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QEMU agent `qemu-ga` on ubuntu with high CPU utilization

QEMU agent qemu-ga on ubuntu with high CPU utilization

The qemu-ga process has 99% CPU utilization consistently.

Fix by restart

Restart qemu-qa agent

Fix by uninstall

In Proxmox VE, the qemu-guest-agent is used for mainly two things:

  • To properly shutdown the guest, instead of relying on ACPI commands or windows policies
  • To freeze the guest file system when making a backup (on windows, use the volume shadow copy service VSS).

If uninstall as the permanent solution, make sure that untick the Use QEMU Guest Agent under VM options.

References

qemu-agent 100% CPU usage
Qemu-guest-agent

Exclude files when run `rmlint`

Exclude files when run rmlint

To exclude files, using find command, then pass the parameter - to rmlint as folder name

$ find /target/dir -type f ! -name '*.nib' ! -name '*.icon' ! -name '*.plist' | rmlint [options] -

For only search specific type of file, can use following command:

find /mm -iname "*.DFF" -type f | rmlint -T df --config=sh:handler=hardlink -

References

How do I exclude/ignore specific file types/extensions with rmlint?

Update NextCloudPi

Update NextCloudPi

If go thru NextCloudPI WebUI to update NextCloudPi or NextCloud running by NextCloudPi in Docker, errors could be occurred, which can lead the user not found error. The correct way to do is recreate container using new image.

Note: /data in container must be mapped or backed up.

Update NextCloudPI Image

docker image pull ownyourbits/nextcloudpi-x86

Remove existing container

docker stop nextcloudpi
docker rm nextcloudpi

Recreate container

Use the previous docker parameter, make sure /data was mapped.

docker run -d -p 4443:4443 -p 443:443 -p 80:80 -v /app/nc/data:/data --name nextcloudpi ownyourbits/nextcloudpi-x86 $IP

Update NextCloudPi

Login to NextCloudPi, the NextCloudPi will update itself, need to wait for the process pigz completed.

Restore data from backup (If required)

Go to Backup => nc-backup-auto in NextCloudPi WebUI, to find out the backup path, and restore the latest if required.

Manual Update NextCloud

Go to Updates => nc-update-nextcloud in NextCloudPi WebUI, to update NextCloud Manually.

Install Ansible for Ubuntu

Install Ansible for Ubuntu

Install pip

Check pip installed

python3 -m pip -V

Install pip using root

apt install python3-pip

Install ansible

Install ansible using normal user

python3 -m pip install --user ansible

Note: ignore the warning message about .local/bin, the folder will be created and will be in the path after re-login

Upgrade ansible

python3 -m pip install --upgrade --user ansible

References

Installing Ansible

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

Update Password Life Time in Oracle Database

Update Password Life Time in Oracle Database

For testing database, disable password life time will be able to avoid following error

ORA-28002: the password will expire within 7 days

Login as sys

Using sys password (created during database instance creation) to login to sysdba

sqlplus sys@xepdb1 as sysdba

Find out profile for the user

select username, profile from dba_users where username like '<user_id>';

Check profile settings

select RESOURCE_NAME,resource_type,LIMIT from dba_profiles where PROFILE='<profile_name>';

Update profile

ALTER PROFILE <profile_name> LIMIT PASSWORD_LIFE_TIME UNLIMITED;

Check the password status

SELECT ACCOUNT_STATUS FROM DBA_USERS WHERE USERNAME='<user_id>'

Change password

# sqlplus <user_id>/<pwd>@xepdb1
...

SQL> password
Changing password for <user_id>
Old password:
New password:
Retype new password:
Password changed
SQL> quit

References

How to resolve ORA-28002: the password will expire

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

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

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