Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Allow work from home?

[J. Roeleveld]

On Monday, January 18, 2016 09:45:28 PM Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 01:46:45AM +0100, lee wrote:
> > "J. Roeleveld" <joost@××××××××.org> writes:
> > > On Monday, January 18, 2016 02:02:27 AM lee wrote:
> > >> "J. Roeleveld" <joost@××××××××.org> writes:
> > >> > On 17 January 2016 18:35:20 CET, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com>
> > >> > wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > [...]
> > >> >
> > >> >>I use the icaclient provided by Citrix to access my virtual desktop
> > >> >>at
> > >> >>work,
> > >> >>but have never tried to set up something similar at home.  What
> > >> >>opensource
> > >> >>software would I need for this?  Is there a wiki somewhere to follow?
> > >> >>
> > >> > I'd love to do this myself as well.
> > >> >
> > >> > Citrix sells the full package as 'XenDesktop'. To do it yourself you
> > >> > need
> > >> > a VMserver (Xen or similar) and a remote desktop tool that hooks into
> > >> > the
> > >> > VM display. (Spice or VNC)
> > >> >
> > >> > Then you need some way of authenticating users and providing access
> > >> > to the
> > >> > client software. [...]
> > >>
> > >> You would have a full VM for each user?
> > >
> > > Yes
> > >
> > >> That would be a huge waste of resources,
> > >
> > > Diskspace and CPU can easily be overcommitted.
> >
> > Overcommitting disk space sounds like a very bad idea.  Overcommitting
> > memory is not possible with xen.
>
> Depends on how the load is. Right now I have a 500GB HDD at work. I use
> VirtualBox and vagrant for testing various software. Every VM in
> VirtualBox gets a 50GB hard disk, and I generally have 7 or 8 at a time.
> Add in all the other stuff on my system, which includes a 200GB dataset,
> and the disk is overcommitted. Of course, none of the VirtualBox disks
> use anywhere near 50GB.
>
> All Joost is saying is that most resources can be overcommitted, since
> all the users will not be using all their resources at the same time.

If disk-space is considered too expensive, you could even have every VM use 
the same base image. And have them store only the differences of the disk.
eg:
1) Create a VM
2) Snapshot the disk (with the VM shutdown)
3) create a new VM based on the snapshot

Repeat 2 and 3 for as many clones you want.

Most installs don't change that much when dealing with standardized desktops.

--
Joost