VE won't start after re-install

[goblynn93]

I am learning. I had a small server running (2c/2t, severely underpowered box). I reinstalled that server several times just fine. Got used to making VMs.

Then I borrowed two computers from work (6c/12t much better boxes). I installed on those two machines just fine.

I made a cluster; I made some more VMs. Nothing serious, just following tutorials and getting a feel for what's going on.

I decided to delete it all, 100%, and start over again just to repeat the process. I learn through repetition.

I formatted all drives on all 3 machines and started to reinstall.

And that's when the issues start.

I get through the process of running the installer just fine but when the system reboots it comes up with a command line log in, not the VE info screen I'm expecting to see. I can log in with "root" and my password, but I can't seem to do anything to start the server.

I removed the work computers from the network. Physically unplugged them and went back to my original small server and tried to reinstall on it... and it is doing the same thing.

I installed Debian on it. No issues. So I tried to reinstall Proxmox again, and failed, again.

I even tried re-flashing the Proxmox iso to my USB and the results are the same.

I am at a loss as to what I've done to break being able to install Proxmox... What do I do?

 

[gfngfn256]

Assuming you don't need ANY data from hdd, then:
I would first bootup machine (bare-metal) with a gparted live usb, and completely erase hdd. Make sure partitions are removed.
Then try and reinstall PVE with another usb PVE iso.

 

[goblynn93]

Assuming you don't need ANY data from hdd, then:
I would first bootup machine (bare-metal) with a gparted live usb, and completely erase hdd. Make sure partitions are removed.
Then try and reinstall PVE with another usb PVE iso.

That's basically what I did. Or at least I thought I did. I don't need anything, it's all just learning for now.

Gparted had some issues killing some of the LVMs so I used FDISK to write a new GPT table and then used gparted to format all disks to EXT4.

My "small server" is a tiny Celeron machine with a single hard drive. I nuked it, installed Debian, ran Debian, and then tried to install Proxmox back onto it and it fails to start like it did in previous installs.

My other two Proxmox machines are more complicated with extra drives, etc., but they are reformatted, powered off, network unplugged. They shouldn't be doing anything, anywhere at the moment.

My little server boots to a command line. I try to run VE manually and I get an error. The error tells me to check two things and I can see two errors listed.

Unable to resolve name to a non-loopback IP address

and

pve-cluster failed with result 'exit-code'.

I am using the same settings I used to build the server in the past but I named my small server just pve.home.arpa the first time and this time I want it to be pvesilver.home.arpa because I have more machines to play with.

I can nuke it all at any point... This is just me learning on a few older machines no one's used for years.

Appreciate the help!!

 

[goblynn93]

I don't know what I did the first time so that it worked, or why it worked with what now seems like bad settings.
My original setups used these settings for my small machine:
pve.home.arpa
192.168.1.24/24
192.168.1.1
192.168.1.1

I did more installs today with different install settings. After trying various names and having no luck I decided to let VE setup set all my network settings with DHCP. This worked. Server booted!

So, I installed again and this time I changed the name and IP address to what I want them to be. I left the gateway and DNS settings as VE setup had them:
pvesilver.home.arpa
192.168.1.24/24
192.168.1.1
1.1.1.1

And this worked. I feel like an idiot for something this basic, but it is a learning curve and I'm still having fun. I also feel like it should have failed on me the first few installs but I'm not concerned with figuring that out. I've got VMs to make and networks to re-beak!