This week I was working on Proxmox Virtual Environment, which is a Open Source Server Virtualization Platform, based on KVM and OpenVZ.

First of all, I tried to install Proxmox on VirtualBox. The OS installed fine but in order to control server you need to use web browser. So I needed connect to Proxmox server from Host machine. I tried several configurations NAT + Host-only and Bridged Network, but the connection was not established. It seems that Proxmox network settings are always creating bridge to any new interfaces. I didn't really understand what was wrong, because the same configuration was forking fine on other OS.

The next step was to install the system on actual machine. Since I didn't have any CD/DVD disks I created boot-able USB stick. The problem was that I could boot from it but I couldn't install from it. After searching the web I found solution which is a bit tricky. You just add Proxmox image to the boot-able USB stick and switch to the verbose mode mount Proxmox image and install it manually (useful link). Even though I could run the installation wizard, I couldn't install the system. Before I created ext4 partition on main hard drive, but the installation wizard recognized only whole hard drive, which means it would delete everything from that hard drive, but it is unacceptable.

Finally, I found way to to install Proxmox on USB stick. First you need to install VirtualBox, then create VM Linux Debian 64 bit, but it should be without any _Virtual Disk_. Then plug in your USB stick (at least 8 GB) and in VM's settings under USB page click on_ _ Enable  USB 2.0 (EHCI) controller. Click add button and select your USB stick. If required install _**Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack. **_ It might be so that you won't see any available USB drives, but they are plugged in. To solve this you need to add your user to vboxusers group by typing in terminal **sudo adduser "username" vboxusers. **Then reboot and install Proxmox in VirtualBox as usual except only that it will be installed on your USB drive. When loading from USB you will find an error message, to solve it in GRUB menu press **e **and add **rootdelay=90 **to the line where written something like this "kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-4-pve root=/dev/mapper/pve-root ro" and press ctrl+x, Proxmox will boot normally from USB stick.

So I installed Proxmox, and can connect to it via browser from any machine (https://192.168.19.15:8006). Next couple of days I will experiment with Proxmox VE.

Comments