As a PC, the HP Elite is a good box.
As a “Server” it has it’s limits, as you’ve noticed…
My Proxmox are real HP Proliant Servers, but are now over 9 years old ML110 G6).
As a PC, the HP Elite is a good box.
As a “Server” it has it’s limits, as you’ve noticed…
My Proxmox are real HP Proliant Servers, but are now over 9 years old ML110 G6).
Is it possible to restore a backup of the VM’s in ext4? If I change the ZFS.
Servers are also real HP Proliant ML 350 G8…
Yes, you can restore almost anywhere with Proxmox.
I’d suggest switching to XFS.
That’s also what NethServer uses, and is in my opinion far superior to Ext4.
I use XFS at almost all my clients.
Those are MUCH MUCH better than mine!
I recently installed a Win10 on my clients new ML350 G10 - equipped with SSDs, the NAS was also equipped with SSDs in RAID10 as Proxmox shared storage. Even though the disk was on the network, installing that Win10 went faster than doing it on a new notebook… I was amazed!
I have a “test-backup” of the SME VM.
This could be used for restore? I don’t want to loose my old emails…
You can restore that backup, but you can even restore it twice (With a different VMID)…
Both can run at the same time, but as IP conflicts, you’ld need to use different networking, like a new vmbr2 interface or smoenthin…
Almost two years ago now, my business partner and I demonstrated how Proxmox increases availability:
We copied over in front of our client the Proxmox Backup from the clients NAS over to my partners notebook.
My partner brought along his Mac Mini (i5, SSD) with a fresh Proxmox installed and with the client watching, we restored the clients ERP Server to the Mac.
As you can imagine, the Mac Mini had very much completly different hardware than the HP Proliant the client had hie ERP running on…
The ERP (Windows Server 2012) booted up without ANY issues, did not “see” any hardware changes (It still had it’s VirtIO NIC, with the same MAC-Address, same 4 KVM-CPUs and RAM it had before, even the same HD-SN). No requests for relicensing!
If using KVM-CPUs, you can’t use the latest features in the newest CPUs, true. But: You can migrate from Intel to AMD and back - without ANY issues or blue screens!
Nice to know!
PS: Just to make sure: The Backup of your SME is on a different box / hardware / host?
Then you can restore it anywhere with Proxmox (or KVM) and it will run!
O.k. I’ll trash the netserver. The HD is a TB I’m not going to backup this. It’s faster to setup a new server. I’ll keep the cif, right? Also the local (pve). Only the local-zfs (pve) has to be trashed and created new with a xfs filesystem. Is this correct?
Yes, only trash the ZFS. A pity, ZFS is really great, but the hardware needs more base RAM…
Can it be done remote?
Yes, Proxmox allows this per remote…
I’ve setup and reconfigured the storage on “hosted” Proxmox per remote for friends / clients, that works!
Be sure to use screen, in case of disconnects…
That situation would be almost impossible to do via remote - at least on a PC without ILO…
Best do it when you’re there.
Pls. show a screenshot of how it looks like under the ZFS menu, and the details there…
This server is a Proxmox (PC) with PBS added in. ZFS reconfigred from remote…
The server itself is in Edinburgh, but I have someone there who could have rebooted / reinstalled Proxmox if things went south (Bad…).
But here all worked out, it’s now running since Monday and doing backups…
here you are:
and
It’s late. I’ll install the machine tomorrow in the office. We’ll see how it goes then.
OK, wish you a good night!
If possible, add in a small disk just for Proxmox - seperating system and data is “old school” and never a bad idea! A 120 GB Disk or SSD is ample enough!
At the moment, your Proxmox boots directly into ZFS, making it almost impossible to do via remote, at least without a newer ILO…
CU
Andy
Morning Andy,
may I ask how you do your partitioning for a NS in a VM? Let’s assume it’s one disk and 4 GB RAM for the guest. Do you need swap?
Morning Stefan
With Linux - and most UNIX - the truth is: Even if you have a TB RAM, having a swap is better!
I generally let NS create a 8 GB Swap - by setting the RAM to the same value. Later, after Installation you can increase - or decrease - the RAM (Shutdown needed, reboot will not activate additional RAM).
My 2 cents
Andy
I’m a little confused now. Starting proxmox to install from scratch and reading this https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Installation I understand that zfs is default if two disks are in the machine. Other filessystems are not recommended. OR first install buster (with a raid 1) and on top proxmox to have a xfs filesystem.
Am I wrong?
Things are getting complicated.
Hi
Well, I read this on that very page:
After selecting Install Proxmox VE and accepting the EULA, the prompt to select the target hard disk(s) will appear. The Options button opens the dialog to select the target file system.
The default file system is ext4. The Logical Volume Manager (LVM) is used when ext4 or xfs ist selected. Additional options to restrict LVM space can be set (see below).
Proxmox VE can be installed on ZFS. As ZFS offers several software RAID levels, this is an option for systems that don’t have a hardware RAID controller. The target disks must be selected in the Options dialog. More ZFS specific settings can be changed under Advanced Options (see below).
ZFS on top of any hardware RAID is not supported and can result in data loss.
When the installer asks about where and how to install, the button is top right.
Here you can choose.
Note:
Proxmox can use a (md) RAID if you want, but can’t create it itself.
I think their premise is a server installation. If using a hardware RAID, it will be presented by the server to the installer as one Disk (Logival volume or similiar will be stated…).
If not, they would use ZFS - which can be setup eg. as ZFS-Mirror.
But they also seem to think everyone has 32 GB RAM or more for a “Testmachine”…
My HP Servers use the RAID, I’m using XFS.
Your PC will not have a RAID card, so both Disks are presented and they suggest ZFS.
I would only use one disk (This IS a Test- / Migrationssystem and NOT productive!). And add in, once Proxmox is installed, the second disk as Storage with XFS…
The standard size allocation is 100 GB for “local” (Used for ContainerTemplates, Backups and ISO Images) and the rest as local-lvm. The Installer allows you to adapt the space to your requirements.
On a system with only one disk (Like Hosted Servers), I’d allocate enough space to local (eg 300 GB), and the rest leave to local-lvm.
-> If you DO want to use a RAID on that PC-based System, you have to install Debian 10 (Buster) minimal first. The Installer there gives you the option for raiding the disks…
Then install Proxmox over Debian.
This method has to be done with most Hosters, very few provide a Proxmox (Hetzner does, if you request it!). Most only provide a choice of several standard Linux like Debian, Ubuntu, Centos.
This works just as stable as a direct installation of Proxmox!
As the Proxmox installer page states:
“Alternatively, Proxmox VE can be installed on top of an existing Debian system.”…
Hope this helps…
Andy
Disk situation on my two home servers…
Both my Proxmox are identical, with the exception of the disks.
On this server I removed the 2*2TB disks to use them in my PBS, and replaced the disks with two 500 GB HDs… (Just for System, all Storage is in NAS/PBS).