Use PROXMOX to manage KVM servers

[Ricardo MG]

Good morning.

We have in our CPD severals servers whit several vms and all of them managed with each one KVM using the virt manager software. We would like know if is possible use PROXMOX as virtual manager center connecting it to the servers without the neccesity to move all the qcow2 to the PROXMOX server.

Is that possible? Thank you so much for your assintance.

Best regards.

Ricardo M.G.

 

[oguz]

hi,

we don't have official integration with the virt-manager stack, but we also utilize KVM & qemu so it shouldn't be too hard to configure your VMs accordingly.

without the neccesity to move all the qcow2 to the PROXMOX server.

this can be achieved using a shared storage mechanism over the network, the qcow images don't have to be on the PVE server necessarily.

 

[Ricardo MG]

Thank you so much for your quick reply.

So if I understand well, the idea is add the directories from all of servers into the PVE as new storage and then we can use the vms like they were part of PVE.

Is there any manual to get it?

Thanks.

Kindly regards.

 

[oguz]

So if I understand well, the idea is add the directories from all of servers into the PVE as new storage and then we can use the vms like they were part of PVE.

the disks would be available that way. you will still need to configure the VMs (so it wouldn't be plug & play except the disks)

Is there any manual to get it?

the most straightforward way to do this would be something like this:
1. install PVE on server
2. add shared storage
3. move/copy qcows to shared storage
4. create VMs and select the disk in the "Hardware" tab
5. configure settings, resources etc. on the GUI or by editing the VM config /etc/pve/qemu-server/VMID.conf

if you have any specific question you can take a look at the documentation - if it's not answered there feel free to ask here

 

[Ricardo MG]

Really thanks!

The idea is use the processors and memory from all the servers over each one virtual machine depending on the server where is located and use the PVE only to make the backups, snapshots, etc. Are we talking about the same?

Thanks a lot again.

Ricardo M.G.

 

[oguz]

no, if you follow the steps i mentioned, PVE would be managing the VMs. (effectively migrating your stuff from libvirt, keeping the disks intact).

i can't think of a way to accomplish what you want (VMs managed by libvirt while being also managed by PVE for backups/snapshot)

if you want to only make backups of your current disks, you can take a look at Proxmox Backup Server instead - our new release [0]

[0]: https://pbs.proxmox.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page