What should I use for VM management ?

[salcie@feddit.fr]

Hi there
I'd like a vm manager to create a few machine to avoid breaking my host system when doing bad things

I've tried some things:

Multipass
it seems to be the best for me: one line to create and launch a VM, this is wonderful, but I don't have ipv6 on it which is bad, I like ipv6

LXD:
seems cool, web ui is great, installed, but for now my VM have connectivity issues, self signed certificate doesn't work on firefox, so I have to use chromium which I hate, I'd also like to avoid using user certificate and use password + OTP don't know if it's possible

Proxmox: not yet tried but seems to require a complete system reinstall

Proxmox and LXD might be a bit too much because I don't plan on having many VMs, maybe 2 or 3, but I really like to be able to manage them quickly on the web

Do you have any recommandations ?

Thanks !

[30p87@feddit.org]

virt-manager

[geoffreyfrogeye@social.frogeye.fr]

@Salcie
I haven't tried many alternatives because Proxmox really seems to be the thing people prefer whether they have a handful of VMs or many more. It has what you ask: web UI, TOTP, ACME to avoid self-signed certs and ofc IPv6 support. It has many options which might be a bit intimidating at first especially for networks, but given its popularity finding tutorials should be easy.

You can create VMs but also LXC containers; I'd recommend using the latter as they consume less resources and can be more straightforwardly configured from Proxmox. You might just need to set some obscure options if you want to run complex Docker setups inside but again tutorials help there.

Hope this helps!

[salcie@feddit.fr]

seems that proxmox requires a complete install which is impossible in my cas though

[briantheebiscuiteer@lemmy.world]

If you want something dead simple then Boxes will do the trick. It doesn't give you nearly as much flexibility as virt-manager or LXC, etc. but I've found it to be capable.

[sylver_dragon@lemmy.world]

I use virt-manager for my lab VMs. Though, don't discount the power of containers (podman/docker) to isolate and run applications. And lastly, python environments via Conda or venv can create isolated enough environments when doing different things in Python.

[yesman@lemmy.world]

Don't forget that there is a BIOS setting that allows VM to work faster. It's called virtualization. Search for the setting in your BIOS (it's called something different across manufacturers). It's usually located in a menu under "advanced CPU settings" or similar.

It's often switched off by default.

[toes@ani.social]

Check out cockpit. https://github.com/cockpit-project/cockpit

[jaxxed@lemmy.world]

Not for virt machines, but toolbox is an easy to use way to keep tooling environments separate from your main machine workspace. Requires/leverages Godmanchester over lxc/docker.
It's a big part of the fedora atomic/immutable stack, to allow you to install things without installing them.

[konstant@lemmy.world]

Gnome-Boxes is very simple, yet effective. I think it is on flatpak too. Not sure if it supports ipv6.