installation and boot via NVMe

Hi,

this is not a OS capability. You UEFI must support this feature.
The PVE installer have the necessary drivers.
 
Hi Wolfgang, thanks for the reply!

I know this is not a capability OS (PVE installer have the necessary drivers).

Maybe my doubt and difficulty should be put in another forum, because it is not a doubt about proxmox, but on how to enable installation and boot via NVMe on an old server that does not come by default with this feature.

I know if BIOS does not support NVMe drive, then SATA-drive is needed for /boot partition but I would like to know if someone using proxmox (like me) already did this

best regards!
 
This looks like an already fixed bug.
Do you have used the lastest PVE 5 iso?
5.0-5ab26bc-5
 
For performance curiosity: What would be the use or gain in performance using a NVMe disk for system / boot device?

I imagine the use for journaling using ceph since its pretty fast, but considering such trouble to make it work, wouldn't it be costly the downtime to reconstruct this node with such especific and different setups (since its not working out of the box, maybe not supported by debian modules or even the manufacturer)

I Imagine some ssd/sata for boot / system / logs would be fine, and the difference in boot times would be quite unoticeable, also would be cheaper. Correct me please if Im tipping
 
Hi,

We have made several installation attempts. The installation on the SSD has run smoothly but the server does not start/booting, the SSD NVMe (via PCIe) is not recognized as a valid option in the list of bootable devices.

The screen that we have attached is displayed.

Any suggestions on how we can solve this?

NOTE: The manufacturer informed us that our server supports PCIe SSD boot

Best Regards
 

Attachments

  • 04-boot-IBM X3500M4.jpg
    04-boot-IBM X3500M4.jpg
    125.7 KB · Views: 46
Hello Carlos!

I believe you are right if it is not possible to install by the iso of proxmox or via debian without many changes and customizations that may affect the proper functioning of proxmox and require many adjustments in the version updates.

But would not it be possible to do what Wolfgang says??
"If you like to install /boot on an other disk you have to install Debian 9. This special disk layout can be done with the Debian installer and than install PVE on top of this Debian installation."

See the link below. I believe we have a case similar to ours, do not we?

"basically, when using the debian jessie [Stretch] installer, telling it to install grub to the SD card instead of the SSD should be enough".
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/h...sk-when-bios-cant-boot-from-it-sd-card.29909/

Would not it be possible to do something similar using a USB to install grub and the rest of the NVMe disk?
 
I think Wolfgang suggested this workarround for you to be a friendly neighbor, since it appears that you already bought the hardware without proper infos on support from the manufacturer (if you have more infos on it, please let us know)

I believe most of the binaries on proxmox are possible to install over a debian installation, if you want to customize or have a different control over your system, but personally I believe thats an approach for a lab, not a production environment considering proxmox is basically just a support for you to have a number of other systems running over it. If you have this much hassle to setup this, probably you can't count on the systems avaiability or even follow proxmox updates if you tuned up too much your system.

What hardware are we talking about? Do you have some final position no the manufacturer about the fully compatibility of this card with your system / bios?

Im still waiting for some more clear answer about this, but I think the performance gain ( if any) using a NMVe on this old / non supported hardware is too much to ballance between the reliability, accountability and availability of your environment
 
Hi Carlos!

The manufacturer (Lenovo) has indicated to us that one of our servers has support for boot and the other one does not (see excerpt below).

"In x3500M4, Lenovo supports the PCIe SSD to be a boot device. You need to confirm if there is any bootable device in the system because of the design limiation. There is no PCI SSD support in x3100M4. Thank you for your understanding. " (see)

But even on the server that does not have support for boot via PCIe SSD it would not be possible to move "/ boot and the grub installation to a different device using a live cd after the installation, or use the debian installer and install proxmox on top" (see)

Would that be a great customization? Would it be difficult to update? Does it significantly affect performace?

We also find the information below (we have not tested it yet)
https://nguvu.org/proxmox/proxmox-install/#ProxmoxNVMeBooting


Thank You!
 
Still you have some questions to be answered:
- does all that hassle to build such an specific and tough environment will pay off (in both old ibm x servers)?
- Is it possible to have the 2 recommended crash recovery procedures?
- what is the gain in performance / io / avaiability of this server using such a nebulous build?
- It is really a good ideia to force up using those very distant aged technologies (your servers, the nvme arch)?
- Even if it works, most of the points you found that the bootloader is impossible to be on the device you want, does it pay to have a second device (a usb stick on a production server?) or a regular ssd/sata disk just to pass the boot sequence to the nvme disk?

Maybe my opinion isn't that clarifying, but I dont see a practical use for nvme as a system / boot drive, since the major use and positive aplications of this kind of memory (in servers with faster IO) is using them in database applications, big data analytics, as cache in front of a storage array, or in a software defined storage solution such as ceph.

Considering that maybe the only advantage you would have is a faster boot time and responsiveness from the system partition on a virtualization system... that should be on all the time, seems kinda unpractical and counterproductive IMHO.
 
Hello Carlos! thanks for the answer

(1) Our idea is not to have a complex environment, but to seek to make the best possible use of the components we have (old and new)

(2) You said "advantage you would have a faster boot time and responsiveness from the system partition on a virtualization system". For us at the moment these gains are enough. In addition, we would have one more slot in the IBM X3100M4 to put another HD.

(3) We do not think that it is a nebulous procedure and we do not want to "force up using those very distant aged technologies", but if it is possible the combined use of these technologies with some adjustments, why not do? At the moment they are the machines and pieces that we possess. It may take too long to have newer machines ...

Best regards
 
Hi @wolfgang!

If we install proxmox on NVMe and /boot on another device. will we have trouble installing a cluster?

In the initial tests that we are doing here with older machines it seems that we will not have problem to mount the cluster (we installed the proxmox via debian 9)

Best regards
 
rafafell said:
If we install proxmox on NVMe and /boot on another device. will we have trouble installing a cluster?
Click to expand...
The installation way over Debian has the goal to use your own disk layout.
So to answer your question no there will be no problems on Proxmox VE side with custom disk layouts.
 
rafafell said:
Hi,

Please look at the three images from the link below. NVMe appears as a target but we are not able to continue the installation. Any idea of what is happening and how to solve it?




Best Regards
Click to expand...

I have same issue as described with hpe g6 "non uefi" using duet uefi simulation . using last release iso 5.3-2

as debian 9 installer work good .
 
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