Some questions on getting started with Proxmox

[harisund]

I started with a Debian Jessie install, configured my partitions / extra hard disks, installed Proxmox over it, set up a network bridge, set up local directories for storage.

Now, I have the following questions ->

1. The memory usage when no virtual machines are installed / running seems to be around 1GB. Isn't that awfully high ? Am I missing something? The base Debian install took around 100mb of RAM, I installed proxmox, and it is telling me the usage is hovering around 900+MB. Is that normal behavior? (I know running VMs is all about more and more RAM, but for the hypervisor to take up so much RAM seems out of the ordinary). Any tips and tricks?

2. How do I actually *delete* a VM? When I right click, I see start, stop, make a template etc etc, but I don't see a delete anywhere. Do I have to manually go into the command line and delete the config file and the qcow2 image and hope the web GUI picks it up? Are there anything else I should be deleting?

3. I hit "create CT" and no container templates were listed. Some googling around got me to "pveam update" but nothing happens. I am behind a proxy, and even doing "http_proxy=foo.port pveam update" seems to have no change in behavior.

4. In VirtualBox, after installing a OS, I generally install "VirtualBox Guest Additions". I believe this is equivalent to "VMware tools" on the vSphere front? Anyway, what's the equivalent for KVM guests, if there's any (both Windows and Linux). As far as I can google around, I need to do a "virtIO" based disk/network in Windows, and then installed the appropriate drivers. Should I be doing "virtIO" based disk/network for Linux VMs too? Or should I be going with IDE/ SATA ? Any optimization tips?


I am sure I will have more questions, but I am evaluating moving from a VirtualBox + phpVirtualBox + RDP (for VM console) combo that we have at work so far, and I am trying to see if Proxmox fits the bill. So far, I mostly like everything I see, and am particularly excited to use/try containers.

 

[udo]

I started with a Debian Jessie install, configured my partitions / extra hard disks, installed Proxmox over it, set up a network bridge, set up local directories for storage.

Now, I have the following questions ->

1. The memory usage when no virtual machines are installed / running seems to be around 1GB. Isn't that awfully high ? Am I missing something? The base Debian install took around 100mb of RAM, I installed proxmox, and it is telling me the usage is hovering around 900+MB. Is that normal behavior? (I know running VMs is all about more and more RAM, but for the hypervisor to take up so much RAM seems out of the ordinary). Any tips and tricks?

Hi,
look if the RAM is used by which process, or if it's simply cached (buffered) data?

2. How do I actually *delete* a VM? When I right click, I see start, stop, make a template etc etc, but I don't see a delete anywhere. Do I have to manually go into the command line and delete the config file and the qcow2 image and hope the web GUI picks it up? Are there anything else I should be deleting?

select the VM with double-click - then you can delete the VM in the gui (right - top is an delete button).

3. I hit "create CT" and no container templates were listed. Some googling around got me to "pveam update" but nothing happens. I am behind a proxy, and even doing "http_proxy=foo.port pveam update" seems to have no change in behavior.

You should put the proxy settings in Datacenter -> Options -> HTTP proxy .... like

http://proxyuser:passsword@proxy.domain.com:3128

4. In VirtualBox, after installing a OS, I generally install "VirtualBox Guest Additions". I believe this is equivalent to "VMware tools" on the vSphere front? Anyway, what's the equivalent for KVM guests, if there's any (both Windows and Linux). As far as I can google around, I need to do a "virtIO" based disk/network in Windows, and then installed the appropriate drivers. Should I be doing "virtIO" based disk/network for Linux VMs too? Or should I be going with IDE/ SATA ? Any optimization tips?

the virtio-driver for windows (network/storage). In the linux-world this drivers are in all distros - so you normaly don't need extra things.
Select virtio instead of ide for best performance (or scsi with scsi-controller virtio).

Udo

 

[Q-wulf]

[...]
the virtio-driver for windows (network/storage). In the linux-world this drivers are in all distros - so you normaly don't need extra things.
Select virtio instead of ide for best performance (or scsi with scsi-controller virtio).[...]

If you actually need newer Virtio Drivers for e.g. a Windows based VM, you can get em here:
https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Windows_VirtIO_Drivers
afaik the newest one is virtio-win-0.1.110.iso at this point.

 

[LnxBil]

On your concerns about moving from VirtualBox, which I did with over 40 VMs. Some regards

• VirtualBox'es RDP is much better than VNC over slow connections, yet there is a new technology on the horizon: SPICE
• Proxmox-Subscription is much cheaper than VirtualBox with ExtensionPack (which is NOT free, you have to buy it from Oracle if you want to use it in a non-PUEL-environment)
• VirtualBox is child's play compared to Proxmox concerning real server farms (integrated, real clustering, real backups, storage-backed snapshots etc.)
• Proxmox is faster. My VMs run much faster in Proxmox (I was on VB 4.3, so no virtio-everywhere-Stuff as it is in Proxmox)
• You can run container virtualization

I moved and I never looked back.

 

[harisund]

Hi,
look if the RAM is used by which process, or if it's simply cached (buffered) data?

select the VM with double-click - then you can delete the VM in the gui (right - top is an delete button).

You should put the proxy settings in Datacenter -> Options -> HTTP proxy .... like

the virtio-driver for windows (network/storage). In the linux-world this drivers are in all distros - so you normaly don't need extra things.
Select virtio instead of ide for best performance (or scsi with scsi-controller virtio).

Udo

Thanks for that. I was able to find how to delete VMs, as well as get the containers to download.

The high RAM usage is honestly the only thing bothering me right now, so I will look into it a little more, perhaps open up a new forum post.

If you actually need newer Virtio Drivers for e.g. a Windows based VM, you can get em here:
afaik the newest one is virtio-win-0.1.110.iso at this point.

Thanks, I will look into that.

On your concerns about moving from VirtualBox, which I did with over 40 VMs. Some regards

• VirtualBox'es RDP is much better than VNC over slow connections, yet there is a new technology on the horizon: SPICE
• Proxmox-Subscription is much cheaper than VirtualBox with ExtensionPack (which is NOT free, you have to buy it from Oracle if you want to use it in a non-PUEL-environment)
• VirtualBox is child's play compared to Proxmox concerning real server farms (integrated, real clustering, real backups, storage-backed snapshots etc.)
• Proxmox is faster. My VMs run much faster in Proxmox (I was on VB 4.3, so no virtio-everywhere-Stuff as it is in Proxmox)
• You can run container virtualization

I moved and I never looked back.

thanks for your input.