Automated Intall under KVM?

[Jas]

Hi,

I am working with Proxmox 3.2 and things are working nicely. (We have to use kvm VM's instead of OpenVZ containers since we have some requirements using Java on our VM's and we had issues with OpenVZ... Googling around I suspect they might be solvable in the end... But for now things are very stable under KVM.)

In any case, we would like to be able to install a fresh Ubuntu, or Debian image and automate the install to arrive at a solution pretty much like e.g. Digital Ocean where the install process is very very smooth.

What is the best way to achieve such a smooth new machine launch on proxmox? Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance,
Jason

 

[tom]

take a look on http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/VM_Templates_and_Clones

 

[m.ardito]

take a look also to
http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_VE_API

as it could be helpful, too.

Marco

 

[ScOut3R]

Try http://fai-project.org

Combined with the Proxmox API and some configuration management system (like puppet, chef or ansible) you can have your systems installed and configured automatically.

 

[Jas]

Try http://fai-project.org

Combined with the Proxmox API and some configuration management system (like puppet, chef or ansible) you can have your systems installed and configured automatically.

Thanks! That looks interesting! I will have to read the details to see if this can do what we want...

Cheers,
Jason

 

[Jas]

take a look on http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/VM_Templates_and_Clones

Thanks!

We are already using a template. The thing is we would like to launch these things at different IP's. Ie launch one clone at one IP, and then another clone at a different IP. Right now we have to launch one then boot it, then ssh into it, change it's configuration files inside it, and then restart it. Then do the same thing with the next clone. If we have autostart services on the thing etc then they can start to fire, etc.

Ie we are changing the details of the clone via having to boot it and ssh into it. Additionally this requires we make the templates "via hand" installs. (We would prefer to have everything scripted so that there is no human error possible. i.e. we ever have a "Opps Bob entered step 16 wrong when creating the template..."

I can see that OpenVZ is a bit more scriptable in this sense... with at least the machine name and IP address...

I was sort of looking for something along the lines of Packer.io: http://www.packer.io/docs/builders/qemu.html or something else. Do many people have experience with this and proxmox and or the FAI installs that ScOut3R suggested?

Thanks again!
Jason