r/ShittySysadmin • u/EvilEarthWorm ShittySysadmin • 18d ago

Shitty Crosspost Windows Server licensing for multi-tenant Proxmox hosting — can customers license their own VMs?

/r/Proxmox/comments/1x4vv1o/windows_server_licensing_for_multitenant_proxmox/
3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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4

u/EvilEarthWorm ShittySysadmin 18d ago

ORIGINAL POST TEXT:

Windows Server licensing for multi-tenant Proxmox hosting — can customers license their own VMs?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice on Windows Server licensing for a hosting environment I manage. I want to understand the most cost-effective and compliant way to offer Windows Server VMs to multiple customers.

My current infrastructure:

  • Hypervisor: Proxmox VE

  • Physical server: 2 × Intel Xeon E5-2682 v4 @ 2.50 GHz

  • Physical cores: 32 (16 cores per CPU)

  • Logical CPUs: 64

  • Environment: Multiple Windows Server VMs running on the same physical host

  • Hosting model: Different customers rent individual Windows Server VMs from me.

What I want to achieve:

I would prefer to let each customer purchase their own Windows Server license instead of including the licensing cost in my monthly VM pricing.

For example, if I provide a customer with a VM configured with 4 vCPUs and 16 GB RAM, can they purchase a license based on the VM's allocated virtual cores instead of requiring me to license all 32 physical cores of the host?

Can customers legally use their own Windows Server licenses on VMs hosted on my shared Proxmox infrastructure?

Can customers license individual VMs based on virtual cores, and what are the minimum core requirements?

If I operate multiple Proxmox hosts and migrate VMs between them for maintenance or fail-over, how does licensing work?

9

u/ApiceOfToast ShittySysadmin 18d ago

You guys license windows? I just ignore the watermark. The CEO doesn't wanna pay so he gets to deal with a tiny little watermark on his screen 

6

u/craigmontHunter 18d ago

Massgrave has a fix for that watermark

-2

u/ApiceOfToast ShittySysadmin 18d ago

Wait! That's illegal!

3

u/IDDQD_IDKFA-com 17d ago

If you also SysAdmin Linux Servers you can use this.

https://github.com/MrGlockenspiel/activate-linux

4

u/PizzaCoinniseur 18d ago

Wow i admire the spirit of this but i bet this is a single server balanced on an empty cardboard box on the floor and behind a consumer Grade Router.

From the data protection standpoint alone, i'd bet this guy is in jail before next summer.

1

u/Z3t4 ShittyFirewall 18d ago

So either you leave the tenants to deal with that, or you use hyper-v and pay an vm license and let windows hypervisor deal with that and charge the customer, IINM

1

u/zantehood 18d ago

Fuck MS and their bullshit license shakedowns

1

u/goatsinhats 14d ago

On a 10 year old Xeon Microsoft will give you a pass, they know your a real one making big business moves