Another very common “Loading initial ramdisk” - don’t know what to do

[evilsync]

Hi all, came home to my Proxmox home server not working and stuck on:

Booting ‘Proxmox VE GNU/Linux’
Loading Linux 5.15.107-2-pve
Loading initial ramdisk

Understand there’s lots of threads on this but it’s 50/50 whether they’re solved, and difficult to decrypt to understand if relevant for me.
While the Proxmox server is a year or two old, I’m still vey much a Linux newbie that follows guides to get by - so please go softly.

It’s an Intel Nuc i7 1260P, it’s got a 4TB M.2 running Proxmox. I can’t be sure what version of Proxmox I had installed as I’m unable to get in, though I recall it might have been 7.4 or something similar? When greeted by the Grub boot screen under advanced settings I have Linux 5.15.107-2-pve and 5.15.102-1-pve. Not sure that answers what version.

I haven’t done anything recently and/or memorable for this to have happened. I’d like to try and recover/fix this to avoid having to spend 10’s of hours to set everything back up.

Any instructions, on what I might need to do? Thanks

 

[evilsync]

Sorry using iPad camera to copy / paste text:

root@pve:"l pveversion -v
proxmox-ve 7.4-1 (running kernel: 5.15.102-L-pve)
pve-manager: 7.4-3 (running version: 7.4-3/9002ab8a)
pve-kernel-5.15: 7.4-3
pve-kerne1-8.15.107-2-pve: 5.15.107-2
pve-kerne1-5.15.102-1-pve: 5.15.102-1
ceph-fuse: 17.2.7-0ve2^30011+1
corosync: 3.1.7-pve1
CPIU: 3.15-1+0ve-1
ustertg Cllent: 9,2-1
sfupcoun21 8.4.0-1+pmk-
kem-control-daemon: 1.4-1
14bJ8-8xtJ81 7.0,0-1
110kngt1: 1.24-pve2
11bproxmox-acme-per1: 1.4.4
1Lbproxmox-backup-qemu0: 1.3.1-1
1loproxmox-re-per1: 0.2.1
1Lopve-access-control: 7.4.3
11bpve-apic11ent-per1: 3.2-2
11bpve-common-per1: 7.4-2
1Lopve-guest-common-per1: 4.2-g
-Lppve-http-server-per！！ 4.2-3
11bpve-ra-per1: 0.7.7
11bpve-storage-per1: 7.4-4
1lbsplce-server1: 0.14.3-2.1
1vm2: 2.03.11-2.1
axC-pve: 5.0.2-2
Lxcfs: 5.0.3-pve1
novnc-pve: 1.4.0-1
proxmox-backup-client: 2.4.7-1
proxmox-backup-f 1le-restore: 2.4.7-1
proxmox-kernel-helper: 7.4-1
proxmox-ma11-forward: 0.1.1-1
proxmox-mini-Journalreader: 1.3-1
proxmox-widget-toolkit: 3.7.4 pve-cluster: 7.9-g
pve-contalner: 4,4-7 pve-docs:
DVg-eakg-ermwarg:_3.20230228-4*bp012+3
pve-f1rewa11: 4,3-5
pve-firmware: 3.6-6
pve-ha-manager: 3.6.1
pve-110n: 2.12-1
pve-qemu-kvm: 7.2.10-1
pve-xtermjsi 4.16,0-2
qemu-servers 7.4-7
smartmontools: 7.2-pve3
spiceterm: 3.2-2
swtpm:: 0.8.0~bp011+3
vncterm: 1.7-1
zfsutilks-linux: 2.1.15-pve1

 

[leesteken]

That version is very old and out of support for some time. Maybe test your hardware components and install a fresh PVE 8.4 and restore VM/CTs from backup?

 

[evilsync]

So I called it quits and spent the most part of a day restoring everything from a portable hard drive.

I restored some CT containers / LXC’s but looks like for the CT containers to continue to work the backup portable hard drive needs to remain connected.

Any idea what I might need to do? Seems like the VMs behave differently to the CT containers, they needed the same .iso to work.

 

[evilsync]

Not sure if anyone has any ideas?

 

[leesteken]

I restored some CT containers / LXC’s but looks like for the CT containers to continue to work the backup portable hard drive needs to remain connected.

This is obviously not necessary for Proxmox out of the box or other Proxmox systems. Please share CT configuration (pct config CT_ID_NUMBER) in CODE-tags for readability). Please share your storage configuration (cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg in CODE-tags please). Otherwise people will have to guess without any information.

Seems like the VMs behave differently to the CT containers, they needed the same .iso to work.

Why would all VMs need the same ISO to work? What you configured an ISO for the virtual optical drive then a VM won't start unless it's present. If this is not what you want then why don't you remove the ISO from the virtual drive?

 

[evilsync]

This is obviously not necessary for Proxmox out of the box or other Proxmox systems. Please share CT configuration (pct config CT_ID_NUMBER) in CODE-tags for readability). Please share your storage configuration (cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg in CODE-tags please). Otherwise people will have to guess without any information.

Thank you, I wouldn't have known unless you have told me.
FYI, I restored from /mnt/usb-drive1

Please find as follows:

root@proxmox:~# pct config 100
arch: amd64
cores: 1
features: nesting=1
hostname: pihole
memory: 1500
net0: name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1,hwaddr=9E:E4:3D:D4:31:47,ip=dhcp,type=veth
onboot: 1
ostype: debian
rootfs: backup:100/vm-100-disk-0.raw,size=10G
startup: order=2,up=10
swap: 512
tags: debian;pihole
unprivileged: 1
root@proxmox:~# pct config 101
arch: amd64
cores: 4
features: nesting=1
hostname: roon
memory: 20000
net0: name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1,hwaddr=C2:41:89:26:8C:3A,ip=dhcp,tag=2,type=veth
onboot: 1
ostype: debian
rootfs: backup:101/vm-101-disk-0.raw,size=150G
startup: order=5,up=500
swap: 512
tags: debian;roon

root@proxmox:~# cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg
dir: local
        path /var/lib/vz
        content iso,backup,vztmpl

lvmthin: local-lvm
        thinpool data
        vgname pve
        content images,rootdir

dir: backup
        path /mnt/usb-drive1
        content rootdir,vztmpl,iso,snippets,backup,import,images
        prune-backups keep-all=1
        shared 0

lvm: tv-8tb
        vgname tv-8tb
        content images,rootdir
        nodes proxmox
        shared 0

lvm: movies-4tb
        vgname movies-4tb
        content rootdir,images
        nodes proxmox
        shared 0

dir: backup2
        path /mnt/usb-drive2
        content vztmpl,rootdir,iso,images,import,backup,snippets
        prune-backups keep-all=1
        shared 0

Why would all VMs need the same ISO to work? What you configured an ISO for the virtual optical drive then a VM won't start unless it's present. If this is not what you want then why don't you remove the ISO from the virtual drive?

Sorry, maybe I should have been more clear. I meant to say in order for you to restore the VM's, you need to have the original ISO's with which the original VM is based upon. My past VM experience has been that you only needed ISO's to create the VM, after the initial creation you don't need to maintain the .iso file. I erroneously thought once you selected the storage, you didn't need to maintain the ISO image. Happy to learn if I've done something incorrectly and can do it in a way such that I don't need to maintain ISO's in order to undertake future restorations.

 

[leesteken]

rootfs: backup:100/vm-100-disk-0.raw,size=10G

dir: backup
        path /mnt/usb-drive1
        content rootdir,vztmpl,iso,snippets,backup,import,images
        prune-backups keep-all=1
        shared 0

You allocated the virtual disk for the CTs on /mnt/usb-drive1. That's probably that external drive that you mentioned. Move the virtual disk of the containers to another storage if you want to remove the USB drive. Why did you allocate them on the "backup" storage in the first place?

Sorry, maybe I should have been more clear. I meant to say in order for you to restore the VM's, you need to have the original ISO's with which the original VM is based upon. My past VM experience has been that you only needed ISO's to create the VM, after the initial creation you don't need to maintain the .iso file.

This is also true for Proxmox VMs. You only need the ISO when installing the VM. But you need to "eject" the ISO otherwise the VM won't start without the ISO.

I erroneously thought once you selected the storage, you didn't need to maintain the ISO image.

Please share the VM configuration if you can't find the GUI option to remove the ISO from the VM virtual optical drive.

Happy to learn if I've done something incorrectly and can do it in a way such that I don't need to maintain ISO's in order to undertake future restorations.

It does look like a user not yet understanding how Proxmox works, forgetting to virtually eject ISOs and/or accidentally selecting the wrong storage.

EDIT: You can exclude Container and Disk image from the "backup" storage by editing in Datacenter Storage and deselecting those options for Content. You can virtually eject the ISO by Editing the CD/DVD Drive in the VM settings under Hardware.