Install Proxmox VE on Debian Wheezy

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Yellowpin.svg Note: Article about the old stable Proxmox VE 3.x releases

Introduction

The installation of a supported Proxmox VE server should be done via Bare-metal_ISO_Installer. In some case it makes sense to install Proxmox VE on top of a running Debian Wheezy 64-bit, especially if you want a custom partition layout. For this HowTO the following Debian Wheezy ISO was used: debian-7.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso.

Suggested partition layout with LVM: 

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1         122      975872   83  Linux
/dev/sda2             122        5222    40965120   8e  Linux LVM

LVM: 

 LV   VG   Attr   LSize  Origin Snap%  Move Log Copy%  Convert
 data pve  -wi-ao 30.69g 
 root pve  -wi-ao  3.72g 
 swap pve  -wi-ao  1.86g

We recommend to use ext3 filesystem for best OpenVZ performance and stability.

Install a standard Debian Wheezy (amd64)

Install a standard Debian Wheezy (amd64), for details see Debian. Go for a LVM based partitioning and a fixed IP and take care that you have enough free space for snapshots (needed for online LVM backup with vzdump, OpenVZ containers only)

Check /etc/hosts

Please make sure that your hostname is resolvable via /etc/hosts, i.e you need an entry in /etc/hosts which assigns an IPv4 address to that hostname.

Note: Make sure that no IPv6 address for your hostname is specified in /etc/hosts

Example /etc/hosts file: 

root@proxmox-6-177:~# cat /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
192.168.6.177 proxmox-6-177.proxmox.com proxmox-6-177 pvelocalhost

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts

::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
ff02::3 ip6-allhosts

Install Proxmox VE

Adapt your sources.list

Adapt your sources.list and add the Proxmox VE repository: 

nano /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://ftp.at.debian.org/debian wheezy main contrib

# PVE repository provided by proxmox.com, only for installation (this repo will stay on 3.1)
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian wheezy pve

# security updates
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib

NOTE: Due to a bug in debian/apt(?) it may be required to alter the above sources.list entry to say the following, if apt-get complains about not being able to find /binary-i386: "Unable to find expected entry 'pve/binary-i386/Packages'" (despite it being a 64bit debian install!) 

deb [arch=amd64] http://download.proxmox.com/debian wheezy pve

If it does not work for apt-get of some files, then replace http:// with ftp:// especially in the first two urls above.

Add the Proxmox VE repository key: 

wget -O- "http://download.proxmox.com/debian/key.asc" | apt-key add -

Update your repository and system by running: 

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

Install Proxmox VE Kernel

apt-get install pve-firmware pve-kernel-2.6.32-26-pve

Optional - install Kernel headers: 

apt-get install pve-headers-2.6.32-26-pve
  • Make sure to select Proxmox VE Kernel on the boot loader (grub2) - Attention: Default is the 3.2 kernel
  • Reboot: Now restart the system using the Proxmox VE kernel.

Install Proxmox VE packages

Make sure you are running the Proxmox VE Kernel, otherwise the installation will fail.

Check the currently active Kernel: 

uname -a
Linux 2.6.32-26-pve ...

Remove the Debian kernel: 

apt-get remove linux-image-amd64 linux-image-3.2.0-4-amd64 linux-base

Check grub2 config by running: 

update-grub

Install the Proxmox VE packages: 

apt-get install proxmox-ve-2.6.32 ntp ssh lvm2 postfix ksm-control-daemon vzprocps open-iscsi bootlogd

Accept the suggestion to remove Exim and configure postfix according to your network.

Note: Apache2 is not needed anymore as we use our own web server.

Connect to the Proxmox VE web interface

Connect to the admin web interface (https://youripaddress:8006) and configure the vmbr0 and review all other settings, finally reboot to check if everything is running as expected.

Adapt vmbr0 settings

Configure apt to use the new packages repositories

In order to get latest updates, you need to add one of the new package repositories, see Package repositories

Optional: Developer Workstations with Proxmox VE and X11

Proxmox VE is primarily used as virtualization platform with NO additional software installed. In some case it makes sense to have a full desktop running on Proxmox VE, for example for developers using Proxmox VE as their primary workstation/desktop.

For example, just install XFCE4 desktop and Firefox/Iceweasel browser: 

apt-get install xfce4 iceweasel lightdm

If you prefer LXDE desktop instead just do: 

apt-get install lxde iceweasel

Make sure network-manager is not used, else pve-cluster will not start in some cases 

apt-get purge network-manager
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