VM Orchestration using Proxmox

[LodgedDrip]

Hi,

I'm trying to work out ways we can streamline our processes for at least creating new virtual machines on our Proxmox cluster.

At the moment, we've got a set of VMs (templates) that are cloned to make new VMs; the team has to log in via a console and then run a script which sets a bunch of things in /etc/ config, including the correct IP, and then they change the VLAN via the hardware tab, reboot and the VM comes online.

Once rebooted, they run an ansible playbook that does the rest of the installation for things like Debian packages, config changes etc.

What would be the best approach for automating the first bit of this? I've seen a few modules for Ansible that allow for some manipulation of VMs, but I'm unsure as there are articles/resources all over the place.

I could technically move the VM-based script to ansible, but then we still need to clone our VM template, get its IP address, and change the VLAN.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[bbgeek17]

Sounds like you need CloudInit : https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

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Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[LodgedDrip]

Sounds like you need CloudInit : https://cloudinit.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

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Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

Interesting, I've seen this mentioned a few times with people using it along with Ansible and other tools it seems.

 

[bbgeek17]

Interesting, I've seen this mentioned a few times with people using it along with Ansible and other tools it seems.

Everything you listed can be done on boot of each clone with cloudinit, automatically without human involvement. Of course you can combine multiple tools: https://www.cloudsigma.com/an-introduction-to-server-provisioning-with-cloudinit/

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Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[Dunuin]

And you can do everything you can do using the GUI also using the Proxmox API through a script.

 

[LodgedDrip]

And you can do everything you can do using the GUI also using the Proxmox API through a script.

I've taken a look at the API a couple of times, but I don't think it can actually manipulate things on the VM itself? while handy to change the VLAN tag, or other settings, it doesn't seem to help with setting the VM IP or on-system config.

 

[Dunuin]

I've taken a look at the API a couple of times, but I don't think it can actually manipulate things on the VM itself? while handy to change the VLAN tag, or other settings, it doesn't seem to help with setting the VM IP or on-system config.

If you got the qemu guest agent installed you could run code inside the VM from the host using this...but I still perfer SSH for such stuff:

qm guest exec <vmid> [<extra-args>] [OPTIONS]
Executes the given command via the guest agent
<vmid>: <integer> (1 - N)
The (unique) ID of the VM.
<extra-args>: <array>
Extra arguments as array
--pass-stdin <boolean> (default =0)
When set, read STDIN until EOF and forward to guest agent via input-data (usually treated as STDIN to process launched by guest agent). Allows maximal 1 MiB.
--synchronous <boolean> (default =1)
If set to off, returns the pid immediately instead of waiting for the commmand to finish or the timeout.
--timeout <integer> (0 - N) (default =30)
The maximum time to wait synchronously for the command to finish. If reached, the pid gets returned. Set to 0 to deactivate
qm guest exec-status <vmid> <pid>
Gets the status of the given pid started by the guest-agent
<vmid>: <integer> (1 - N)
The (unique) ID of the VM.
<pid>: <integer>
The PID to query

https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/qm.1.html

 

[LodgedDrip]

If you got the qemu guest agent installed you could run code inside the VM from the host using this...but I still perfer SSH for such stuff:

https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/qm.1.html

Thanks! Making good progress with a Python script to do this and work on the system itself via the agent.