Proxmox VE Cluster - Chapter 008 - Install Proxmox VE on the old Harvester cluster

Proxmox VE Cluster - Chapter 008 - Install Proxmox VE on the old Harvester cluster

A voyage of adventure, moving a diverse workload running on OpenStack, Harvester, and RKE2 K8S clusters over to a Proxmox VE cluster.

Today, installing Proxmox VE on the old Harvester cluster hardware.  The main reference document:

https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pve-installation.html

Before starting, note a peculiarity of older 2010s NUC hardware.  HDMI will refuse to output if connected to "too high" of a resolution monitor, although the NUC will otherwise boot and work.  Meanwhile, a problem with my cheap no name tiny 1080 HDMI monitor is it "often" locks up reporting no signal input on resolution changes, so booting and selecting console install means power cycling the monitor.

Notes from the install process:

• I have a habit of using the console install environment.
• Country: United States
• Timezone: The "timezone" field will not let me enter a timezone, only city names, none of which are nearby.  Super annoying I can't just enter a timezone like a real operating system.  I ended up selecting a city a thousand miles away.  This sucks.  Its a "timezone" setting not "name a far away city that coincidentally is in the same timezone".  I expect better from Proxmox.
• Keyboard Layout: U.S. English
• Password: (mind your caps-lock)
• Administrator email: vince.mulhollon@springcitysolutions.com
• Management Interface: enp2s0 (not the wifi)
• Hostname FQDN: as appropriate, as per the sticker on the device
• IP address (CIDR): as appropriate, as per the sticker on the device / 016
• Gateway address: 10.10.1.1
• DNS server address: 10.10.7.21 (my "old" dns22, which will probably get re addressed soon)
• Note you can't set up VLANs in the installer, AFAIK.  I intend to use VLANs in the distant future.
• Hit enter to reboot, yank the USB flash install drive, yank the USB keyboard, watch the monitor... seems to boot properly...
• Web interface is on port 8006.  Log in as root.  Note I installed 8.0-2 and on the first boot, the web gui reports version 8.0.3, it must have auto-updated as part of the install process?

Upgrade the new Proxmox VE node

1. Double check there's no production workload on the server; its a new install there shouldn't be anything, but its a good habit.
2. Select the "Server View" then node name, then on the right side, "Updates", "Repositories", disable both enterprise license repos.  Add the community repos as explained at https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Package_Repositories
3. Or in summary, click "add", select "No-subscription", "add", then repeat for the "Ceph Quincy No-Subscription" repo.
4. In right pane, select "Updates" then "Refresh" and watch the update.  Click "Upgrade" and watch the upgrade.
5. Optimistically get a nice message on the console of "Your system is up-to-date" and a request to reboot.
6. Reboot and verify operation.

Increase the Ethernet MTU

The plan is to change the MTU of the ethernet physical port and the Proxmox internal bridge to 9000.  The Netgear ethernet switch was set to 9200+ a long time ago.

1. Select the node, "System", "Network", select the ethernet port, edit, change the MTU from 1500 to 9000, "OK", "Apply Configuration".
2. Repeat process selecting the bridge instead of the ethernet port. 
3. On the right pane in "Updates" along the top there is a "Reboot" button, hit it.

Final Installation Checklist after the install and post-installation tasks above:

1. Perform some basic operation testing
2. In the web UI "Shutdown" then wait for power down.
3. Reinstall in permanent location, power up.
4. Verify information in Netbox to include MAC, serial number, ethernet cabling, platform should be Proxmox VE, remove old Netbox device information.
5. Add new hosts to Zabbix.
6. Verify operation one final time.

The next post will be about creating the Proxmox VE cluster out of our currently separate half dozen hosts.