Hosting multiple sites in multiple VMs

[EHaskins]

So I'm currently hosting 3 websites in a single virtual machine. I would like to move each site into its own VM, but I only have one public IP. I currently have all traffic on port 80 being forwarded by my router(Linksys wrt54g I believe) to my hosting VM.

Is it possible to redirect port 80 traffic to different IPs based on the destination hostname? The same way you can set site bindings to one hostname in IIS.

Thanks,
Eric Haskins

[Scott L.]

yes octagate.com sells a "soft-switch" which does that. I have used the demo and it works nice

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by Scott L.

yes octagate.com sells a "soft-switch" which does that. I have used the demo and it works nice

Thats the type of thing I'm looking for, but the $500 price tag is more than I'd like to spend.

Since the only non-personal site I'm hosting is my FRC team site, getting more than about $100-$150 really isn't possible.

[Scott L.]

quick google search found this. http://www.smithfam.com/wtk/RedirectBoss/

lot cheaper than octagate.

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by Scott L.

quick google search found this. http://www.smithfam.com/wtk/RedirectBoss/

lot cheaper than octagate.

If I understand what that product does, it just redirects the client. The issue with that is that to get to another machine(or virtual machine) I would need to redirect to another port, and many places block ports other than 80.

[chrisstruttmann]

The short answer is no.

The long answer is yes (using systems similar to those noted above) but it will be more work and maintenance than you want to take care of not to mention slow your sites down to the same speed as if they were on the same VM.

If it's efficiency you're looking for and you're running on IIS 6 (as much trouble as it's given, it's still a decent web-server), try creating multiple application pools. Works great for some of my more intensive stuff I do at work.

ALSO keep in mind that the more VMs you have running, the more ACTUAL CPU will be used. I've decided that VMs aren't the holy grail.

--Chris

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by chrisstruttmann

The short answer is no.

The long answer is yes (using systems similar to those noted above) but it will be more work and maintenance than you want to take care of not to mention slow your sites down to the same speed as if they were on the same VM.

If it's efficiency you're looking for and you're running on IIS 6 (as much trouble as it's given, it's still a decent web-server), try creating multiple application pools. Works great for some of my more intensive stuff I do at work.

ALSO keep in mind that the more VMs you have running, the more ACTUAL CPU will be used. I've decided that VMs aren't the holy grail.

--Chris

The primary reason I currently run in a VM, and want to move to more, is for isolation.

I know that there is a lot of overheard for VMs, but since I'm running a Core 2 Quad 2.4ghz Q6600, with 4gb of ram(soon it will be 8gb), that overhead is not a significant concern.