learning and recovering previous proxmox install

[iPanini]

Hi folks,
A couple of years ago I engaged in my Proxmox adventure.. I'm not a linux tech, but I can find my way around (with help of a lot of searching..) At the time I set up my first Proxmox machine, then later, not sure why, but I guess mostly for learning purposes I added a second machine. This all must have been around 2019.
Fast forward to today, we survived covid, have moved houses and in the process a lot of projects had to be put on hold. So my Proxmox adventure had to be put on hold.

Today, I have fired up my old Proxmox server once again, it is running version 5.3-5, only to find that the machine had been stripped, not sure from what, at least a couple of harddrives and maybe also a network interface.

Anyway, after some digging and searching the machine is up and running again.
I have a couple of disparate screenshots from back then, so every once and a while I can check something or retrace something.

I do remember that I wanted to set up my server using 3x 8TB harddrives, and I also do remember that I was surprised at how little storage I got in return, not being familiar with LVM2.

My question:
I have my PVE up and running and accessible, so that is a good thing to start with.
At the time it appears I had set up the two machines in a cluster (I think it happened automatically, not sure). Only a single machine is available. So I have disabled cluster (removed corosync.conf as I found on the forum).
From the 3 harddrives, 1 is active, and I have found a 2nd one back. After adding the 2nd drive to the PVE, it is visible but not used (not mounted)
=> Is Proxmox capable of reconsructing / recovering the LVM?
=> How can I work out the size of my storage in conjunction to LVM?
=> Are there other drive arrangements possible apart from LVM?

Thanks for helping out!

 

[LnxBil]

=> Is Proxmox capable of reconsructing / recovering the LVM?

LVM is normally used to do raid0 of disks, so if a drive is missing, you lost everything on that drive, possibly more.

In order to inspect your system, run the following commands and post their output in CODE tags:

• cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg
• vgs
• pvs

 

[iPanini]

LVM is normally used to do raid0 of disks, so if a drive is missing, you lost everything on that drive, possibly more.

In order to inspect your system, run the following commands and post their output in CODE tags:

• cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg
• vgs
• pvs

root@pve:/home/erwin# cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg
dir: local
    path /var/lib/vz
    content iso,vztmpl,backup

lvmthin: local-lvm
    thinpool data
    vgname pve
    content rootdir,images

dir: files
    path /mnt/files
    content images
    shared 1

dir: iso
    path /storage/share/iso
    content images,iso
    shared 0

iscsi: DS1
    portal 192.168.1.87
    target iqn.2000-01.com.synology:DS1.Target-12.4bdbbe4b7d
    content images

root@pve:/home/erwin#

root@pve:/home/erwin# vgs
  Couldn't find device with uuid p4CeJd-0g09-0TAK-9Aum-9faq-ESlN-wXj2La.
  Couldn't find device with uuid RkdR5H-v5jk-2vHQ-RbtP-fx56-Xtgc-rTIjwK.
  VG  #PV #LV #SN Attr   VSize  VFree
  pve   3  11   0 wz-pn- 21.83t 14.57t

root@pve:/home/erwin# pvs
  Couldn't find device with uuid p4CeJd-0g09-0TAK-9Aum-9faq-ESlN-wXj2La.
  Couldn't find device with uuid RkdR5H-v5jk-2vHQ-RbtP-fx56-Xtgc-rTIjwK.
  PV         VG  Fmt  Attr PSize PFree
  /dev/sdb3  pve lvm2 a--  7.28t 16.00g
  [unknown]  pve lvm2 a-m  7.28t  7.28t
  [unknown]  pve lvm2 a-m  7.28t  7.28t
root@pve:/home/erwin#

Thanks for helping out!

 

[pille99]

that drive with the grey mark is a ISCSI
you didnt mention, so i guess you didnt connect it

iscsi: DS1
portal 192.168.1.87
target iqn.2000-01.com.synologyS1.Target-12.4bdbbe4b7d
content images

to start to fix your install: make sure you connect your iscsi (if still exist) or remove it.

 

[iPanini]

that drive with the grey mark is a ISCSI
you didnt mention, so i guess you didnt connect it

iscsi: DS1
portal 192.168.1.87
target iqn.2000-01.com.synologyS1.Target-12.4bdbbe4b7d
content images

to start to fix your install: make sure you connect your iscsi (if still exist) or remove it.

Correct, I forgot about the ISCSI connection. I did an experiment with that at the time.
I've removed the ISCSI connection from both Proxmox PVE and the Synology DS1.

Thanks for sticking with me and helping out!

 

[LnxBil]

root@pve:/home/erwin# pvs
Couldn't find device with uuid p4CeJd-0g09-0TAK-9Aum-9faq-ESlN-wXj2La.
Couldn't find device with uuid RkdR5H-v5jk-2vHQ-RbtP-fx56-Xtgc-rTIjwK.
PV         VG  Fmt  Attr PSize PFree
/dev/sdb3  pve lvm2 a--  7.28t 16.00g
[unknown]  pve lvm2 a-m  7.28t  7.28t
[unknown]  pve lvm2 a-m  7.28t  7.28t

So, the two disks are missing, that's not good. Now please the output of lvs.

 

[iPanini]

So, the two disks are missing, that's not good. Now please the output of lvs.

root@pve:/home/erwin# lvs
  Couldn't find device with uuid p4CeJd-0g09-0TAK-9Aum-9faq-ESlN-wXj2La.
  Couldn't find device with uuid RkdR5H-v5jk-2vHQ-RbtP-fx56-Xtgc-rTIjwK.
  LV            VG  Attr       LSize  Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert
  data          pve twi-aotzD-  7.13t             100.00 23.17                           
  root          pve -wi-ao---- 96.00g                                                   
  swap          pve -wi-ao----  8.00g                                                   
  vm-102-disk-0 pve Vwi-a-tz-- 16.00g data        0.00                                   
  vm-102-disk-1 pve Vwi-a-tz--  4.00m data        100.00                                 
  vm-103-disk-0 pve Vwi-a-tz-- 16.00g data        0.00                                   
  vm-103-disk-1 pve Vwi-a-tz--  4.00m data        100.00                                 
  vm-106-disk-0 pve Vwi-aotz-- 16.00g data        9.28                                   
  vm-106-disk-1 pve Vwi-aotz--  4.00m data        100.00                                 
  vm-106-disk-2 pve Vwi-aotz--  4.88t data        97.85                                 
  vm-106-disk-3 pve Vwi-aotz--  4.88t data        48.11                                 
root@pve:/home/erwin#

Here you go..
Thanks for helping out!

 

[LnxBil]

So, the disks may all be there. There are 3 VMs there with thin provisioned disks, that may be intact.

Have you another disk on which you can copy the files to?

 

[iPanini]

That should be doable.
I have been searching for the original disks. (by serial) And I did find disk two of three, so one is still missing. Disk #2 is present in PVE, but not mounted. Can we use that one?
Or would you prefer a usb drive?
How would you suggest to connect it?
A third way would be to copy / save to another machine on the network. I have a NAS on the network.

 

[LnxBil]

As a first test, you can just read the images and see if you get any error message:

dd bs=1M of=/dev/null status=progress if=/dev/pve/vm-102-disk-0

Run that for every vm-disk.

 

[iPanini]

As a first test, you can just read the images and see if you get any error message:

dd bs=1M of=/dev/null status=progress if=/dev/pve/vm-102-disk-0

Run that for every vm-disk.

Sorry I have not been able to reply any sooner.
I found some loose harddrives that I suspect have been member of my 2nd PVE machine. Quickly connected to macOS using a usb dock showed the drives as unreadable. This does not suprise me. On top of that I started using a new 2nd hand macbook only 10 days ago, so that machine is still missing a lot of tools that I gathered over time, but are missing on the new machine. Amongst others tools to mount NTFS and linux filesystems.

Will report back in short notice.