PIONEERS Proxmox with Linux Containers

wardmundy

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For virtualization fans, Proxmox VE 4.0 has just been released. Test drive coming soon!

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vic555

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http://www.jamescoyle.net/tag/opennode has had tremendous articles on opennode, and the opennode manager GUI;

after trying to install proxmox 3.4 on a OpenVZ centos system, unsucessfully, I am really sold
on opennode, especially on Centos. Opennode is a Centos based system, and it has the Shorewall firewall now built in.

And Opennode really is a open source and free system, where proxmox is trending to a subscription based model, for businesses than can afford it.
 

wardmundy

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First, Proxmox 4 test is humming along. Zippy quick!! Build speed is comparable to a Digital Ocean install. Looks like you could easily run 8-12 KVMs on this $500 platform simultaneously. Linux Containers next up.

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wardmundy

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I've had a chance to play with OpenNode now as well as the previous release of Proxmox. There's really not much of a comparison. OpenNode only supports OpenVZ containers so you can't build virtual machines from ISO images. Proxmox 4 is much improved and much, much more secure than prior versions so I think we'll focus on that one for the moment. Did we mention it's fast. :leaving:
 

vic555

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I've had a chance to play with OpenNode now as well as the previous release of Proxmox. There's really not much of a comparison. OpenNode only supports OpenVZ containers so you can't build virtual machines from ISO images. Proxmox 4 is much improved and much, much more secure than prior versions so I think we'll focus on that one for the moment. Did we mention it's fast. :leaving:

Ok, I know proxmox 4.0 works for you, and it is fast... I wished we could have installed Proxmox then 3.4 on Wable (OpenVZ) , but (Wable offers no iso support), and though there are work arounds, other more important issues came up.

Any word on the subscription model creeping into the 4.0(CE) Proxmox version.. Nag Screens, etc.?
 

wardmundy

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They're trying to eat. No reason to sign up if you don't want to.
 

vic555

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They're trying to eat. No reason to sign up if you don't want to.

That is only fair, and if you have business to sustain the model, probably worth it.; I did note earlier, their email server, is now only a subscription based model, after 30 days. You must pay or
there will be no functionality.
 

wardmundy

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Proxmox has always had trouble telling time, a "feature" we had forgotten about over these past few years. To accommodate our newfound love for Proxmox 4, we had to rework Incredible PBX 13 a bit so that the Incredible PBX 13 ISO works correctly with Proxmox. Otherwise, neither Asterisk, iksemel, nor Fail2Ban compiled successfully. The new step adds a reboot after most of the RPM packages have been installed. This gets the time squared away, and everything sets up properly. It's all automagic so those using the ISO on other platforms won't notice much difference and the reboot step is skipped.

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For developers, the Incredible PBX ISO installs the base Scientific Linux 6.7 platform. Then it reboots, downloads the latest IncrediblePBX13-12.2-centos.tar.gz tarball, and runs the Incredible PBX installer. So the new changes to accommodate Proxmox 4 are all made in the installer embedded in the tarball. The ISO hasn't changed. This was the design plan to avoid constant refreshes of the ISO in order to keep the installs current. It's also the reason Asterisk 13.6 was available using the original Incredible PBX ISO on the release date last Friday.

To upload the Incredible PBX ISO into Proxmox for use in creating new VMs, (1) choose local from the Storage option list in the left column, (2) click on the Content tab, (3) click on the Upload tab, (4) click Select File button and choose IncrediblePBX13.iso from your desktop computer. Click Upload.

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To create a new Virtual Machine from an ISO, (1) choose your Proxmox4 node, (2) click Create VM button, and (3) fill in the blanks for the VM ID number and name it . Click Next.

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For the OS type, choose Linux 2.4 kernel. Click Next.

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For the CD/DVD image file, choose IncrediblePBX13.iso from the pulldown. Click Next.

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On the Hard Disk screen, choose the (1) storage location, (2) size, and (3) format for your new Virtual Machine. Think of how you'll be using it. This is important. You can't shrink the size later, but you can enlarge it so START SMALL, e.g. 10GB. Also worth remembering, with Proxmox, disk sizes are reserved the minute you create the VM. Click Next.

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The rest is easy. Leave the default for CPU cores to use, change RAM to 1 GB, leave the network defaults to pick an IP address from DHCP pool. Review and confirm your settings. Done.
 

wardmundy

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For those that want to use Linux Containers, the OpenVZ-like capability that's new in Proxmox 4, be forewarned that the CentOS 6 container is broken at least with Incredible PBX. The Ubuntu 14.04 container works fine. I've reported the problem but it doesn't look like there is much enthusiasm for fixing the issue. They claim we should just stick with ISO VM builds because we use too many RPMs. That's a new one for me. We weren't out of disk space or RAM, just too many loaded RPMs. And, when you attempt to reboot the container, you're DEAD. It won't ever restart. You can read the message thread here if you are interested.
 

wardmundy

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Got backup images working today. Should have an Incredible PBX 13 template for everyone to play with shortly. Sets up in under a minute.

First, create a backup directory for your server: From Datacenter menu (in left column), choose Storage tab. Click Add. From the pulldown, you can choose from 8 different locations for your backup location. If you want it to be local on the Proxmox server, choose Directory. Then fill in the blanks as shown below and click Add.

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To add or remove backup image on your server, use SSH or Putty to copy into or remove images from the /var/lib/vz/backup folder.

To add the Incredible PBX 13 KVM master image to your server, log into your Proxmox server as root and issue the following commands:
Code:
cd /
wget 'http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/pbxinaflash/IncrediblePBX13-12 with Incredible PBX GUI/IncrediblePBX13-KVM.tar.gz'
tar zxvf IncrediblePBX13-KVM.tar.gz
rm IncrediblePBX13-KVM.tar.gz

To create a new Virtual Machine from a backup image:
  1. Click on the backup storage option in the left column
  2. Click Content tab
  3. Click on the backup file you wish to restore
  4. Click Restore
  5. Choose local Storage
  6. Fill in the VM ID number for your new Virtual Machine container
  7. Click Restore button to create the new virtual machine
Within less than 30 seconds, it will appear as a new VM container within your Proxmox4 node.

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For other primates attempting this feat, click on the numbers in order and fill in the blanks when you get to 5 and 6. :taz:
 

wardmundy

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Building Virtual Machines from a Backup Snapshot is clearly the way to go. This runs circles around ALL other VM platforms.

Shown below is the total elapsed time to build a new 10GB Incredible PBX 13 VM after clicking the Restore button:
Formatting '/var/lib/vz/backup/images/101/vm-101-disk-1.qcow2', fmt=qcow2 size=10737418240 encryption=off cluster_size=65536 preallocation='metadata' lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16
new volume ID is 'backup:101/vm-101-disk-1.qcow2'
map 'drive-ide0' to '/var/lib/vz/backup/images/101/vm-101-disk-1.qcow2' (write zeros = 0)
progress 1% (read 107413504 bytes, duration 0 sec)
progress 2% (read 214761472 bytes, duration 0 sec)
progress 3% (read 322174976 bytes, duration 0 sec)
progress 4% (read 429522944 bytes, duration 1 sec)
progress 5% (read 536870912 bytes, duration 1 sec)
progress 6% (read 644284416 bytes, duration 1 sec)
...
progress 95% (read 10200547328 bytes, duration 20 sec)
progress 96% (read 10307960832 bytes, duration 20 sec)
progress 97% (read 10415308800 bytes, duration 20 sec)
progress 98% (read 10522722304 bytes, duration 20 sec)
progress 99% (read 10630070272 bytes, duration 20 sec)
progress 100% (read 10737418240 bytes, duration 20 sec)
total bytes read 10737418240, sparse bytes 5929807872 (55.2%)
 

wardmundy

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Doing the math on a 250GB SSD drive's utilization with Proxmox 4:

30 GB - Formatting overhead
57 GB - Proxmox root partition (1.2GB used)
20 GB - tmpfs
142 GB - Available for general usage (includes storage space for KVMs, backups, ISOs, Linux containers)

Doing the math on 16GB RAM utilization with Proxmox 4:

.5 GB - Formatting overhead
1.5 GB - Proxmox management
14 GB - Available for general usage by KVMs and Linux containers

NOTE: If you have a Synology NAS device or another server supporting NFS, backups and some other components can be stored on the NFS device instead of your Intel NUC. It's as easy to set up as the backup folder explained above. Be sure to enable the Intel NUC IP address on your NFS platform.

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The Deacon

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I don't remember all the specifics, but wasn't there a networking/VPN issue with Proxmox 3.x and that was the reason that we abandoned Proxmox a while back?

Has that issue been resolved in this latest version (maybe moving from OpenVZ to LXC fixed that issue)?
 

wardmundy

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We're pretty much steering clear of OpenVZ and Linux Containers. They're just too quirky and don't make a lot of sense for a 4GB+ platform. That's the same thing we're hearing from the Proxmox developers. KVMs work exactly like an ISO installed on a standalone server. The only wrinkle is you need a processor with Intel VT-x virtualization support to deploy multiple VMs. But almost all of the newer Intel processors include it, even this week's featured $119 Intel NUC. The good news is you can build a KVM machine from a backup image in under 20 seconds which is even faster than you used to build OpenVZ templates. So there really is no downside. And... you get your own kernel rather than sharing one which means all the kernel-dependent apps such as IPtables and Fail2Ban work just fine.
 

wardmundy

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I don't remember all the specifics, but wasn't there a networking/VPN issue with Proxmox 3.x and that was the reason that we abandoned Proxmox a while back?

Has that issue been resolved in this latest version (maybe moving from OpenVZ to LXC fixed that issue)?


I remember the serious security issue in their earlier kernel, but I'm not aware of a networking problem. I haven't seen one in Proxmox 4... so far.
 

wardmundy

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Testing Clonezilla to do backup of Proxmox 4 server today. Can we get a clean backup and restore? Nope. Stay tuned.
 

wardmundy

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One additional wrinkle which is actually related to the Clonezilla problem which currently doesn't recognize Linux Type 1, EFI partitions...

Because this is a motherboard with UEFI support, the Proxmox installer incorrectly sets up the drive in GPT format rather than legacy because it detects the CD/DVD drive being UEFI. This, in turn, causes BOTH a UEFI boot and a legacy boot to fail on power up. All of the ISOs for CentOS 6.7, Ubuntu 14.04, and IncrediblePBX13.iso handle this properly. But Proxmox does not.

You can manually boot from the Proxmox drive with F10 if you have enabled Legacy Boot in the BIOS. But you'd be dead with a power failure or remote install because you would get an error that no boot device could be found.

Here's how to fix it...

Code:
1) Press F2 on boot. In VisualBIOS - check that "Internal UEFI Shell" is checked/enabled
and that "UEFI: Built-in EFI Shell" is an option in the list of UEFI bootable devices.
Turn OFF legacy boot option. In Power settings, set it to recover from power failure.
Press F10 to SAVE your settings.
2) Boot the NUC and allow it to drop into the EFI shell prompt.
...assuming fs0: is the FAT32 EFI partition that Proxmox made...
3) type => fs0:
4) type => echo "fs0:\EFI\proxmox\grubx64.efi" > fs0:\startup.nsh
5) type => startup.nsh and you should boot into Proxmox

And here's why Clonezilla is having problems:

Code:
root@proxmox4:~# parted /dev/sda print
Model: ATA Crucial_CT250MX2 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
 
Number  Start  End    Size    File system  Name  Flags
1      17.4kB  1049kB 1031kB                     bios_grub
2      1049kB  134MB  133MB  fat32              boot, esp
3      134MB   250GB  250GB                      lvm
 
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