Local Directory across VMs

[robertsw]

Hello All,

I am fairly new to ProxMox and I am still learning the ropes, but I am having fun along the way. I am trying to have my VMs gain access to a local directory in ProxMox and would like to know the best way to accomplish this. I am coming from a single-OS setup where I ran multiple services and pod containers to fulfill my needs, but I have now broken them down into 5 separate VMs. Before I had my primary OS installed on an NVME drive and all of my stuff was stored on a 5-drive RAID6 mounted on /srv.

As stated, I have 5 VMs that compartmentalize all of my needs, but I would like all of them to have access to the RAID. In ProxMox, I have already mounted the RAID at its familiar location (/srv). I have a web server in one VM. The http folder is on the RAID mounted at /srv/http (on ProxMox). Instead of transferring the files into the VM, I'd rather have the VM host the files from the RAID. My theory is that I can centralize all of the data in one location and conduct backup/restore of the images without jeopardizing data loss from within a VM. Additionally, some of the data is fairly large; this would make the backup process of VMs a nightmare!

Here is my setup:

ProxMox DataCenter:
Banshee (Node) <--- /srv/[media,http,games,backups]
- WebServer (VM) <----- Needs to access banshee:/srv/http
- MediaServer (VM) <----- Needs to access banshee:/srv/media
- SteamOS (VM) <----- Needs to access banshee:/srv/games
- SQLServer (VM) --- Doesn't require access to banshee:/srv

Ideally, I'd like each respective VM to mount their needed folder at their own internal /srv location. (for example: WebServer VM would have a mount point of /srv/http that would be mapped to banshee:/srv/http but would NOT have any of the other folders mounted).

I know that this can be accomplished manually amongst /etc/fstab edits, but is there a way to accomplish this through the Datacenter / storage options?

Thanks for any help or suggestions to get me in moving in the right direction.

 

[leesteken]

Containers (CT) can mount folder from the host (via mount points) but virtual machines (VM) cannot. Are you sure you meant VMs and not CTs?

 

[robertsw]

Yes, I currently have all VMs. Would CTs be a better solution? That should be easy enough to rebuild as I am still in the "building" phase of this process and all of my data is currently backed up on an external drive.

 

[ph0x]

As mentioned you can pass directories of the host to a CT. With VMs you have to use NFS, CIFS or iSCSI.

 

[robertsw]

ph0x and avw, thanks for the help. I am going to create a CT right now and see if that will work for my needs. If so, then I might use CTs in lieu of some of the VMs. I am not opposed to using NFS or CIFS either; both can be easily configured for my needs.

 

[Dunuin]

I would keep the VMs and use NFS for the shared folders. They are not that efficient but more secure and I think that is more important if you are running webservers or other services accessible from the internet. You could create a LXC as a NFS server and bind-mount your mountpoint from the host to the LXC. Your VMs then can access the files using NFS.