Setting up a testing enviroment on a cloud server?

nixle · 08-08-2010, 01:13 PM

Hi everbody,

I need to set up a testing enviroment for 10 windows XP installations. I could use 10 computers, but I'm not lucky enough to have 10 working machines available.

So I figured: Let's set up a cloudserver with Linux and run windows on 10 virtualBox instances.

Another option would be to set up a cloud server and make KDE available remotely (with VNC that is called, if I am right...?). I could then install 10 virtualbox machines throug that KDE instance. This would take away the need to use a remote connection to 10 instances.

This will be the first time I attempt anything like this, so if anybody of you with a bit of expierence could maybe advise me for at bit...

r3sistance · 08-09-2010, 11:59 AM

I have not run Virtual Box myself, however if this machine is something you are going to remote to say across the Internet then VNC should either be set-up as force encrypted or run over SSH, as VNC by default (like FTP too) sends login details in plain text across the Internet.

If the end computer/cloud has the resources to run 10 instances of XP then this should work, however XP is essentially past end-of-life by Microsoft and thus isn't advisable anymore these days.

nixle · 08-09-2010, 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by r3sistance

I have not run Virtual Box myself, however if this machine is something you are going to remote to say across the Internet then VNC should either be set-up as force encrypted or run over SSH, as VNC by default (like FTP too) sends login details in plain text across the Internet.

If the end computer/cloud has the resources to run 10 instances of XP then this should work, however XP is essentially past end-of-life by Microsoft and thus isn't advisable anymore these days.

Hey,

I really appreciate your reaction to this.

I've been digging around for a bit during some spare time today. As I understand now, VNC is pretty hard on the bandwith and logging in remotely to X would be a better option. This is what I am looking in to.

XP is just end-of life because MS wants to sell some W7 though, right?

r3sistance · 08-09-2010, 04:47 PM

Windows XP is end-of-life because MS uses a 7 year support policy (what is not that uncommon, Red Hat also have similar policies on major releases of RHEL), XP came out about 9 years ago meaning XP is 2 years past end-of-life. Being end-of-life means MS has no contractual obligation to release security patches and no longer generally license new copies... this means that any security weaknesses that came out within the past 2 years MS may simply have just left unpatched as they have no reason to support XP anymore.

VNC is from my understanding better then X Forwarding for remoting, I was simply saying VNC is not a secure protocol by standard.