Cluster Manager

Under Datacenter → Cluster, click on Create Cluster. Enter the cluster name and select a network connection from the drop-down list to serve as the main cluster network (Link 0). It defaults to the IP resolved via the node’s hostname.

As of Proxmox VE 6.2, up to 8 fallback links can be added to a cluster. To add a redundant link, click the Add button and select a link number and IP address from the respective fields. Prior to Proxmox VE 6.2, to add a second link as fallback, you can select the Advanced checkbox and choose an additional network interface (Link 1, see also Corosync Redundancy).

Login via ssh to the first Proxmox VE node and run the following command:

To check the state of the new cluster use:

It is possible to create multiple clusters in the same physical or logical network. In this case, each cluster must have a unique name to avoid possible clashes in the cluster communication stack. Furthermore, this helps avoid human confusion by making clusters clearly distinguishable.

While the bandwidth requirement of a corosync cluster is relatively low, the latency of packages and the package per second (PPS) rate is the limiting factor. Different clusters in the same network can compete with each other for these resources, so it may still make sense to use separate physical network infrastructure for bigger clusters.

Log in to the web interface on an existing cluster node. Under Datacenter → Cluster, click the Join Information button at the top. Then, click on the button Copy Information. Alternatively, copy the string from the Information field manually.

Next, log in to the web interface on the node you want to add. Under Datacenter → Cluster, click on Join Cluster. Fill in the Information field with the Join Information text you copied earlier. Most settings required for joining the cluster will be filled out automatically. For security reasons, the cluster password has to be entered manually.

After clicking the Join button, the cluster join process will start immediately. After the node has joined the cluster, its current node certificate will be replaced by one signed from the cluster certificate authority (CA). This means that the current session will stop working after a few seconds. You then might need to force-reload the web interface and log in again with the cluster credentials.

Now your node should be visible under Datacenter → Cluster.

Log in to the node you want to join into an existing cluster via ssh.

For IP-ADDRESS-CLUSTER, use the IP or hostname of an existing cluster node. An IP address is recommended (see Link Address Types).

To check the state of the cluster use:

If you only want a list of all nodes, use:

When adding a node to a cluster with a separated cluster network, you need to use the link0 parameter to set the nodes address on that network:

If you want to use the built-in redundancy of the Kronosnet transport layer, also use the link1 parameter.

Using the GUI, you can select the correct interface from the corresponding Link X fields in the Cluster Join dialog.

You can also separate a node from a cluster without reinstalling it from scratch. But after removing the node from the cluster, it will still have access to any shared storage. This must be resolved before you start removing the node from the cluster. A Proxmox VE cluster cannot share the exact same storage with another cluster, as storage locking doesn’t work over the cluster boundary. Furthermore, it may also lead to VMID conflicts.

It’s suggested that you create a new storage, where only the node which you want to separate has access. This can be a new export on your NFS or a new Ceph pool, to name a few examples. It’s just important that the exact same storage does not get accessed by multiple clusters. After setting up this storage, move all data and VMs from the node to it. Then you are ready to separate the node from the cluster.

First, stop the corosync and pve-cluster services on the node:

Start the cluster file system again in local mode:

Delete the corosync configuration files:

You can now start the file system again as a normal service:

The node is now separated from the cluster. You can deleted it from any remaining node of the cluster with:

If the command fails due to a loss of quorum in the remaining node, you can set the expected votes to 1 as a workaround:

And then repeat the pvecm delnode command.

Now switch back to the separated node and delete all the remaining cluster files on it. This ensures that the node can be added to another cluster again without problems.

As the configuration files from the other nodes are still in the cluster file system, you may want to clean those up too. After making absolutely sure that you have the correct node name, you can simply remove the entire directory recursively from /etc/pve/nodes/NODENAME.

The Proxmox VE cluster stack requires a reliable network with latencies under 5 milliseconds (LAN performance) between all nodes to operate stably. While on setups with a small node count a network with higher latencies may work, this is not guaranteed and gets rather unlikely with more than three nodes and latencies above around 10 ms.

The network should not be used heavily by other members, as while corosync does not uses much bandwidth it is sensitive to latency jitters; ideally corosync runs on its own physically separated network. Especially do not use a shared network for corosync and storage (except as a potential low-priority fallback in a redundant configuration).

Before setting up a cluster, it is good practice to check if the network is fit for that purpose. To ensure that the nodes can connect to each other on the cluster network, you can test the connectivity between them with the ping tool.

If the Proxmox VE firewall is enabled, ACCEPT rules for corosync will automatically be generated - no manual action is required.

When creating a cluster without any parameters, the corosync cluster network is generally shared with the web interface and the VMs' network. Depending on your setup, even storage traffic may get sent over the same network. It’s recommended to change that, as corosync is a time-critical, real-time application.

A corosync link address (for backwards compatibility denoted by ringX_addr in corosync.conf) can be specified in two ways:

A separate, static hostname specifically for corosync is recommended, if hostnames are preferred. Also, make sure that every node in the cluster can resolve all hostnames correctly.

Since Proxmox VE 5.1, while supported, hostnames will be resolved at the time of entry. Only the resolved IP is saved to the configuration.

Nodes that joined the cluster on earlier versions likely still use their unresolved hostname in corosync.conf. It might be a good idea to replace them with IPs or a separate hostname, as mentioned above.

To add a new link to a running configuration, first check how to edit the corosync.conf file.

Then, add a new ringX_addr to every node in the nodelist section. Make sure that your X is the same for every node you add it to, and that it is unique for each node.

Lastly, add a new interface, as shown below, to your totem section, replacing X with the link number chosen above.

Assuming you added a link with number 1, the new configuration file could look like this:

The new link will be enabled as soon as you follow the last steps to edit the corosync.conf file. A restart should not be necessary. You can check that corosync loaded the new link using:

It might be a good idea to test the new link by temporarily disconnecting the old link on one node and making sure that its status remains online while disconnected:

If you see a healthy cluster state, it means that your new link is being used.

The Corosync Quorum Device (QDevice) is a daemon which runs on each cluster node. It provides a configured number of votes to the cluster’s quorum subsystem, based on an externally running third-party arbitrator’s decision. Its primary use is to allow a cluster to sustain more node failures than standard quorum rules allow. This can be done safely as the external device can see all nodes and thus choose only one set of nodes to give its vote. This will only be done if said set of nodes can have quorum (again) after receiving the third-party vote.

Currently, only QDevice Net is supported as a third-party arbitrator. This is a daemon which provides a vote to a cluster partition, if it can reach the partition members over the network. It will only give votes to one partition of a cluster at any time. It’s designed to support multiple clusters and is almost configuration and state free. New clusters are handled dynamically and no configuration file is needed on the host running a QDevice.

The only requirements for the external host are that it needs network access to the cluster and to have a corosync-qnetd package available. We provide a package for Debian based hosts, and other Linux distributions should also have a package available through their respective package manager.

We support QDevices for clusters with an even number of nodes and recommend it for 2 node clusters, if they should provide higher availability. For clusters with an odd node count, we currently discourage the use of QDevices. The reason for this is the difference in the votes which the QDevice provides for each cluster type. Even numbered clusters get a single additional vote, which only increases availability, because if the QDevice itself fails, you are in the same position as with no QDevice at all.

On the other hand, with an odd numbered cluster size, the QDevice provides (N-1) votes — where N corresponds to the cluster node count. This alternative behavior makes sense; if it had only one additional vote, the cluster could get into a split-brain situation. This algorithm allows for all nodes but one (and naturally the QDevice itself) to fail. However, there are two drawbacks to this:

If you understand the drawbacks and implications, you can decide yourself if you want to use this technology in an odd numbered cluster setup.

We recommend running any daemon which provides votes to corosync-qdevice as an unprivileged user. Proxmox VE and Debian provide a package which is already configured to do so. The traffic between the daemon and the cluster must be encrypted to ensure a safe and secure integration of the QDevice in Proxmox VE.

First, install the corosync-qnetd package on your external server

and the corosync-qdevice package on all cluster nodes

After doing this, ensure that all the nodes in the cluster are online.

You can now set up your QDevice by running the following command on one of the Proxmox VE nodes:

The SSH key from the cluster will be automatically copied to the QDevice.

After you enter the password and all the steps have successfully completed, you will see "Done". You can verify that the QDevice has been set up with:

Editing the corosync.conf file is not always very straightforward. There are two on each cluster node, one in /etc/pve/corosync.conf and the other in /etc/corosync/corosync.conf. Editing the one in our cluster file system will propagate the changes to the local one, but not vice versa.

The configuration will get updated automatically, as soon as the file changes. This means that changes which can be integrated in a running corosync will take effect immediately. Thus, you should always make a copy and edit that instead, to avoid triggering unintended changes when saving the file while editing.

Then, open the config file with your favorite editor, such as nano or vim.tiny, which come pre-installed on every Proxmox VE node.

After making the necessary changes, create another copy of the current working configuration file. This serves as a backup if the new configuration fails to apply or causes other issues.

Then replace the old configuration file with the new one:

You can check if the changes could be applied automatically, using the following commands:

If the changes could not be applied automatically, you may have to restart the corosync service via:

On errors, check the troubleshooting section below.

The migration type defines if the migration data should be sent over an encrypted (secure) channel or an unencrypted (insecure) one. Setting the migration type to insecure means that the RAM content of a virtual guest is also transferred unencrypted, which can lead to information disclosure of critical data from inside the guest (for example, passwords or encryption keys).

Therefore, we strongly recommend using the secure channel if you do not have full control over the network and can not guarantee that no one is eavesdropping on it.

Encryption requires a lot of computing power, so this setting is often changed to insecure to achieve better performance. The impact on modern systems is lower because they implement AES encryption in hardware. The performance impact is particularly evident in fast networks, where you can transfer 10 Gbps or more.

By default, Proxmox VE uses the network in which cluster communication takes place to send the migration traffic. This is not optimal both because sensitive cluster traffic can be disrupted and this network may not have the best bandwidth available on the node.

Setting the migration network parameter allows the use of a dedicated network for all migration traffic. In addition to the memory, this also affects the storage traffic for offline migrations.

The migration network is set as a network using CIDR notation. This has the advantage that you don’t have to set individual IP addresses for each node. Proxmox VE can determine the real address on the destination node from the network specified in the CIDR form. To enable this, the network must be specified so that each node has exactly one IP in the respective network.