Compliments & multiple feature requests

[dignus]

Dear Tom, Dietmar and other Proxmox staff members:

First I'd like to state that you've done an EXCELLENT job in developing Proxmox to it's current state. We've only recently switched our environment to Proxmox, but we're very sure we're gonna keep the product for a long time. We do have a couple of items we'd like to see in Proxmox. Proxmox the way it it is is lovely, but I think we, as a user group, can make it better. First question is: how can we help developing proxmox besides submitting feature requests and of course donating?

Feature requestsBelow is a list of features that we'd like to see in Proxmox. Not in any particular order, just a list of stuff to make the OpenVZ/KVM admin job a little easier.

1. Trend reporting
At the moment we're able to view the current resource usage. While it is very handy to have that in available in 1 simple screen, we'd like to see trend reporting. "What went wrong last night?" is easier to answer if we can view memory usage of a VM at that particular moment. RRD?

2. Backup
The current backup method, of course, makes safe backups, vzdump was designed for that. However: it's pretty basic. No retention, no incremental backups. We think it's a great idea to add a backup method to the system. Some script that does retention & incrementals, but of course, as is the whole system, based on open source tools.
A lovely script I've been using for this purpose for over a year now is Backup2l (http://backup2l.sourceforge.net/). It's basically a set of scripts to create &restore tar backups. In the interface it should then be possible to give the command to "restore backup of VE xxxx of last monday".

3. A backup VM
The method above is , even with incrementals / retention pretty simple. I saw during the bootprocess that you've installed the Bacula client by default, but disabled it. An idea from the top of my head: create a Bacula VM template ready for people to deploy a Bacula VM. This VM should, ideally, live on a dedicated backup box, but that's the choice of the admin. When Proxmox knows there's a Bacula VM, it should list the Bacula backup method under "Backup".

4. Restore backup
This is for all backup methods: make a restore option available in the interface where the admin can say: "Restore the backup of VM 28118 made yesterday morning".

5. Reinstallation of VM
I was testing a lot with VM's today. I've dedicated a hostname & IP for this from our IP block. When I wanted to deploy another template, I had to stop the VM, remove it and recreate it. It would be easier, in this instance, and maybe on more occasions, to be able to reinstall the VM with another template, but with keeping the networks settings etc.

6. Traffic acounting per VM
Something every hosting company in the world would like to see in the interface. A month by month overview of datatraffic usage. (http://wiki.openvz.org/Traffic_accounting_with_iptables)

7. Port monitoring
Basic port monitoring per VM, something like Hobbit monitor, crude & basic, but it'll work.
------------------------

All these items above can be accomplished quite easily by admins on the command line. I believe however that having a control panel on a box means you'd ideally ONLY want to do admin tasks from that interface without having to add stuff of the command line.

I'd love to see your comments on the feature requests but even more on how we can help you guys.

Again; you've done a LOVELY job. After we discovered OpenVZ 2 years ago, this product is the find of the year, thank y'all a lot!

Cheers,
Johan Kooijman / Colin Raven

 

[martin]

Dear Tom, Dietmar and other Proxmox staff members:

First I'd like to state that you've done an EXCELLENT job in developing Proxmox to it's current state. We've only recently switched our environment to Proxmox, but we're very sure we're gonna keep the product for a long time. We do have a couple of items we'd like to see in Proxmox. Proxmox the way it it is is lovely, but I think we, as a user group, can make it better. First question is: how can we help developing proxmox besides submitting feature requests and of course donating?

Feature requestsBelow is a list of features that we'd like to see in Proxmox. Not in any particular order, just a list of stuff to make the OpenVZ/KVM admin job a little easier.

1. Trend reporting
At the moment we're able to view the current resource usage. While it is very handy to have that in available in 1 simple screen, we'd like to see trend reporting. "What went wrong last night?" is easier to answer if we can view memory usage of a VM at that particular moment. RRD?

already on the roadmap.

2. Backup
The current backup method, of course, makes safe backups, vzdump was designed for that. However: it's pretty basic. No retention, no incremental backups. We think it's a great idea to add a backup method to the system. Some script that does retention & incrementals, but of course, as is the whole system, based on open source tools.
A lovely script I've been using for this purpose for over a year now is Backup2l (http://backup2l.sourceforge.net/). It's basically a set of scripts to create &restore tar backups. In the interface it should then be possible to give the command to "restore backup of VE xxxx of last monday".

currently we have no plan to integrate a complete backup tool set. you are right, there are a lot of tools around and I see no problem why not to use them if you need more than vzdump can do.

3. A backup VM
The method above is , even with incrementals / retention pretty simple. I saw during the bootprocess that you've installed the Bacula client by default, but disabled it. An idea from the top of my head: create a Bacula VM template ready for people to deploy a Bacula VM. This VM should, ideally, live on a dedicated backup box, but that's the choice of the admin. When Proxmox knows there's a Bacula VM, it should list the Bacula backup method under "Backup".

Bacula sound interesting. Feel free to test this, but running a backup tool inside is the wrong place, should run on the host itself - or am I wrong?

Also you can install any Debian 64 capable tool on the host (I heard Arkeia works, SEP Sesam, Veritas Backup (only the Agent), Bacula.

4. Restore backup
This is for all backup methods: make a restore option available in the interface where the admin can say: "Restore the backup of VM 28118 made yesterday morning".

As we have do not store more than one backup file (vzdump file) on the backup destination of the VM this makes no sense now. you need to restore the needed vzdump file from a tape or whereever you stored it permantently and then you need the console: vzdump -r

5. Reinstallation of VM
I was testing a lot with VM's today. I've dedicated a hostname & IP for this from our IP block. When I wanted to deploy another template, I had to stop the VM, remove it and recreate it. It would be easier, in this instance, and maybe on more occasions, to be able to reinstall the VM with another template, but with keeping the networks settings etc.

sounds that you like this feature known from known commercial product for hosting. currently only vzdump can help here for fast cloning.

6. Traffic acounting per VM
Something every hosting company in the world would like to see in the interface. A month by month overview of datatraffic usage. (http://wiki.openvz.org/Traffic_accounting_with_iptables)

see roadmap, ressource monitoring.

7. Port monitoring
Basic port monitoring per VM, something like Hobbit monitor, crude & basic, but it'll work.

Can you explain this more detailed?

------------------------

All these items above can be accomplished quite easily by admins on the command line. I believe however that having a control panel on a box means you'd ideally ONLY want to do admin tasks from that interface without having to add stuff of the command line.

I'd love to see your comments on the feature requests but even more on how we can help you guys.

If you want to work on the code just email directly to dietmar@proxmox.com and he can guide you to the right direction.

Again; you've done a LOVELY job. After we discovered OpenVZ 2 years ago, this product is the find of the year, thank y'all a lot!

Cheers,
Johan Kooijman / Colin Raven

thanks for you feedback - I would love if you add your expierence here:

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Testimonials

br, martin

 

[dignus]

already on the roadmap.
currently we have no plan to integrate a complete backup tool set. you are right, there are a lot of tools around and I see no problem why not to use them if you need more than vzdump can do.

Ok, I'll run tests with them.

Bacula sound interesting. Feel free to test this, but running a backup tool inside is the wrong place, should run on the host itself - or am I wrong?

Well... you want to have backupserver apart from your usual clusternodes, *BUT* why I would choose to install it inside a VM is flexibility - out of diskspace? Migrate to another host with larger disks. Of course that can be down without a VM, but I'm trying to come up with a solution where an entire infrastructure can be managed from a single control panel.

As we have do not store more than one backup file (vzdump file) on the backup destination of the VM this makes no sense now. you need to restore the needed vzdump file from a tape or whereever you stored it permantently and then you need the console: vzdump -r

It makes no sense at the moment, agreed. What would make sense at the moment is something like "restore last dump" in case of a major fuck-up. Also .. pre/post backup commands would be a nice addition. Mount/umount an NFS share before backing up makes sense.

sounds that you like this feature known from known commercial product for hosting. currently only vzdump can help here for fast cloning.

I've seen this in Virtuozzo. Basically this task executes the following stream of commands: read network data from VM config, read root pass, remove VM, recreate VM with template user picked, set network data & root pass.

Can you explain this more detailed?

Well .. if you look at it from my point of view (Want *ONE* interface to manage entire infrastructure), basic port monitoring would be a nice to have. Per-VM defined checks (is port 80 webserver answering, does port 25 respond) would be a nice to have there.

If you want to work on the code just email directly to dietmar@proxmox.com and he can guide you to the right direction.

Done.

thanks for you feedback - I would love if you add your expierence here:

http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Testimonials

br, martin

Testimonial on it's way!

 

[tom]

Ok, I'll run tests with them.



Well... you want to have backupserver apart from your usual clusternodes, *BUT* why I would choose to install it inside a VM is flexibility - out of diskspace? Migrate to another host with larger disks. Of course that can be down without a VM, but I'm trying to come up with a solution where an entire infrastructure can be managed from a single control panel.

a backup server should have access to a tape drive. so therefore migration (and running in a VM) is a problem.

It makes no sense at the moment, agreed. What would make sense at the moment is something like "restore last dump" in case of a major fuck-up. Also .. pre/post backup commands would be a nice addition. Mount/umount an NFS share before backing up makes sense.



I've seen this in Virtuozzo. Basically this task executes the following stream of commands: read network data from VM config, read root pass, remove VM, recreate VM with template user picked, set network data & root pass.

we plan to have a usermanagement and then we also think of such a feature - but keep in mind that this does not work for all OpenVZ VM´s and never for KVM - so we are not sure if this makes sense on Proxmox VE.

Well .. if you look at it from my point of view (Want *ONE* interface to manage entire infrastructure), basic port monitoring would be a nice to have. Per-VM defined checks (is port 80 webserver answering, does port 25 respond) would be a nice to have there.

Ok, but why just use a monitoring appliance like http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Zenoss

I really like to have everything but the core team needs to keep the focus on the core functionality instead of doing everything. The next big milestone will be the flexible storage model.

 

[dignus]

a backup server should have access to a tape drive. so therefore migration (and running in a VM) is a problem.

Agreed, that is the ideal situation. But we both know that a large percentage of hosting companies don't use tape, they want on-disk storage. Then again .. this is only an idea, the discussion itself is one for the admin to answer.

we plan to have a usermanagement and then we also think of such a feature - but keep in mind that this does not work for all OpenVZ VM´s and never for KVM - so we are not sure if this makes sense on Proxmox VE.

KVM - OK, but why not for all OpenVZ VM's? Am I missing something?

Ok, but why just use a monitoring appliance like http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Zenoss

I know it can be done with other tools. But as I stated in my opening post: *IF* an admin makes the choice to run everything through an interface, then I think the core functionality of his infrastructure should be managed entirely by the admin. In my opinion it should not be nescesarry to login to the command prompt to do misc stuff. Why use a webinterface then for vz management? vzctl is your friend. In my view the basis of an infrastructure is resource management, monitoring, backup and usability, eliminate the idiot factor (or the "Damn! I had 2 beers too many when I migrated that VE"-factor). J

I really like to have everything but the core team needs to keep the focus on the core functionality instead of doing everything. The next big milestone will be the flexible storage model.

Agreed.

Just throwing ideas over the fence!

 

[cwhortn]

I want to second dignus on this. Proxmox VE is a great tool, however the only reason I'm still considering Virtuozzo is because of the backup and restore functionality.

The ability to restore a VM from the web control panel is absolutely necessary.

Being able to have multiple backups of the same VM at different moments in time is important but even more so is the ability to back them up directly to another Cluster node (through the web control panel). If the first node goes out, it's all of 2 seconds to turn on your last backed up version on the other node.

Our ideal setup (at our level of VM hosting) would be 2 nodes backing up full VMs to each other on a nightly basis with one node offsite getting incremental updates. That way if a node goes out, we're still good. If our facility catches on fire, we can light up the VMs on the offsite node.

Proxmox VE really is great, but I believe it would get a lot more attention with better developed backup / restore functionality.

Sincerely,
Carl Horton

 

[tom]

I want to second dignus on this. Proxmox VE is a great tool, however the only reason I'm still considering Virtuozzo is because of the backup and restore functionality.

The ability to restore a VM from the web control panel is absolutely necessary.

Being able to have multiple backups of the same VM at different moments in time is important but even more so is the ability to back them up directly to another Cluster node (through the web control panel). If the first node goes out, it's all of 2 seconds to turn on your last backed up version on the other node.

Our ideal setup (at our level of VM hosting) would be 2 nodes backing up full VMs to each other on a nightly basis with one node offsite getting incremental updates. That way if a node goes out, we're still good. If our facility catches on fire, we can light up the VMs on the offsite node.

Proxmox VE really is great, but I believe it would get a lot more attention with better developed backup / restore functionality.

Sincerely,
Carl Horton

We will include flexible storage model in 2.x so we can create multiple storages (local, remote, iscsi, fc, cifs, nfs, ...). We will integrate this in the current backup gui (backup target will be a drop down menu).

we can think off adding an option to store multiple backups and restore via gui - it´s just a matter of what we do first.