Hi,
Just a small added vote of confidence / and a few comments ...
(A) It is basically trivial process, if you start with one node in production, run it standalone for a period of time (Months,etc) and then in future, wish to add more nodes / create a multi-node cluster. Simply clean-install the other nodes / keep their network config as 'identical' as possible to simplify life / in terms of moving VMs between nodes. Then follow steps for 'create a cluster' - starting with your 'old node' where VMs exist / and assuming you have zero VMs on any of the other new node(s) being created-added. Then add them into the cluster one-at-a-time. And you are all set.
(B) In terms of move from free to non-free subscription, you can do that anytime / as per your requirements, with no trouble. In my experience the repo subscription is more about "client expectations and requirements about a production platform that must be suitably supported" and also combined with "desire to give some $support back to proxmox for producing an amazing product".
Also for clarity, maybe not immediately obvious. At least in my experience
-- for cluster config, generally you will want if possible 2 NIC / subnets per node. First NIC is for "cluster management and communication between nodes". Second NIC is used for 'bridge the traffic to VMs and the LAN<s> they must communicate with'. If you have tons of NICs available (ie, 4 gig nic is pretty standard config in many commodity server hardware builds these days).... then you are probably better off with something like
nic0 = proxmox admin / inter-node communication. (is where VM Migration will happen if you push blocks between nodes when using non-shared storage)
nic1= VM bridge interface / for VM traffic to 'network<s>'
nic2 = optional use for dumping data to NFS-backup target, ie, you have an inexpensive NAS storage target which you use as a common shared storage tank for any-all proxmox nodes to dump VM Backups onto.
nic3 = optional use for NFS shared storage target for "live migrate capable" VM storage tank for "non-IO-intensive" VM Storage area.
in such a config as above, I would typically recommend you have discrete network for each NIC, ie,
192.168.0.0/24 for nic0
192.168.1.0/24 for nic1
192.168.2.0/24 for nic2
192.168.3.0/24 for nic3
ie, it is nice if easily possible, to cleanly segregate your various traffic pools (ie, VM-admin; vs VM traffic ; vs Backup dump traffic ; vs VM image backing storage shared storage traffic).
Also for general "IMHO" reference. I am believer that above config is superior to something like:
- 4 gig nics
- create a 4-channel bond with all 4 interfaces as member
- then have all your 'stuff' attached to that one bond channel interface. (ie, VM admin; VM traffic; Backups; and network backing storage pool / assuming you have such various parallel use data requrements .. which often may be the case .. in my experience ..).
because - in my general experience - bond interface performance does not always work 'the way we might expect' despite what the 'theory' of the beast may be.
just my 2 cents though.
Tim
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Tim Chipman
FortechITSolutions
http://FortechITSolutions.ca
"Happily using Proxmox to support client projects for nearly a decade"
