make sure you enable USB when you start your VM.  An very ...Read More

SSHFS OpenSSH is probably the most important IT administration tool – ever.  It allows for secure remote access to a system, with many tools built on top of the underlying encryption.  SSHfs is one of those tools.  SSHfs allows you to mount a remote file system, over the secure SSH protocol.  That is just plain ...Read More

What an ugly title… I recommended using Raw files for your Virtual Machine’s virtual disks (see other post for the reasons), but it was brought to my attention, how do I copy these huge files?  Let’s look at that: A Raw file is in a format that mimics a hard disk (block level).  It is ...Read More

CITRT Fall 2008 look out! I am registered – finally.  I got final agreement from the co-CFO (Mrs. Bitbud) and filled out my registration.  The $50 fee is nothing compared to flights from Tampa and hotels… oh well. It was just a few months ago I stumbled upon Justin Moore’s website in a Google search ...Read More

I have been knee deep in encryption process documentation and implementation the last few months and have come to the (obvious) conclusion that in today’s technology age, encryption is a key IT responsibility, second only to backups.  And just as backups are something we take for granted (honestly – how often do you backup your ...Read More

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, unless you enjoy the spurious network outages or performance issues caused by a poor network card, by an INTEL NIC EVERY TIME. Even if your motherboard comes with another vendor’s NIC, get an Intel. Absolutely, if you are doing virtualization (any type of virtualization) use an ...Read More