Headless ProxMox

[apmuthu]

Built a ProxMox 1.3 installation on a system with a PCI VGA card. CPU and motherboard have KVM capability. Running some VE Containers and a few KVM machines.

Can I now take out the PCI VGA Card after shutting down the ProxMox Host and then start it back now without the PCI VGA card?
1. Will it work without corruption?
2. Will it just hang?
3. If it works, will the GUI functionality of the KVMs be affected?

 

[spone]

Why don't you just try it?

 

[apmuthu]

Machine is hosting live containers and KVMs - cannot afford to try it for now - wanted to know from the design perspective and whether anyone has tried it.

 

[mmenaz]

My home proxmox server is headless (and keyboardless).

1. Will it work without corruption?
yes
2. Will it just hang?
only if you have some bios requirements that there must be vga, ando/or that has to stop when encounters an error (typically when keyboard not connected). Set BIOS appropriately
3. If it works, will the GUI functionality of the KVMs be affected
Well, you probably loose direct display of kvm video output, that I don't know if even is enabled by default in proxmox. If you connect with vnc or X-Window server you are just fine. KVM tells the guest that the (virtualized) video board is present regardless the host (proxmox) has it or not.

 

[spone]

Indeed what mmenaz says, it should work fine if your bios does not require a separate video card. That's basically the main idea of a kvm over ip: providing a graphics card and input devices so you don't have to.

 

[apmuthu]

Thanks a lot. This should make it to the FAQ list.

The 1u server had a PCI riser that faced the wrong way on the mainboard which had a lone PCI on it's left most side. A flexible cabled PCI Riser was procured from Sun PC (6th Floor outer bay - Sim Lim Sq, Singapore - SGD 45/-) and a normal PCI VGA Card (SGD 20) was commandeered with the bracket reversed to fit the horizontal full height PCI slot on the casing. The desktop board used was a Gigabyte EP-45-UD3L (SGD 182) which has no video on board and a lone Gigabit LAN on it. Now that I need another LAN card to run pfSense on it, I need to replace the VGA with a Gigabit LAN card and hence this predicament. The CPU used is a value for money Intel Quad Core 2 - 9550 chip - retails for SGD 360/- in BizGram, Sim Lim Sq, Singapore and INR 11400 in Ritchie St, Chennai, India.