New cluster / add production server to existing cluster.

[Kephin]

We have been using Proxmox for a while now, the server we have is however slowly filling up. To solve this we have aquired more servers to run Proxmox on.
We have been reading into clustering and have concluded this is very interesting for us to make managing and migrating the machines easier, so we made a cluster from the two new servers and subsquently wanted to add the existing server to this newly created cluster. We quickly found out this cannot be done.
So now I have a cluster (non production, at the moment) that contains the two new servers and a single standalone server (production). I want all the proxmox machines in the same cluster and doing anything drastic to the production server is out of the question as far as I am concerned.
What would be the best way to go about this? Do I create a cluster on the production server and add the new servers to that? Can I do that with them already beeing a (members of) a cluster? (e.g. can i break down the existing cluster?) or do I really need to re-install the new machines? Is this even the correct way of going about this?

Any tips are appreciated!

 

[Richard]

We have been using Proxmox for a while now, the server we have is however slowly filling up. To solve this we have aquired more servers to run Proxmox on.
We have been reading into clustering and have concluded this is very interesting for us to make managing and migrating the machines easier, so we made a cluster from the two new servers and subsquently wanted to add the existing server to this newly created cluster. We quickly found out this cannot be done.
So now I have a cluster (non production, at the moment) that contains the two new servers and a single standalone server (production). I want all the proxmox machines in the same cluster and doing anything drastic to the production server is out of the question as far as I am concerned.
What would be the best way to go about this? Do I create a cluster on the production server and add the new servers to that? Can I do that with them already beeing a (members of) a cluster? (e.g. can i break down the existing cluster?) or do I really need to re-install the new machines? Is this even the correct way of going about this?

Yes, you should install Proxmox on these to nodes, create a cluster at the original (old) server and join the 2 new servers to it.

Other methods are possible but tricky and not recommended. To install the two servers is for sure faster.

If there are already virtual machines you want to keep on the new server: make a backup from them and restore the afterwards.

 

[Kephin]

Yes, you should install Proxmox on these to nodes, create a cluster at the original (old) server and join the 2 new servers to it.

Other methods are possible but tricky and not recommended. To install the two servers is for sure faster.

If there are already virtual machines you want to keep on the new server: make a backup from them and restore the afterwards.

Thank you for confirming. We did this and it worked as expected!
One small question: Will the origional node forever remain to have a significant role or can it be shut down without consequence to the rest of the cluster? Eventually it will get old an possibly even break, wondering what to do in that scenario where it would have to be replaced.

 

[Richard]

One small question: Will the origional node forever remain to have a significant role or can it be shut down without consequence to the rest of the cluster?

Can be shutdown, after this remove it from the cluster by making

pvecm delnode originalnode

in any of the remaining node.