[ale] what happens to vm if host reboots

[JD]

On 02/15/2013 08:31 AM, Phil Turmel wrote:
> On 02/14/2013 10:20 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> I had a scenario where I was running Win 7 as a host with a virtualbox
>> Mint 13 vm running inside it.  Microsoft issued their patches on the 2nd
>> Tuesday, and, since the computer is set to automatically apply patches,
>> the system decided to force a reboot.  So, I came back to the computer
>> and found it waiting for me to enter the boot up password.

Servers should never automatically reboot. NEVER.  If you can't change anything
right now, perhaps disabling the installation of those patches is the best
alternative - download them, just don't install automatically. You are very
conscientious, so it is unlikely that the "patches ready to be installed" popups
would be missed.

>> Now, I know all the Windows programs will properly shut down, and, as
>> long as I haven't left any data unsaved, shouldn't be a problem.
>>
>> My question is, what happens to the Mint 13 vm I had running?  It was
>> just idling, and I didn't have any apps running inside it.  Will that vm
>> shut down gracefully before the host shuts down?  Or, do I need to be
>> concerned about not leaving vm's running prior to patch Tuesday?

VMs should be sent the signal to reboot, but you need to have the aspcd
installed and running for them to hear that request.  I know it is not installed
by default on Ubuntu 12.04 Server.  I know this works for KVM, but can't say
what virtualbox does.  I think of vbox as desktop-centric virtualization, not
suitable for servers.

> Seriously, friends don't let friends run Windows on bare metal.

There is a time and place for MS-Windows, but I agree with the others - this is
not it.  Do you really need so many Windows machines. Could they be put into VMs
running under Linux or reduced to 1 physical and the rest virtual?

Regarding that personal msg Ron - sorry, just saw it.  Can't you use a temp
email account from a diff provider?