As a percentage, how much work needs to be done in Debian?

[WhiteTiger]

I only finished my first Promox installation last night.
So sorry for the beginner question.

I had already read the Wiki and some posts on this forum.
Others I read today.

Now, I would like to understand in percentage terms how many jobs can be done in the Web Console, and how many must necessarily be done directly in Debian.

I know VirtualBox, Openmediavault, Freenas, ipfire, Opnsense, and many other applications that are installed on top of the operating system.
However, when they have been installed, almost all the jobs are executed in the Web Console.
Even with ESXi all the work is done in the web console, except for very, very special things.

With Promox, I already had to install Debian first because the installation did not recognize the hardware.
Now I understand that the management of network cards and disks must go through the manual modification of the configuration files or the launch of some tools.

It is therefore important for me to understand how much the Debian configuration weighs.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Hi,

I'm not sure what the actual question is.

Proxmox VE is its own distribution, derived from Debian - if you go for the "install on Debian" way you transform the Debian to a Proxmox VE installation.

Now I understand that the management of network cards and disks must go through the manual modification of the configuration files or the launch of some tools.

No, where did you get that from?
You can do all network management over the webinterface, also a lot of storage setup, ...

At the end some of that will be saved in configuration files which a Debian can also read and follow, some not.
For example, the network configuration is written in the ifupdown format. Debian and also other Linux distributions ship ifupdown(2) to manage the network, so they would be able to use it too. But you can still configure this over the webinterface, as most of the time you have the choice over using the webinterface or the command line. Some specific setup may need to be done over the command line. But, normally almost all tasks done after the initial setup can be managed over the webinterface.

and how many must necessarily be done directly in Debian.

Maybe none maybe some, depends on what you want to do...

the installation did not recognize the hardware.

What HW do you use, normally all enterprise class hardware works out of the box with the installer.

Even with ESXi all the work is done in the web console, except for very, very special things.

Same with Proxmox VE.

 

[WhiteTiger]

I'm not sure what the actual question is.
...

I am completely blocked.
Is a server that is wearing its years (HP Proliant ML150G2) but until last week there was installed Ubuntu Server with VirtualBox.

I had expected that being new to Proxmox I would have paid for some experience, but not to the point of having to do the installations multiple times.

For example, if from the WebConsole I assign an address to the second network card, the message "you need ifupdown2 to reload network configuration (500)" appears.
Also I still don't see the 4 disks in RAID 5.
I was unable to create an LVM Group, but neither did I create an ext4 partition when installing Debian, now in the WebConsole it is always unmounted and I don't find any option to mount it.

I am very interested in Proxmox, but with ESXi and UbuntuServer + VirtualBox I am operating immediately after the installation and instead still today I don't know what to do and the Wiki I read it I don't know how many times.

 

[t.lamprecht]

Is a server that is wearing its years (HP Proliant ML150G2)

And what didn't work when using our installer? If we should improve that situation with HW like yours used it would be good to get some details.

I had expected that being new to Proxmox I would have paid for some experience, but not to the point of having to do the installations multiple times.

That really isn't normal and often a good indicator that one should go to the support channels available relatively soon if the documentation didn't help out.

For example, if from the WebConsole I assign an address to the second network card, the message "you need ifupdown2 to reload network configuration (500)" appears.

With ifupdown1 you reboot the node to apply host network changes.
With ifupdown2 you can live reload it. ifupdown2 will be made default in the future.

All that, independent of what you use, can still be done over the webinterface directly.

Also I still don't see the 4 disks in RAID 5.

What disk, did you set them up in the installer? Where do you expect them to see?

Are they under a HW raid managed by the HP box?

now in the WebConsole it is always unmounted and I don't find any option to mount it.

Do you mean "webinterface" in general with "webconsole" or the integrated console viewer in the webinterface?

In Proxmox VE the storage are not mounts directly, they are clients which can access a broad area of different storage, local directories, ZFS, network shares, iSCSI, RBD, glusterfs. This means that the things your Linux system has and sees, are not automatically the things the PVE management stack sees - by design. So not all mounts are directly a storage, you can add them all, though.
This gives full control, lets hide underlying stuff separate permissions on different storage fine-grained, ...

So if you didn't create any partition (where do you even installed the root system on?) you won't see anything...
Adding whatever you want to use as storage mounts it, you can create a new filesystem directly under the node->disk tab and there the "Add as storage"

But, yes, the local storage management and its GUI user experience is something which could be still improved, and would allow to reduce the initial "CLI effort required" for some scenarios. This is something which is planned to be improved in the next releases.

I am very interested in Proxmox, but with ESXi and UbuntuServer + VirtualBox I am operating immediately after the installation and instead still today I don't know what to do and the Wiki I read it I don't know how many times.

If you use, or can use, the Proxmox VE installer itself this experience is the same. Even when I came to Proxmox and wasn't using hypervisors much I could start immediately, had it installed and the first VM running in well under 10 minutes.

The installer creates LVM, with Thin-LVM or even a full featured ZFS system for you and adds them as directly usable storage, it is designed to get an out-of-the-box working system. The Debian one doesn't do that in such an integrated way. So IMO, a big reason for you "starting off a bit wrong with PVE" is you not being able to use the Proxmox VE installer...

 

[WhiteTiger]

I have already opened other specific posts for the different problems, some still unanswered.
Summing up.
Proxmox installation stops and I was recommended to install Debian. I followed the guide for Debian 10 step by step.
(Side note: it is not precise. For example, with the basic installation of Debian wget is not available and must be installed separately).

There is a network card on the motherboard and an additional one. For this I had to install its firmware in Debian.

I have 6 disks, two on one controller and 4 on a second controller; both are Adaptec.
Debian does not see mirroring of the first controller, but only the two separate disks. So I disabled mirroring and installed debian on one disk and created an ext4 partition on the second.
These are the only two disks that are mounted in proxmox.

The 4 disks are in RAID5 at the controller level.
I tried to create a VLM group in Proxmox, but it doesn't see any disks available.
I then created an ext4 partition in debian, but now Proxmox sees the disk, but it is not mounted and there are no options to do it.

I had used ZFS on the second disk of the first controller, but considering that I only have 5GB of memory, I preferred to use ext4.

 

[macleod]

I don't want to be rude, but I consider HP G5 (even G6, except for some test lab) as pieces of junk these days.
You talk about a G2 (that's 3 generations before G5), that frankly is so old that I don't think I've seen one in my life (one or two DL G3 maybe, and I have some forgotten DL G4 still working ).
It's really too old shit, I don't think it's even supported on last version of Debian (or v5 kernel). Please try to find a newer server, that's the best advice I can get to you.