43,19 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Master the skills you need to build a rock-solid virtualization environment with the all new Proxmox 4
About This Book
- Formulate Proxmox-based solutions and set up virtual machines of any size while gaining expertise even on the most complex multi-cluster setups
- Master the skills needed to analyze, monitor, and troubleshoot real-world virtual environments
- This is the most up-to-date title on mastering Proxmox, with examples based on the new Linux Kernel 4.2 and Debian Jessie (8.x)
Who This Book Is For
The book targets Linux and system administrators and professionals working in IT teams who would like to design and implement an enterprise-quality virtualized environment using Proxmox.Knowledge of networking and virtualization concepts is assumed.
What You Will Learn
- Install the basic Proxmox VE nodes
- Get to know the Proxmox Graphical User Interface (GUI)
- See and understand Proxmox's internal structure and mechanics
- Create and manage KVM- or LXC-based virtual machines
- Understand advanced virtual networks
- Leverage the power of the built-in Proxmox firewall to provide protection at any level
- Configure high availability Proxmox nodes
- Learn different backup strategies and to restore a VM in the event of a disaster to ensure data safety
- Monitor a Proxmox cluster and all of its components using Zabbix
- Plan large virtual environments for mission critical virtual environments
- Work through real-world scenarios to troubleshoot Proxmox
In Detail
Proxmox is an open source server virtualization solution that has enterprise-class features to manage virtual machines, to be used for storage, and to virtualize both Linux and Windows application workloads.
You begin with refresher on the advanced installation features and the Proxmox GUI to familiarize yourself with the Proxmox VE hypervisor. You then move on to explore Proxmox under the hood, focusing on the storage systems used with Proxmox. Moving on, you will learn to manage KVM Virtual Machines and Linux Containers and see how networking is handled in Proxmox. You will then learn how to protect a cluster or a VM with a firewall and explore the new HA features introduced in Proxmox VE 4 along with the brand new HA simulator.
Next, you will dive deeper into the backup/restore strategy followed by learning how to properly update and upgrade a Proxmox node. Later, you will learn how to monitor a Proxmox cluster and all of its components using Zabbix. By the end of the book, you will become an expert at making Proxmox environments work in production environments with minimum downtime.
Style and approach
This book walks you through every aspect of virtualization using Proxmox using a practical, scenario-based approach that features best practices and all the weaponry you need to succeed when building virtual environments with Proxmox 4.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 462
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Mastering Proxmox - Second Edition
Mastering Proxmox - Second Edition
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: July 2014
Second edition: May 2016
Production reference: 1230516
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-78588-824-3
www.packtpub.com
Credits
Author
Wasim Ahmed
Reviewer
Rocco Alfonzetti
Commissioning Editor
Kartikey Pandey
Acquisition Editor
Rahul Nair
Content Development Editor
Samantha Gonsalves
Technical Editor
Naveenkumar Jain
Copy Editor
Rashmi Sawant
Project Coordinator
Sanchita Mandal
Proofreader
Safis editing
Indexer
Hemangini Bari
Graphics
Kirk D'Penha
Production Coordinator
Shantanu N. Zagade
Cover Work
Shantanu N. Zagade
About the Author
Wasim Ahmed, born in Bangladesh and now a citizen of Canada, is a veteran of the IT world. He came into close contact with computers in 1992 and never looked back. Wasim has much deeper knowledge and understanding of network, virtualization, big data storage, and network security. By profession, Wasim is the CEO of an IT support and cloud service provider company based in Calgary, Alberta. He serves many companies and organizations through his company on a daily basis. Wasim's strength comes from his experience that comes from learning and serving continually. Wasim strives to find the most effective solution at the most competitive price. He has built over 20 enterprise production virtual infrastructures using Proxmox and the Ceph storage system.
Wasim is notoriously known not to simply accept a technology based on its description alone, but puts it through rigorous testing to check its validity. Any new technology that his company provides goes through months of continuous testing before it is accepted. Proxmox made the cut superbly.
He would like to thank the entire staff at Proxmox for their support and dedication to the hypervisor community. Wasim would also like to thank Packt Publishing for their vision of moving forward with such a one of a kind book on Proxmox and their support throughout the journey of publishing this book.
About the Reviewer
Rocco Alfonzetti works for PaperClip, Inc. as an e-mail encryption expert, bringing to market PaperClip eM4, a state-of-the-art e-mail encryption solution for individuals and businesses alike. PaperClip's newest innovation is Mojo, which is a ground breaking and innovative Forms recognition technology that is cloud-born and crowdsourced. PaperClip, Inc. has innovated and excelled in the Document Management world for over 20 years.
Rocco's career includes working as a small business computer consultant in the New York City business area for at least 15 years, where his advanced networking, Windows, Linux, and Open Source skills were polished. Rocco also blogs and consults for OpenCIO, an innovative cloud consulting firm, which has focuses on helping small businesses deploy, engineer, and license Proxmox installations, as well as place their workloads in AWS, Azure, and other Cloud solutions.
Rocco runs his own large Proxmox clusters both in development and production, where he runs many complex workloads and Linux systems. He welcomes any notes or communication from readers and maintains a personal e-mail address of [email protected].
Rocco lives in rural Connecticut with his wife and their three young children. When he is not working, Rocco enjoys gardening, raising animals, beekeeping, and cooking. Rocco is also a proud Freemason, volunteering his time to the local community.
www.PacktPub.com
eBooks, discount offers, and more
Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub.com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at <[email protected]> for more details.
At www.PacktPub.com, you can also read a collection of free technical articles, sign up for a range of free newsletters and receive exclusive discounts and offers on Packt books and eBooks.
https://www2.packtpub.com/books/subscription/packtlib
Do you need instant solutions to your IT questions? PacktLib is Packt's online digital book library. Here, you can search, access, and read Packt's entire library of books.
Why subscribe?
This book is dedicated to,
My dear wife, Brigitta, whose love, constant support, and unshakeable faith in me has allowed me to do what I do best, while she took care of the rest.
Also dedicated to my daughter, Viktoria, whose patience with me was both fuel for writing this book and a character-building experience for myself.
Preface
Based on the foundation laid out by the first edition, this book, Mastering Proxmox, Second Edition, brings updated information and details of new features about the Proxmox. Since the first edition of this book was published, Proxmox has been through many changes. Through this second edition, I am confident that readers will be able to upgrade their skills while building and managing even better Proxmox clusters.
This book shows the inner workings of Proxmox, including virtual network components, shared storage systems, Proxmox firewall, and high availability.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Understanding Proxmox VE and Advanced Installation, gives a brief description of what Proxmox VE actually is, its strengths and weaknesses, and advanced features. This chapter will also guide a user to understand advanced installation in the Proxmox cluster.
Chapter 2, Exploring the Proxmox GUI, discusses the graphical user interface. The bulk of the Proxmox cluster is managed through GUI.
Chapter 3, Proxmox under the Hood, explains the Proxmox directory structure and configuration files. This chapter will also show what mounting options Proxmox uses for its storage system. Configuration files will be analyzed line by line to show their functions.
Chapter 4, Storage Systems, explains how Proxmox interacts with the storage system and types of storage system supported. It will also show what types of image format are supported and when to use them in detail. Both local and shared storage systems will be covered.
Chapter 5, KVM Virtual Machines, covers how to create and manage any number of KVM virtual machines and their advanced configuration.
Chapter 6, LXC Virtual Machines, covers how to create and manage any number of LXC containers and their advanced configuration. LXC has been added to Proxmox version 4 to replace OpenVZ-based VM completely.
Chapter 7, Network of Virtual Networks, goes into the details of how networking is handled in Proxmox 4. It explains the different networking components used in Proxmox to build virtual networks.
Chapter 8, The Proxmox Firewall, shows built-in firewall options for Proxmox clusters and how to protect a cluster as a whole, or a VM and host nodes individually.
Chapter 9, Proxmox High Availability, shows new HA features introduced in Proxmox VE 4 along with a brand new HA simulator. This chapter also shows high availability for storage system to truly have an HA cluster.
Chapter 10, Backup/Restore VMs, dives deeper in the backup/restore strategy of Proxmox. It explains in detail the backup and restore feature of Proxmox for disaster planning.
Chapter 11, Updating and Upgrading Proxmox, shows how to properly update and upgrade a Proxmox node. It explains how to keep Proxmox up to date.
Chapter 12, Monitoring a Proxmox Cluster, shows how to use Zabbix to monitor an entire Proxmox cluster, including sending e-mail notifications during a failure.
Chapter 13, Proxmox Production-Level Setup, explains different components in a production-level cluster. We will look at how to put a Proxmox cluster in a production environment with minimum downtime. We will go through TO DOs, production requirements, and enterprise class hardware setup for Proxmox.
Chapter 14, Proxmox Troubleshooting, lists real incidents with solutions that may arise in the Proxmox cluster. All information is taken from real-world scenarios based on real issues.
What you need for this book
Since we will be working with Proxmox clusters throughout the book, it will be extremely helpful to have a working Proxmox cluster of your own. A very basic cluster of two to three nodes will be fine. The steps should be performed as listed in a way that it prepares the system environment to be able to test the codes of the book:
Who this book is for
This book is for readers who want to build and manage a virtual infrastructure based on Proxmox as hypervisor. Whether the reader is a veteran in the virtualized industry but has never worked with Proxmox, or somebody just starting out a promising career in this industry, this book will serve you well.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "To change the font color, edit the debian theme file in /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme."
A block of code is set as follows:
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "Clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
Reader feedback
Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book—what you liked or disliked. Reader feedback is important for us as it helps us develop titles that you will really get the most out of.
To send us general feedback, simply e-mail <[email protected]>, and mention the book's title in the subject of your message.
If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide at www.packtpub.com/authors.
Customer support
Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.
Downloading the color images of this book
We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from http://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/MasteringProxmoxSecondedition_ColorImages.pdf.
Errata
Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books—maybe a mistake in the text or the code—we would be grateful if you could report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/submit-errata, selecting your book, clicking on the Errata Submission Form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded to our website or added to any list of existing errata under the Errata section of that title.
To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.
Piracy
Piracy of copyrighted material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.
Please contact us at <[email protected]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.
We appreciate your help in protecting our authors and our ability to bring you valuable content.
Questions
If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at <[email protected]>, and we will do our best to address the problem.
Chapter 1. Understanding Proxmox VE and Advanced Installation
Virtualization, as we all know today, is a decades old technology that was first implemented in mainframes of the 1960s. Virtualization was a way to logically divide the mainframe's resources for different application processing. With the rise in energy costs, running under-utilized server hardware is no longer a luxury. Virtualization enables us to do more with less, thus save energy and money while creating a virtual green data center without geographical boundaries.
A hypervisor is a piece of software, hardware, or firmware that creates and manages virtual machines. It is the underlying platform or foundation that allows a virtual world to be built upon. In a way, it is the very building block of all virtualization. A bare metal hypervisor acts as a bridge between physical hardware and the virtual machines by creating an abstraction layer. Because of this unique feature, an entire virtual machine can be moved over a vast distance over the Internet and be made able to function exactly the same. A virtual machine does not see the hardware directly; instead, it sees the layer of the hypervisor, which is the same no matter on what hardware the hypervisor has been installed.
The Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) is a cluster-based hypervisor and one of the best kept secrets in the virtualization world. The reason is simple. It allows you to build an enterprise business-class virtual infrastructure at a small business-class price tag without sacrificing stability, performance, and ease of use. Whether it is a massive data center to serve millions of people, or a small educational institution, or a home serving important family members, Proxmox can handle configuration to suit any situation.
If you have picked up this book, no doubt you will be familiar with virtualization and perhaps well versed with other hypervisors, such VMWare, Xen, Hyper-V, and so on. In this chapter and upcoming chapters, we will see the mighty power of Proxmox from the inside out. We will examine scenarios and create a complex virtual environment. We will tackle some heavy day-to-day issues and show resolutions, which might just save the day in a production environment. So, strap yourself in and let's dive into the virtual world with the mighty hypervisor, Proxmox VE.
Understanding Proxmox features
Before we dive in, it is necessary to understand why one should choose Proxmox over the other main stream hypervisors. Proxmox is not perfect but stands out among other contenders with some hard-to-beat features. The following are some of the features that makes Proxmox a real game changer.
It is free!
Yes, Proxmox is free! To be more accurate, Proxmox has several subscription levels among which the community edition is completely free. One can simply download Proxmox ISO at no cost and raise a fully functional cluster without missing a single feature and without paying anything. The main difference between the paid and community subscription level is that the paid subscription receives updates, which goes through additional testing and refinement. If you are running a production cluster with a real workload, it is highly recommended that you purchase support and licensing from Proxmox or Proxmox resellers.
Built-in firewall
Proxmox VE comes with a robust firewall ready to be configured out of the box. This firewall can be configured to protect the entire Proxmox cluster down to a virtual machine. The Per VM firewall option gives you the ability to configure each VM individually by creating individualized firewall rules, a prominent feature in a multi-tenant virtual environment. We will learn about this feature in detail in Chapter 8, The Proxmox Firewall.
Open vSwitch
Licensed under the Apache 2.0 license, Open vSwitch is a virtual switch designed to work in a multi-server virtual environment. All hypervisors need a bridge between VMs and the outside network. Open vSwitch enhances features of the standard Linux bridge in an ever-changing virtual environment. Proxmox fully supports Open vSwitch, which allows you to create an intricate virtual environment all the while, reducing virtual network management overhead. For details on Open vSwitch, refer to http://openvswitch.org/.
We will learn about Open vSwitch management in Proxmox in Chapter 7, Network of Virtual Networks.
The graphical user interface
Proxmox comes with a fully functional graphical user interface, or GUI, out of the box. The GUI allows an administrator to manage and configure almost all the aspects of a Proxmox cluster. The GUI has been designed keeping simplicity in mind with functions and features separated into menus for easier navigation. The following screenshot shows an example of the Proxmox GUI dashboard:
We will dissect the Proxmox GUI dashboard in Chapter 2, Exploring the Proxmox GUI.
KVM
KVM or Kernel-based virtual machine is a kernel module that is added to Linux for full virtualization to create isolated fully independent virtual machines. KVM VMs are not dependent on the host operating system in any way, but they do require the virtualization feature in BIOS to be enabled. KVM allows a wide variety of operating systems for virtual machines, such as Linux and Windows. Proxmox provides a very stable environment for KVM-based VMs. We will learn how to create KVM VMs and also how to manage them in Chapter 5, KVM Virtual Machines.
Linux containers or LXC
Introduced recently in Proxmox VE 4.0, Linux containers allow multiple Linux instances on the same Linux host. All the containers are dependent on the host Linux operating system and only Linux flavors can be virtualized as containers. There are no containers for the Windows operating system. LXC replace prior OpenVZ containers, which were the primary containers in the virtualization method in the previous Proxmox versions. If you are not familiar with LXC, and for details on LXC, refer to https://linuxcontainers.org/.
We will learn how to create LXC containers and manage them in Chapter 6, LXC Virtual Machines.
Storage plugins
Out of the box, Proxmox VE supports a variety of storage systems to store virtual disk images, ISO templates, backups, and so on. All plug-ins are quite stable and work great with Proxmox. Being able to choose different storage systems gives an administrator the flexibility to leverage the existing storage in the network. As of Proxmox VE 4.0, the following storage plugins are supported:
We will learn the usage of different storage systems and the types of file they can store in detail in Chapter 4, Storage Systems.
Vibrant culture
Proxmox has a growing community of users who are always helping others to learn Proxmox and troubleshoot various issues. With so many active users around the world and through active participation of Proxmox developers, the community has now become a culture of its own. Feature requests are continuously being worked on, and the existing features are being strengthened on a regular basis. With so many users supporting Proxmox, it is here to stay.
The basic installation of Proxmox
The installation of a Proxmox node is very straightforward. Simply accept the default options, select localization, and enter the network information to install Proxmox VE. We can summarize the installation process in the following steps:
The advanced installation option
Although the basic installation works in all scenarios, there may be times when the advanced installation option may be necessary. Only the advanced installation option provides you the ability to customize the main OS drive.
A common practice for the operating system drive is to use a mirror RAID array using a controller interface. This provides drive redundancy if one of the drives fails. This same level of redundancy can also be achieved using a software-based RAID array, such as ZFS. Proxmox now offers options to select ZFS-based arrays for the operating system drive right at the beginning of the installation. For details on ZFS, if you are not familiar with it, refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS.
Note
It is a common question to ask why one should choose ZFS software-based RAID over tried and tested hardware-based RAID. The simple answer is flexibility. A hardware-based RAID is locked or fully dependent on the hardware RAID controller interface that created the array, whereas a ZFS software-based RAID is not dependent on any hardware, and the array can easily be ported to different hardware nodes. Should a RAID controller failure occur, the entire array created from that controller is lost unless there is an identical controller interface available for replacement. The ZFS array is only lost when all the drives or maximum tolerable number of drives are lost in the array.
Besides ZFS, we can also select other filesystem types, such as ext3, ext4, or xfs, from the same advanced option. We can also set the custom disk or partition sizes through the advanced option. The following screenshot shows the installation interface with the Target Harddisk selection page:
Click on Options, as shown in the preceding screenshot, to open the advanced option for the Hard disk. The following screenshot shows the options window after clicking on the Options button:
In the preceding screenshot, we selected ZFS RAID1 for mirroring and the two drives, Harddisk 0 and Harddisk 1 respectively, to install Proxmox. If we pick one of the filesystems such as ext3, ext4, or xfs instead of ZFS, the Harddisk options dialog box will look like the following screenshot, that is, with different set of options:
Selecting a filesystem gives us the following advanced options:
Debugging the Proxmox installation
Debugging features are part of any good operating system. Proxmox has debugging features that will help you during a failed installation. Some common reasons are unsupported hardware, conflicts between devices, ISO image errors, and so on. Debugging mode logs and displays installation activities in real time. When the standard installation fails, we can start the Proxmox installation in debug mode from the main installation interface, as shown in the following screenshot:
The debug installation mode will drop us in the following prompt. To start the installation, we need to press Ctrl + D. When there is an error during the installation, we can simply press Ctrl + C to get back to this console to continue with our investigation:
From the console, we can check the installation log using the following command:
From the main installation menu, we can also press e to enter edit mode to change the loader information, as shown in the following screenshot:
At times, it may be necessary to edit the loader information when normal booting does not function. This is a common case when Proxmox is unable to show the video output due to UEFI or a non-supported resolution. In such cases, the booting process may hang. One way to continue with booting is to add the nomodeset argument by editing the loader. The loader will look as follows after editing:
Customizing the Proxmox splash screen
When building a custom Proxmox solution, it may be necessary to change the default blue splash screen to something more appealing in order to identify the company or department the server belongs to. In this section, we will see how easily we can integrate any image as the splash screen background.
The splash screen image must be in the .tga format and must have fixed standard sizes, such as 640 x 480, 800 x 600, or 1024 x 768. If you do not have any image software that supports the .tga format, you can easily convert an jpg, gif, or png image to the .tga format using a free online image converter (http://image.online-convert.com/convert-to-tga).
Once the desired image is ready in the .tga format, the following steps will integrate the image as the Proxmox splash screen:
The following screenshot shows an example of how the splash screen may look after we add a custom image to it:
Picture courtesy of www.techcitynews.com
We can also change the font color to make it properly visible, depending on the custom image used. To change the font color, edit the debian theme file in /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme, and find the following line of code:
Edit the line to add the font color, as shown in the following format. In our example, we have changed the font color to black and highlighted the font color to light blue:
After making the necessary changes, update grub, and reboot to see the changes.
Summary
In this chapter, we looked at why Proxmox is a good option as a hypervisor, what advanced installation options are available during an installation, and why we choose software-based RAID for the operating system drive. We also looked at the cost of Proxmox, storage options, and network flexibility using Open vSwitch. We learned the presence of the debugging features and customization options of the Proxmox splash screen.
In next chapter, we will take a closer look at the Proxmox GUI and see how easy it is to centrally manage a Proxmox cluster from a web browser.
Chapter 2. Exploring the Proxmox GUI
The Proxmox Graphical User Interface, or the Proxmox GUI, allows users to interact with the Proxmox cluster graphically using menus and a visual representation of the cluster status. Even though all of the management can be done from the command line interface (CLI), it can be overwhelming at times, and managing a cluster can become a daunting task. To properly utilize a Proxmox cluster, it is very important to have a clear understanding of the Proxmox GUI.
In this chapter, we are going to explore the different parts of the Proxmox Web GUI, such as how the menu system is organized and its functions. The GUI can be easily accessed from just about any browser though a URL similar to https://<node_ip>:8006.
The following screenshot shows an example of the Proxmox GUI for a demo cluster:
The GUI menu system
The Proxmox GUI is a single page administration control panel. This means that no matter which feature one is managing, the browser does not open a new page or leave the existing page. Menus on the admin page change depending on which feature is being administered. For example, in the preceding screenshot, the pm4-1 node is selected, so the main menu only shows node-specific menus. If a virtual machine is selected, the menu looks like the following screenshot:
The following chart is a visual representation of the Proxmox GUI menu system. Some menu options are system settings that need to be set up once during installation and do not need any regular attention, such as DNS, time, and services, and so on. Other menu items require regular visits to ensure a healthy cluster environment, such as Summary, Syslog, Backup, Permissions, and so on:
The Datacenter menu
In the Proxmox GUI, Datacenter is the main level folder of Proxmox Node/VM tree. Each Datacenter can only hold one Proxmox cluster. Any tasks performed through the Datacenter menu affects the cluster as a whole.
Datacenter | Search
It is very easy to manage a cluster with a small number of virtual machines with an even smaller number of Proxmox and storage nodes. When maintaining a large number of virtual machines and Proxmox nodes, the search feature prevents you from scrolling and manually looking for a particular resource. Scrolling through a list of virtual machines to find a particular one becomes very time-consuming for a busy administrator. This is where the Search menu option can come in handy. The following screenshot shows a search result after typing the partial virtual machine name in the search box in our example cluster:
The search box under Datacenter | Search shows the results in real time as you type in the box. It can search with any string in the Type or Description columns. It can be the partial name of a VM, VMID, or VM Type (qemu, lxc). Note that wildcards are not supported in search strings.
Datacenter | Summary
The Summary menu in Datacenter shows a list of all the member nodes in the Proxmox cluster. It also shows their IDs, subscription levels, and assigned IP addresses. The following screenshot shows the node list in the Summary menu for our cluster:
Datacenter | Options
Options in the datacenter menu allows you to set the keyboard layout language, HTTP proxy, default console viewer, and e-mail address format that the Proxmox node sends root e-mails from. Note that the default console viewer only applies to the Proxmox GUI dashboard when you click on the Console button without selecting any other viewer from the drop-down menu. The following screenshot shows the Console drop-down menu with the available consoles:
Datacenter | Storage
The Storage menu is probably one of the most important menu options in the GUI. This is where the Proxmox Cluster and storage system come together. This is the menu to attach any storage system with Proxmox. As of Proxmox VE 4.1, Proxmox supports the following storage types:
In Chapter 4, Storage System, we are going to dive deeper into the Proxmox storage system. The following screenshot shows attached storages in a Proxmox cluster:
Datacenter | Backup
Cluster-wide backup schedules are created through this menu. No backup tasks can be directly performed here. A good backup plan is the first line of defense against any disaster that can cause major or minor data loss. In our ultra-modern digital world, data is much more valuable than ever before. Every virtual environment administrator struggles with a backup strategy of their virtual environment.
The fine line between granular files and an entire virtual machine backup is somewhat diminished in a virtual environment. To take the daily struggle of a backup plan out of the equation, Proxmox added an excellent backup system right in the hypervisor itself.
Note
As of Proxmox VE 4.1, we can only schedule backup tasks up to one week. Although the backup feature cannot backup individual files inside a virtual machine, it works well while backing up an entire virtual machine.
Proxmox backups can be scheduled over multiple storage systems, multiple days, and times. The following screenshot shows the backup schedules of a cluster:
In our previous example, there are two backup tasks that are scheduled with two separate backup nodes.
Datacenter | Users
This menu allows the creation of new users and allows us to assign different permission levels of access to a Proxmox cluster or a virtual machine. Changes in user details, removal of users and change of passwords, and assigning groups are also performed from this menu. The following screenshot shows the user creation window with some example data:
Proxmox user management allows you to set a user's access expiration date. This is very useful when giving a user temporary access, which must be deactivated after a certain time period. This option is good for temporary access, such as contracted employees or vendor access. In our previous example, the user's access is set to expire on December 31, 2016.
Datacenter | Groups
This menu helps you create, edit, and remove groups. When the same permission is to be granted to multiple users, it is easier to assign those users to a group and then assign the permission level to that group instead of all the users individually. This saves a lot of time and makes user management much simpler. The following screenshot shows a list of three groups in the example cluster:
Datacenter | Pools
Pools in a Proxmox cluster is a way to group together different entities, such as storage, virtual machines, and so on. For example, in a multi-tenant virtual environment, we can assign storage to virtual machines that belong to a client in a separate pool so that it is easy to view resources assigned to that client. The following screenshot shows the pool menu with some examples of pools:
Datacenter | Permissions
This Permissions menu allows you to set cluster-wide access permission levels to a user. The menu also shows you a complete list of all the permissions already assigned to users. The same permissions can be set from the virtual machines and Storage Specific permission menu. When setting permissions from the Datacenterpermission menu, we have to type in the path for the entity we want to set the permission for. For example, the following screenshot shows storage and virtual machines assigned to users:
To assign the user permission level for both the KVM and LXC virtual machines, the path format is /vms/<vm/lxc_id>.
To assign the user permission level for storage, the path format is /storage/<storage_name>.
The group permission level can also be set from this permissions menu.
Datacenter | Roles
This menu only shows predefined roles or permission levels that come with Proxmox 4.1. There are no options to edit or add new levels. The menu also shows defined privileges for each roles. These roles can be assigned to users or user groups to set different user permission levels.
Datacenter | Authentication
By default, Proxmox creates the PAM and PVE authentication realm. Through this menu, we can create a new authentication realm, such as LDAP and Active Directory Server. We can also configure two-factor authentication from this menu. We will take a look at authentication in Chapter 3, Proxmox under the Hood. The following screenshot shows the authentication menu with three realms for our example cluster:
Datacenter | HA
High Availability (HA) has been redesigned from Proxmox VE 4.0. It is much simpler to configure and is loaded with new features. In simple words, an HA-enabled virtual machine is automatically moved to a different node during node failure. We will learn how to configure and leverage HA in Chapter 9, Proxmox High Availability.
Datacenter | Firewall
The Proxmox built-in firewall is one of the most prominent features of recent versions. It allows firewall rules down to the virtual machine level while protecting with cluster-wide level rules. A firewall works at both the cluster and virtual machine level, which can be configured to allow or deny connections to and from specific IP addresses. Chapter 8, The Proxmox Firewall, has been dedicated to learn about the firewall feature at greater length. The following screenshot shows the firewall menu with two data center rules. The first rule is to allow GUI access on port 8006 from a specific IP only and the second rule is to drop SSH connections to all nodes:
Datacenter | Support
This menu tab shows support options that are available when there is a paid subscription applied to a node. Without any paid subscription level, the menu displays no support information, as shown in the following screenshot:
When there is a paid subscription enabled node, the information is similar to the following screenshot:
Node menu
These menu options are specific to each node in the cluster. New menu tabs become available as each individual node is selected from the left-hand side navigation pane.
Node | Search
This is similar to the Search option in the Datacenter-specific menu; this search option limits the scope of your search to the selected node.
Node | Summary
The Summarymenu option for a node is a visual representation of the node's health. It shows vital information, such as uptime and resource consumption. The Summary menu also shows CPU Usage, Server Load, Memory Usage, and Network Traffic in a very easy-to-understand graph. An administrator can get the necessary information of a node just by glancing at the summary. Summary can be viewed on a hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis:
Node | Services
This menu displays the status of all the vital services in the node. We can also start or stop a specific service from this menu without going through the CLI. During troubleshooting or node maintenance, services may need to start or stop. The following screenshot shows services running in one of the nodes in our example cluster:
Node | Network
The Network menu acts as glue between all virtual machines, nodes, and shared storage systems. Without a properNetwork Interface Card (NIC) or Virtual NIC (vNIC) and
