Install Proxmox Virtual Environment on Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) system

Problem:

I have a server which I use for more things at the same time.
It’s used as a MediaCenter connected to the TV, as a Monitoring server and now I want to run virtualisation on it as well since the box runs anyway pretty much the whole day.
For the virtualisation I selected to use Proxmox since I consider it as one of the best vs easiest to manage in the open-source world.

You can find more about Proxmox here http://www.proxmox.com/

Biggest Problem is that Proxmox is running on Debian and it runs on Debian 6.0 Squeeze (stable) only which is slightly outdated (not to mention ancient). So I had to reinstall the server using a Debian 6.0. But there are not many Distro’s out there still running on Debian 6.0. I found http://www.kanotix.com which has a release called Kanotix Hellfire 2012-05. Of course we use the 64bit version

• KDE SC 4.4.5
• Iceweasel 12.0
• Icedove 3.1.16
• Pidgin 2.10.4
• Kernel 3.2.0-24 (Ubuntu recompiled)
• Libre Office 3.5.3
• Grub2 Version 1.99
• Wine 1.4
• AcritoxInstaller 0.2.25
• Gfx-Overlays for Nvidia and AMD 3D Grafikdrivers

You can find the download here:
Kanotix Hellfire 2012-05 64 bit – ISO (1,6 GB) | md5 | zsync

 

Installation

1.      Install Kanotix as per you preference

 

2.      Install Proxmox under Debian 6.0 64 bit

 

First become root on the server then follow the below steps:

su –

You will need your root password which you set in the installation

visudo

add your user user to sudo (copy the root line)

Then Install a few tool we need later

sudo aptitude install openssh-server lvm2 system-config-lvm startupmanager

I then added loads of sources to the system.

Adapt your sources.list and add the Proxmox VE repository:
Those are important for the install

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following

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

I then added loads of optional sources for new packages (I like latest, greatest and unstablest)
These are really optional and can be modified here as per own need
http://debgen.simplylinux.ch/

vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following

#Multimedia

 deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org stable main non-free
 deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free
 deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org squeeze-backports main
 deb http://mirror.home-dn.net/debian-multimedia/ squeeze main

 # Linux Mint
 deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import
 deb http://ftp.ie.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
 deb-src http://ftp.ie.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
 deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free
 deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free
 deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
 deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free

 #Third Parties Repos
 #Debian Mozilla team
 deb http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports squeeze-backports main
 #Debian Multimedia
 deb  stable main

 #Google Chrome
 deb  stable non-free main

 #deb-multimedia.org
 deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

 #Debian Multimedia Australia
 deb http://mirror.optus.net/debian-multimedia/ stable main
 deb http://ftp.au.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
 deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ squeeze-updates main contrib non-free
 deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
 deb  stable main

 #webmin
 deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib
 deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib

 #Google Chrome
 deb  stable non-free main

 #nginx
 deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ squeeze nginx
 #deb  stable non-free
 #deb-multimedia.org
 deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free
 #Bumblebee Debian repository
 deb  stable main contrib

This is optional as well but here I installed multimedia packages

apt-get update
apt-get install debian-multimedia-keyring flashplayer-nonfree p7zip-full w64codecs libdvdcss2 gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 ffmpeg sox twolame vorbis-tools lame faad gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad avifile-divx-plugin libfacc0 vlc mozilla-plugin-vlc guayadeque radiotray

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:

aptitude update

Here you might get some errors about missing gpg keys.

Use this “Fix NO_PUBKEY Error“ to add all the keys if you don’t know how.

Then upgrade.. this might take a while

aptitude full-upgrade

I would now advise the followings:

• create a volume-group and a logical volume with lvm (not really needed for the install but handy afterwards where to store the files. Per default proxmox creates a local storage in /var/lib/vz where it stores templates, iso and more.
• configure a fixed IP address for the system

  vi /etc/network/interfaces

  Add to the file the details for your interface

  auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback
  auto vmbr0
  iface vmbr0 inet static
  address 192.168.1.100
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  gateway 192.168.1.1
  bridge_ports eth0
  bridge_stp off
  bridge_fd 0

   

• Very important – add your DNS since the install needs to be able to resolve you hostname

   vi /etc/resolv.conf

Something like this

# Generated by NetworkManager
nameserver 192.168.1.1

 

• Add your IP address to /etc/hosts make it looking something like that

  vi /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost
 #127.0.1.1      MediaCenter-Kanotix
 192.168.1.100 MediaCenter-Kanotix

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
 # (added automatically by netbase upgrade)
 ::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

In my installation it was complaining about one dependent package that could not be installed due to a conflict with linux-firmware so I removed it. The needed drivers came from the firmware-pve package back

apt-get remove linux-firmware

 

Now we install Proxmox VE Kernel

aptitude install pve-kernel-2.6.32-13-pve pve-headers-2.6.32-13-pve

 

Reboot and select pve-kernel-2.6.32 on the boot screen
Once rebooted check the currently active Kernel:

uname –a

should show

Linux 2.6.32-13-pve ...

Install the Proxmox VE packages:

aptitude install proxmox-ve-2.6.32

Here are a few things that might go wrong and where I had to work around. But this is all covered somewhere in this howto.

If it complains about not being able to resolve the hostname then ckeck your /etc/hosts entry and that the server can resolve the hostname.

If it complains about any further dependencies you will need to fix them

 

If the installation went fine good.. we go on now.

Configure pve-redirect for apache2:

a2ensite pve-redirect.conf

And restart apache:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Install the rest of needed packages:

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

At this stage you should be ready to run your Proxmox Virtual Server Host

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

 

3.      Additional: install nvidia drivers

My system needed for the multimedia stuff a proper Nvidia driver.

Kanotix delivers a great script to do the job for you.

update-scripts-kanotix.sh

install-nvidia-debian.sh

That was easy.

Now have fun with your Virtual Host