Author: Bian Xi

Convert Ubuntu VM to Proxmox

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Convert Ubuntu VM to Proxmox

Convert Ubuntu VM to Proxmox

This is to describe how to convert Ubuntu VM to Proxmox.

VM creation

Following hardware options can be considered

  • BIOS: SeaBIOS (Should be able to see Grub menu)
  • Machine: Default (i440fx)
  • SCSI Controller: VirtIO SCSI (It might not be used as sata0 to be considered for disk)
  • Hard Disk (sata0): disk_image_file
  • Network Device (net0): vmxnet3=<mac_address> (This is default for VMware, can use other type too)

Convert the VMware disk to Proxmox disk and attach the disk to new VM

qm importdisk 121 ubuntu.vmdk pool240ssd --format qcow2

Attach the disk as sata0.

Boot

After boot up system show a GUI error screen, press Contrl + Alt + F3 to switch to console mode.

Note: Press Shift to active Grub Menu if required

Network

Find out new network interface UUID

nmcli conn

Change NetworkManager file name

cd /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections
mv Wired\ connection\ 1-<old_uuid>.nmconnection Wired\ connection\ 1-<new_uuid>.nmconnection

Update nmconnection file

[connection]
id=<new_interface_name>
uuid=<new_uuid>
type=ethernet
autoconnect-priority=-999
interface-name=<new_interface_name>
permissions=
timestamp=1628151710

[ethernet]
mac-address-blacklist=

[ipv4]
address1=192.168.1.232/24,192.168.1.254
dns=192.168.1.250;8.8.8.8;
dns-search=
method=manual

[ipv6]
addr-gen-mode=stable-privacy
dns-search=
method=disabled

[proxy]

Errors

No login GUI

After boot, only a white screen with error message appears, this was fixed by running apt update and upgrade

First, update /etc/apt/sources.list file, replace all repo URL to old-releases.ubuntu.com

Then run following commands

apt update
apt upgrade -y

References

Convert Oracle Linux 7.9 to Proxmox

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Convert Oracle Linux 7.9 to Proxmox

Convert Oracle Linux 7.9 to Proxmox

This is to describe how to convert Oracle Linux 7.9 to Proxmox.

VM creation

Following hardware options can be considered

  • BIOS: SeaBIOS (Should be able to see Grub menu)
  • Machine: Default (i440fx)
  • SCSI Controller: VirtIO SCSI (It might not be used as sata0 to be considered for disk)
  • Hard Disk (sata0): disk_image_file
  • Network Device (net0): vmxnet3=<mac_address> (This is default for VMware, can use other type too)

Convert the VMware disk to Proxmox disk and attach the disk to new VM

qm importdisk 121 oracle18c.vmdk pool240ssd --format qcow2

Attach the disk as sata0.

Boot

Select item Oracle Linux Server (0-rescue-ed95572bd80641d79f83cd91e03c0283 with Linux) 7.9 from Grub menu to boot into rescue mode.

Note: Tried other option, all got error and unable to boot

Kernel

Find Kernel Package

Login as valid user, then find out the kernel to be used

rpm -q -a | grep kernel | sort

Got following list

kernel-3.10.0-1160.25.1.el7.x86_64
kernel-3.10.0-1160.36.2.el7.x86_64
kernel-3.10.0-1160.el7.x86_64
kernel-tools-3.10.0-1160.36.2.el7.x86_64
kernel-tools-libs-3.10.0-1160.36.2.el7.x86_64
kernel-uek-5.4.17-2102.203.6.el7uek.x86_64
kernel-uek-5.4.17-2102.204.4.2.el7uek.x86_64
kernel-uek-5.4.17-2102.204.4.4.el7uek.x86_64

Choose the latest one, which is also Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel

Recreate Grub kernel files

Find scripts in Kernel package

rpm -q kernel-uek-5.4.17-2102.204.4.4.el7uek.x86_64 --scripts

Following posttrans scriptlet shown

...
posttrans scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
/usr/sbin/new-kernel-pkg --package kernel --mkinitrd --dracut --depmod --update 5.4.17-2102.204.4.4.el7uek.x86_64 || exit $?
/usr/sbin/new-kernel-pkg --package kernel --rpmposttrans 5.4.17-2102.204.4.4.el7uek.x86_64 || exit $?
...

Run above commands to rebuild Grub files, then reboot the system to the menu with kernel recreated.

Note: The error Unable to open file: /etc/keys/x509_ima.der (-2) can be ignored

Network

You can reconfigure network interface the same as VMware, this is to avoid reconfiguration of network settings

Interface Type

Check VMWare vmx file to find disk type, then set the same in Proxmox

ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet3"

Mac Address

You can change Mac Address using the value in VMWare configuration

ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:11c:22:33:44:55"

Interface Name

Find out the interface in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts as below.

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ens192

The interface name is ifcfg-ens192

Create the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-custom-ifnames.rules with the following contents:

SUBSYSTEM=="net",ACTION=="add",ATTR{address}=="00:11:22:33:44:55",ATTR{type}=="1",NAME="ens192"

Then reboot the server, then check the Interface and IP address using ip a command.

References

Consistent network interface device naming

Remove orphan disks in Proxmox

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Remove orphan disks in Proxmox

Remove orphan disks in Proxmox

If you canceled disk movement in Proxmox, an orphaned disk will be created. In such case, it will not be shown in VM hardware configuration, and it can not be removed from storage session. If you try to remove it, you will have an error as the disk is attached to a VM.

In order to remove it, rescan disk is required.

Rescan

Use following command can make the orphan disk reattached to the VM.

qm rescan --vmid <vm_id>

*Note: rescan should be done in the Proxmox node which contains VM configuration, otherwise, could not find the VM configuration file error will appear.

References

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/cancelled-disk-move-orphaned-disk.96650/

Detect and Fix Proxmox file integrity issue

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Detect and Fix Proxmox file integrity issue

Detect and Fix Proxmox file integrity issue

The files can be easily corrupted if the Proxmox OS is installed on an USB device.

Detection

Because Proxmox uses Debian system, run following command to detect corruption

# dpkg --verify
??5?????? c /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list
??5?????? c /etc/lvm/lvm.conf
??5?????? c /etc/issue
#

Above files can be ignored as reason below.

  • /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list: Not using enterprise repo
  • /etc/lvm/lvm.conf: LVM configuration file contains system specific info, such as UUIDs
  • /etc/issue: This file contains IP address of host

Fix

Find out the packages

# dpkg -S <list of file_name>

Reinstall the packages

apt --reinstall install <list of package_name>

References

Fix ‘Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute’ error

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Fix ‘Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute’ error

Fix ‘Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute’ error

It happened after clicked refresh browser button when updating plugin.

Fix

Remove .maintenance file

References

How to Fix ‘Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance. Check Back in a Minute’

Force `fsck` on reboot for Ubuntu 20.04

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Force `fsck` on reboot for Ubuntu 20.04

Force fsck on reboot for Ubuntu 20.04

The Maximum mount setting for ext4 file system can be used to enforce fsck to be executed on root file system.

Check current value

sudo tune2fs -l /dev/nvme0n1p2 | grep 'Maximum mount'

Note: Chances are this is set to -1 nowadays, disabling check based on the number of times the volume has been mounted.

Adjust the setting to 1 with the command:

sudo tune2fs -c 1 /dev/nvme0n1p2

References

How to force fsck on reboot for Ubuntu 20.04

Reduce size of folder `/var/log/journal` and `/var/cache/abrt-di` in Ubuntu

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Reduce size of folder `/var/log/journal` and `/var/cache/abrt-di` in Ubuntu

Reduce size of folder /var/log/journal and /var/cache/abrt-di in Ubuntu

/var/log/journal

Check disk usage

journalctl --disk-usage

Change configuration

Edit /etc/systemd/journald.conf

SystemMaxUse=50M

Restart service

systemctl restart systemd-journald.service

/var/cache/abrt-di

Check Max size of the log files

$ grep -i size /etc/abrt/abrt.conf 
# Max size for crash storage [MiB] or 0 for unlimited
MaxCrashReportsSize = 1000

Check Max size of /var/cache/abrt-di

$ grep -i DebugInfoCacheMB /etc/abrt/plugins/CCpp.conf
DebugInfoCacheMB = 2000

References

Can I remove files in /var/log/journal and /var/cache/abrt-di/usr?

Switch or Boot into Text Mode in Ubuntu

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Switch or Boot into Text Mode in Ubuntu

Switch into Text mode

Press Ctrl+Alt+F3 to tty3 text console, and switch back via Ctrl+Alt+F2.

Boot into Text mode

  • Edit /etc/default/grub

    • Disable GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
    • Set GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="text"
    • Set GRUB_TERMINAL="console" to disable graphical terminal.

  • Update grub by running command update-grub

  • Set system to multi user mode systemctl set-default multi-user.target

References

How to Boot Ubuntu 20.04 into Text / Command Console

Enable long file name in Windows 10 Pro

Posted on by Bian Xi Leave a Comment on Enable long file name in Windows 10 Pro

Enable long file name in Windows 10 Pro

To enable Windows 10 Pro support long file name, Group Policy needs to be modified.

Steps

  • Open the Group Policy Editor by run command gpedit.msc
  • Navigate to Computer Configuration => Administrative Templates => System => Filesystem.
  • Edit the policy Enable Win32 long paths.

How To Fix ‘Filename Is Too Long’ Issue In Windows