newbie questions about replication

[hspindel]

First of all, I am absolutely thrilled with Proxmox. Have set up two PVE (call them PVE1 and PVE2) and one PBS, and they all work great.

I decided to learn about replication. Was able to cluster my two PVEs. Ran into two things:

1. I expected that a VM I replicated from PVE1 to PVE2 would then show up as a VM I could start on PVE2. But it doesn't show up in the list of VMs. The disk for the replicated VM does show up in my storage on PVE2. I did read that in order to launch the VM on PVE2 that I should copy the .conf file for the VM from PVE1 to PVE2. If PVE1 is down, will that .conf file be available?
I tried to copy the .conf file, but I get a message that the copy can't be completed because the file exists (and since I'm root, I should be able to overwrite anything). The file does not exist if I use "ls -a", so I'm very puzzled by that.

2. The hardware on PVE1 and PVE2 are different, with PVE2 being less capable. So sometimes if I restore a VM that originated on PVE1 to PVE2 it won't start on PVE2 until I adjust the hardware requirements (e.g., RAM) to better match PVE2. What's the best practice for handling this? When I create a VM on PVE1, am I supposed to keep the hardware limitations of PVE2 in mind? That would mean not taking advantage of all the hardware on PVE1!

 

[LnxBil]

I expected that a VM I replicated from PVE1 to PVE2 would then show up as a VM I could start on PVE2. But it doesn't show up in the list of VMs. The disk for the replicated VM does show up in my storage on PVE2. I did read that in order to launch the VM on PVE2 that I should copy the .conf file for the VM from PVE1 to PVE2. If PVE1 is down, will that .conf file be available?
I tried to copy the .conf file, but I get a message that the copy can't be completed because the file exists (and since I'm root, I should be able to overwrite anything). The file does not exist if I use "ls -a", so I'm very puzzled by that.

copy does not work on the filesystem behind /etc/pve, but a move will do.

The hardware on PVE1 and PVE2 are different, with PVE2 being less capable. So sometimes if I restore a VM that originated on PVE1 to PVE2 it won't start on PVE2 until I adjust the hardware requirements (e.g., RAM) to better match PVE2. What's the best practice for handling this? When I create a VM on PVE1, am I supposed to keep the hardware limitations of PVE2 in mind? That would mean not taking advantage of all the hardware on PVE1!

There is no solution for this besides adding more RAM to your second node to do this. If a single VM is to big to be started on the second node, you will not have fun with this.

Keep in mind that a two-node "cluster" will not work if you loose one node, so you will not have what you're planing for. You need at least a qdevice on your PBS, to have an odd number of machines in order to be able to start the VMs if your main node fails. Maybe look into not-clustering the nodes and setup a simple replication job. You will not have problems with moving QM configs, because they're already present.