Merits of running Squeezebox Server on a virtual machine

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  • Hercules
    Senior Member
    • Nov 2006
    • 168

    Merits of running Squeezebox Server on a virtual machine

    Hi,

    I'm planning to buy/build a home server, and am considering the merits of running Squeezebox Server on a VM. I'd be grateful for your opinions.

    At the moment my Squeezebox Server runs off a spare laptop, but I now need to use that laptop (because my main laptop has died), and so want to use this opportunity to get Squeezebox Server running on something a bit more solid and scalable.

    I'm thinking the home server will do the following:
    - Act as my primary file store
    - Act as my backup (I know it should be separate but that's a later step...)
    - Host my lossless music library for my Squeezebox
    - Host Squeezebox Server
    - Host a duplicate lossy music library for my portable player
    - Maybe also do some other media sharing (e.g. additional music sharing, video, etc.)

    So I'm wondering whether there is any value in running Squeezebox Server on a VM. Being a bit of a geek the idea appeals to me but are there any significant benefits in doing so?
  • aubuti
    Senior Member
    • Oct 2005
    • 8883

    #2
    If I understand you correctly, you are getting a new computer to run SBS and do those other tasks, and you want to know about the merits of doing that on a VM on the new computer? If that's right, then the first question is what will the non-VM (ie, the real/host machine) be doing? Unless you'll be doing something different with that, I don't see any reason to run SBS on a VM. You would just be dividing up computing resources when you don't need to.

    That said, I have found VMs useful for SBS. I often use beta versions of the server software, but my family doesn't want to be beta testers. So I run the current stable release on the host machine, and the nightly beta on the VM. Then I can connect any of my SBs to either version of SBS.
    Main system: SB3 > Emotiva XDA-1 > NAD C 325BEE > Vandersteen 1
    Living room: SB2 > Audioengine HD6
    Kitchen/dining: SB2 > AudioSource AMP 100 > 2-pairs of Polk Audio RC60i in-ceiling speakers
    Deck/patio: SB Receiver > AudioSource AMP 100 > Polk Atrium 45
    Study: SB Radio
    Quiet time: Hifiman Sundara headphones plugged into NAD amp or iPhone + AudioQuest Dragonfly Red DAC/amp
    LMS 8.3 running on a Raspberry Pi3 (piCore), controlled using iPeng, SB Controllers and Squeezepad

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    • sensei451
      Junior Member
      • Mar 2012
      • 1

      #3
      Old thread, but anyway.

      Runing Hyper-V and a guest windows server 2008 with media server, i have not been able to get a reliable synced playback with 2 duets. I guess the internal clock works differently i guest OS:es.

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      • LazySqueeze
        Junior Member
        • Nov 2013
        • 20

        #4
        It works for me: Virtual Vortexbox 2.3 running on top an ESXi server

        not much more to say: It works streaming to hardware and software players.
        I never found time to fix not being able to save playlists but I do not believe it is related to the virtualization part

        In my configuration the audio/music files are exported from NAS (as NFS/CIFS/Mac) shares and imported (CIFS) by the virtual vortexbox via edit of etc/fstab.
        The root password is saved in clear text in a root read only file in its home directory to provide some minimum security.
        I have installed a couple of goodies on that box too: shellinabox, tonido server (for remote access), bits, among others.

        I guess, I could export the VM (config and virtual hard disk) and save it to USB flash drive for portability as the original poster wanted.
        I have not tried but see no reason why it should not work.

        Just for the record: Having a full unix system on a USB has definitely security issues


        Originally posted by sensei451
        Old thread, but anyway.

        Runing Hyper-V and a guest windows server 2008 with media server, i have not been able to get a reliable synced playback with 2 duets. I guess the internal clock works differently i guest OS:es.

        Comment

        • Otto-Wilhelm
          Member
          • Oct 2009
          • 88

          #5
          Running LMS on a virtualized machine works fine, if the host system is powerful enough. You should consider to store your music files not on the virtualized guest but on the host. The virtualized system should be hosted on a SSD of the host.
          1 transporter with touch for controlling,
          1 squeezebox 3,
          6 squeezebox radio,
          3 squeezebox controllers,
          ipeng on IPhones and IPads,
          LMS unter Max2Play on Odroid XU4,
          LMS with MusicIP unter Windows Homeserver 2011 on Compulab Intense PC (Intel i5, 2.1 GHz, 8 GB;
          ROON under Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials on Dell PowerEdge T630 with 2x Intel Xeon E5-2630L v3 @ 1.80 GHz 8 core CPUs and 48 GB,
          2 Bluesound Node 2 as ROON endpoints

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          • plympton
            Senior Member
            • Aug 2007
            • 245

            #6
            Originally posted by Otto-Wilhelm
            Running LMS on a virtualized machine works fine, if the host system is powerful enough. You should consider to store your music files not on the virtualized guest but on the host. The virtualized system should be hosted on a SSD of the host.
            I run Erland's squeezebox image on virtualbox from my windows server 2012 r2 host. It's been running great for years. Nice thing is you can back it up, version it, move it to another machine if necessary. I still have my media on the server, and mount the media as a share (smb, if I recall). That way the image is pretty small.

            No problems syncing multiple rooms, and I have 7 squeezeboxes attached to the server (sb2, 2 sb3, 2 boom, 2 radio).

            Comment

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