[SOLVED] Proxmox 4 "pve" not found after first start.

Nov 15, 2015
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3
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Hi good people. My customer got two new servers for virtualization. I have decidet to use proxmox 4 with zfs local sotrage and ssd cache for zil and l2arc. I think the proxmox is best small/medium solution for standalove server or small cluster virtuaization. I have already in production 4 proxmox servers from 1.x to 3.x versions. And now i want to use it with commercial subscription but i can't start proxmox after new install.
Hardware configuration:
M/B - Supermicro X10DRiRAM - 128 GB DDR4 2133 4 channel mode
NIC - build in dual Intel 350 gigabit ethernet
SSD - 200GB Intel DC S3610, 800GB Intel DC S3610
HDD - 6 x Seagate ES 3.5 Enterprise 2TB
No hardware RAID, all disks are connected to build in intel sata controllers (SATA and sSATA) in AHCI mode.
2 SSD + 2 HDD are connected to sSATA and 4 HDD are connected to SATA (i have tryed to swap disks and transfer SSD from sSATA to SATA controller).
Intel 200GB SSD will be used as system ssd for proxmox + iso and templates, 800 GB SSD will be used for ZIL and L2ARC, HDD will be used as ZFS mirror storage.
BIOS settings are default (i have tryed to tune BIOS but don't have success), on SATA controllers Agressive power management is Disabled, on SSD disks - Solid State Drive mode is Enabled, on HDD - Hard Disk Drive mode is enabled.
The problem is: after installing proxmox 4 to 200GB SSD and first start i got error:
---Loading, please wait ...
Volume group "pve" not found
Cannot process volume group pve
Unable to find LVM volume pve/root
Gave up waiting for root device.
---
I have checked with lvm vgdisplay if volume group exists - yes it is. I have scanned it with lvm lvscan, and it shows that all are inactive:
---
inactive '/dev/pve/swap' [23,25GiB] inherit
inactive '/dev/pve/root' [46,50GiB] inherit
inactive '/dev/pve/data' [100,44GiB] inherit
---
Ok. I made them active with lvm vgchange -a y pve and rebooted. But after reboot got same result. Strange is that some times if i reset the server it boots to the system, but very seldom, most all time i got "Volume group "pve" not found" message. I think that this is something with timers and disk activation at stratup - maybe lvm kernel module don't starts or starts too late or something else. Anyway i need help - i'm not very skillen linux admin, mostly time i rule windows systems. Need your help to start.

PS. i have some questions - maybe someone has link to site or book or something else with info about optimizing Supermicro BIOS for KVM or virtualization. I found good links on cisco, fujitsu, hp and dell sites about optimizing server BIOS for viztualization, but nothing about Supermicro. Last time tuned BIOS with Cisco isntruction for viltualization. And if there some good resources about tuning ZFS for storage with SSD cache - i found a lot of good articles and websites but nowhere can find for example what size L2ARC, ARC ZIL must be to work for virtualization platform. I bought 3 books from amazon - "Proxmox Cookbook" and "Mastering Proxmox" by Wasim Ahmed and "Proxmox High Availabilaty" by Simon Cheng, but there are no answers for my questions.
 
Last edited:
Re: Proxmox 4 "pve" not found after first start.

Hi,
try to set in /boot/grub/grub.cfg
from
Code:
[SIZE=3][FONT=arial][COLOR=#3C3E43]
[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#3C3E43]linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.2.2-1-pve root=/dev/mapper/pve-root ro quiet[/COLOR]
[/FONT][/SIZE]
to
Code:
[SIZE=3][FONT=arial][COLOR=#3C3E43]
linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.2.2-1-pve root=/dev/mapper/pve-root ro quiet rootdelay=2
[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]

on this site you find everything about zfs on Linux
https://pthree.org/2012/04/17/install-zfs-on-debian-gnulinux/
 
Re: Proxmox 4 "pve" not found after first start.

Ha! Thx wolfgang. Got to work it. But it's strange, i have tryed to do similar thing - in grub boot menu i have pressed "e" and added after "ro quiet" parameter "rootdelay=5" to kernel, than used F10 to boot this line and it told me that parameter 2 is unknow. But in grub.cfg it works.
About your link - i have already bookmarked this manual in browser, simply i cant post links and screenshots on forum, but anyway i cant find there answer about ZIL and L2ARC optimal size. Maybe need to read more deeper and look in to comments. Will try. Thx.One more question - if i will update proxmox using enterprise repository or migrate from 4.0 to 4.1 for example - i need to edit grub.cfg anytime i got grub or kernel updates?
 
Re: Proxmox 4 "pve" not found after first start.

if you make a update you will ask if your cfg should be kept or overwritten.

Now you can post links.
 
HI I've the same problem. I just install Proxmox in 7 IBM flex x240 Nodes, 5 of them works perefectlly but two of the that are a little older I have this problem, please forgive my ignorance, but as I can boot I don't know ow to modify grub.cfg
 

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