Install Proxmox VE on Debian Squeeze

Note: Article about the old stable Proxmox VE 2.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 Squeeze 64-bit, especially if you want a custom partition layout. For this HowTO the following Debian Squeeze ISO was used: PC Network Installer v6.0.7.

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 performance.

Install a standard Debian Squeeze(amd64)

Install a standard Debian Squeeze (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 backup with vzdump)

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

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 squeeze main contrib

# PVE packages provided by proxmox.com
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian squeeze pve

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

a. Add the Proxmox VE repository key
b. Update your repository and system

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

Install Proxmox VE Kernel

aptitude install pve-firmware
aptitude install pve-kernel-2.6.32-19-pve

Reboot and make sure to select Proxmox VE Kernel on the boot loader (grub2).

reboot

Optional - install Kernel headers:

aptitude install pve-headers-2.6.32-19-pve

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 2.6.32-19-pve ... 

a. Install the Proxmox VE packages
b. Configure pve-redirect for apache2
c. And restart apache

aptitude install proxmox-ve-2.6.32
a2ensite pve-redirect.conf
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install the rest of needed packages:

aptitude install ntp ssh lvm2 postfix ksm-control-daemon vzprocps open-iscsi

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

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.

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 lxde desktop:

aptitude install lxde libcurl3

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

aptitude purge network-manager

To get a modern browser, Google Chrome is a good idea - download the 64-bit Chrome from Google, also install Oracle (Sun) Java, see Java_Console_(Ubuntu)