Install proxmox in a 8GB USB not possible

[lince]

Hi there,

I'm trying to install proxmox in a USB key. I tried using an 8GB key which is recognized as 7.2GB and proxmox (both 3.4 and 4.0) complain that it's not big enough. This is weird because the proxmox 3.4 that I have installed at the moment in a hard drive is only using 1.3GB of disk space.

Is there a reason for this limitation ?

Is there a way to overcome this limitation and install proxmox in my 8GB usb key ?

Why don't you specify in the requirements that a minimun of 8-14GB of disk space is required ? (this is a question and a suggestion)

Thanks.

 

[wolfgang]

Hi,
if you use the default settings then the install try to get double space of ram for swap.
When you install set swapsize to 1 and also maxvz 1.
this options are under the point Options ;-)

 

[lince]

Thanks for the quick reply wolf.

I tried setting swapsize and maxvz to 1 but I get the same error message.

hardisk '/dev/sdb' too small (7562496GB) at /usr/bin/proxinstall line 713

 

[lince]

Here is a picture with the error

 

[wolfgang]

What do you use as FS?

 

[lince]

I found the problem, it is a proxmox limitation:

my $hdgb = int($hdsize/(1024*1024));
die "hardisk '$target_dev' too small (${hdsize}GB)" if $hdgb < 8;

There a limit of 8GB of disk space in proxinstall. The problem is that two of my 8GB usb keys are detected as 7.2GB or 7.5GB so proxmox doesn't allow me to install.

I changed proxinstall script and tried re-building a new iso image but is giving me an error.

I also tried to modify the file from the installation process but the root partition is mounted as read-only (and it doesn't allow remounting as rw) so I guess the only option is to create a new iso.

Can you tell the process to build a new iso image so I can modify this file ?

 

[mmenaz]

Probably a 16GB USB will solve your problem then
Just for curiosity, since USB installation is strongly discouraged by proxmox team, have you found a USB brand/model that is fast enough (and possibly usb3) and very reliable? Are planning to do a special configuration then (like swappiness 0, of course noatime, and other stuff I would love to know about) to reduce the I/O on them (probably data collected for graphs statistics could write a lot).
And what is for you the main benefit of Proxmox on USB key? Save a sata port? Easy backup and swap of it (but since is less reliable than an HD can't be a reason)?
Thanks a lot

 

[lince]

Hello mmenaz,

I know that a 16GB usb would solve the problem, I tried that before I opened this thread, that is why I talked about the 8-14GB limitation, but that doesn't answer my questions.

Is there a reason for this 8GB limitation if proxmox only needs 1.3GB for the root partition ?

Why don't you specify in the requirements that a minimun of 8GB of disk space is required ? Actually it would be more like 8.6GB (8589934592bytes)

Can you describe the process to build a new iso image so I can modify the proxinstall file ?

At this point, I would really appreciate if you could tell me how I can modify the iso image to create a new one.

Regards.

 

[mmenaz]

My suggestion of using a 16GB one was of course a joke (that's why I added a smile).
I've no answer for your questions, otherwise I would have gave them in my first comment.
I've a lot of questions for you instead about that USB stuff, but you did not answer me.
If you really want my OPINION about the 8GB stuff, they probably have put that limit because, in a normal installation, you need space for swap, iso, vms, temporary files location (don't know if still valid, but vzdump of OpenVZ saved files in a temporary directory in the old days) and so on. Probably 8Gb is the minimum for a working, self contained installation.
About rebuild iso, I remember a former post about it, but Proxmox team members AFAIR told that is not easy and gave not instructions for that (would be useful also for adding kernel module drivers for storage, OMHO).
Best regards

 

[lince]

Hello mmenaz,

I didn't answer your questions because I didn't want to change the subject of this thread. I want to talk about how to install proxmox in a 8GB usb. If you wanna talk about usb performance or other stuff I will be happy to do it in a different thread.

Why would the minimum be 8GB ? the very minimum is 1.3GB for root, 1GB for swap and 1GB for data which is 3.3GB so we could even install proxmox in a 4GB usb.

At the moment the minimum size in proxmox is set up to 8GB but because many usb (I checked four) have a lower size, they can't be used to install proxmox. Just by lowering the limit to 7, we would be able to install proxmox in any 8GB usb and I doubt that change would harm anybody.

Lets see if somebody from proxmox staff can give us their opinion on this.

Regards.

 

[tom]

you can install below 8 GB - ext4 and xfs. works for me by using the parameters (see above).

also, you can always install Debian Jessie and on top Proxmox VE.

so for me, I do not see that there is a strict requirement of 8 GB.

But for a long term worry free setup, 8 GB is far too low in my opinion.

 

[lince]

Hello tom,

I tried installing proxmox 4.0 with ext4 and it doesn't work because of this limit in the installer. What do you mean by see above ?

Well, the requirement is in the installer. I posted the lines of code a few posts back.

I can think of two good reasons why the limit should be lowered to 7GB.

Somebody may want to install proxmox in a device that only has the node installation and where the data would be in a different storage, SAN/NAS for instance.

Somebody may want to show proxmox in a conference without having to install it in a hard drive. It would be really useful to have it in a usb. Also it could be given to attendants so they could try it out in a usb already installed and ready to run.

This are two things that I would like to do. At home I want to have it in a usb so I don't need to loose a hard drive and I would like to do a presentation at work about proxmox and it would be really useful to have it in a few usb devices.

For you is as simple as changing one number and the problem is solved. Also if you think is too low, you could show a warning to let people know, but I think that if somebody is installing in a small device, they should already know that the space is gonna be very limited.

 

[MACscr]

Just install Debian 8.2 instead and the install proxmox. Plus you want to install using ext2 for a flash drive and then disable swap. I have 8 servers setup this way working fine on 8gb drives.

 

[mmenaz]

I colplietely agree. And about being "too low", if is low 8GB then 7.5 does not change anything in the long term but at least make 8GB usb keys usable. So I vote for the source change.
Also I would LOVE to have a simple howto for editing (i.e. change source files, add kernel modules, add some packages, change something else) and then recreate the ISO

 

[tom]

Hello tom,

I tried installing proxmox 4.0 with ext4 and it doesn't work because of this limit in the installer. What do you mean by see above ?

...

See again the second post (the first answer) in this thread:
http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/24718-Install-proxmox-in-a-8GB-USB-not-possible?p=123727#post123727

 

[lince]

Hello tom,

You should check my reply to the second post. I already tried that and its not possible to install proxmox in a 8GB usb drive because of the limit in the installer.

 

[mmenaz]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I created a VM with 7GB of storage (since USB pend rivers are less than 8GB of real available size) and tried to install Proxmox (iso proxmox-ve_4.0-0d8559d0-17), ext4, swapsize to 1 and also maxvz 1. The installation fails with the message "hard disk /dev/sda too small (7340032GB) at /usr/bin/proxinstall line 713"
(btw, the "GB" in the message is clearly wrong, is a bug)

root@proxmox:~# qm config 899
bootdisk: ide0
cores: 2
ide0: local:899/vm-899-disk-1.qcow2,format=qcow2,size=7G
ide2: hd2sata:iso/proxmox-ve_4.0-0d8559d0-17.iso,media=cdrom
memory: 2048
name: prox8gbtest
net0: virtio=5E:18:F8:6A:7B:1B,bridge=vmbr0
numa: 0
ostype: l26
smbios1: uuid=e3155b95-b344-4e39-9015-3873c247cece
sockets: 1

 

[MACscr]

Why keep fighting it and not just do the debian install first as i mentioned?

 

[lince]

Hello MACscr,

It's not about fighting, Just trying to help improve things a little .

It's true that there are alternatives to this limitation like installing debian or buying a 16GB usb. They could even explain how to build an iso so we could modify this ourselves (wouldn't mind this solution).

But if it's possible to remove this limitation and make things easier for everybody, why don't just do it ?

 

[SamTzu]

I just installed Proxmox 4 on 4Gb mini USB drive. It's only USB2 stick and took quite a while to install using Debian 8 netboot CD and installing Proxmox on top. But after reboot it loads up really fast from the USB and because I did not use LVM on the USB I can clone the stick in a few mins and start a new server with that new stick. It works out of the box and you can simply add (external) storage like NAS and start a client from there. If you wish to restore old host settings there is still some customization work after plugging in the new stick (like editing /etc/hosts, /etc/hostname, /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/fstab, /etc/network/interfaces, removing /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules, doing 'dpkg-reconfigure postfix' and regenerating SSH key) but it's still faster than actually installing Proxmox from CD or USB drive. This is specially good if you are in a crisis mode and need to get your hardware up fast. If you need to be quick and dirty you can simply edit the /etc/network/interfaces, uncomment a line to enable the DHCP settings there type dhclient and restore the rest of your host files (mentioned above) from backups over network. Proxmox host requires some files also to be restored like /var/lib/pve-cluster. I can post a link to .img file if anyone is interested. -Sam