What OS is used for VM boxes?

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1

Sounds like a weird question but it’s been a few years since I’ve seen anything about it. What is the OS used in servers such as the storage boxes, GPU computer boxes, etc. that are segmented out for virtual machines? The distinct thing I remember is that the systems could boot off of a USB or SD card and everything was held in memory so if the card died or something happened you could hotswap it out without any issues. I can’t remember if it was open source or not but it at least was the defacto standard.

Also, if anyone does remember what I’m talking about I had a few questions:

  1. Is it still used? I remember at the time some companies were trying to do something to it or something of the sort and I wasn’t sure if they succeeded.

  2. How does it work with things like SR-IOV? (or Nvidia’s proprietary variant GRID)

P.S. I think it may be VMware but I’m not sure.

2

VMware is small enough to boot off a slow flash device, I believe Windows HyperV nano will boot off slow flash too.

3

Not sure what you mean by OS when you think it was VMware. VMware would be running on top of an OS, not be an OS itself. In a server setting it’s all just linux in various flavors + (probably) kvm.

4

Maybe you’re thinking of ESXi?

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5

I thin you may be right. Does ESXi have the capability of running completely in memory and thus the flash it booted off of can be hotswapped?

6

Yes, you can remove and replace the boot media while the server is running. Provided it’s supported by the hardware.

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