[nZac]

> SmartOS is a "live OS", it is always booted via PXE, ISO, or USB Key and runs entirely from memory, allowing the local disks to be used entirely for hosting virtual machines without wasting disks for the root OS.

Does anyone know if something like this is possible with Proxmox? I've got three servers I'm thinking of setting up as a small cluster and would like to boot them from a single image instead of manually setting PVE on each. Ansible or salt is an option but that tends to degrade over time.

[ktm5j]

It's close, but there are some missing pieces I think. The way it manages storage pools would fit your use case, if you import a zpool, for example, it will scan the datasets and can figure out what zvols should be attached to which VMs..

but there's also VM config info under `/etc/pve` or something similar. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of FUSE filesystem, it's supposed to be synchronized between cluster members.. you might be able to host that externally somehow. But that'll probably take some effort.

You'll also need to figure out how to configure `/etc/network/interfaces` on boot for your network config. But that's doable.

Would be pretty neat.

[jeffbee]

It depends on what "this" you meant, but in general the ways of netbooting an OS are many and varied. You'd have to declare what kind of root device you ultimately want, such as root on iSCSI.

Personally, I feel that "smartOS does not support booting from a local block device like a normal, sane operating system" might be a drawback and is a peculiar thing to brag about.

[cyberpunk]

There was a brilliant incident back in the joyent days where they accidentally rebooted an entire datacenter and ended up dossing their dhcp server ;)

[ptribble]

SmartOS can, of course, boot from a local zfs pool, but it treats it logically as just another source for the bootable image. See the piadm(8) command.

[nZac]

What I'm looking to achieve are three identical proxmox host boxes. As soon as you finish the install you now have three snowflakes no matter how hard you try.

In the case of smartOS (which I've never used) it would seem like that is achieved in the design because the USB isn't changing. Reboot and you are back to a clean slate.

Isn't this how game arcades boot machines? They all netboot from a single image for the game you have selected? That is what it seems smartOS is doing but maybe I'm missing the point.

[ekropotin]

It doesn't look like it's achievable with vanilla Proxmox.

I think if you really-really want declaratively for host machines, you'd need to ditch Proxmox in favor of Incur on top of NixOS.

There is also https://github.com/SaumonNet/proxmox-nixos, but it's pretty new and therefore full of rough edges.

[xenophonf]

You can boot ProxMox VMs via PXE:

https://blog.kail.io/pxe-booting-on-proxmox.html

But why bother? A read-only disk image would be simpler.

[ktm5j]

Pretty sure they want to boot the hypervisor itself via PXE, not the VMs.

[lazylizard]

rather deeper rabbit hole than installing 3 x proxmox, i think..but it exists...https://warewulf.org/

lots of other stuff will do the "boot from single image" part...say...https://fogproject.org/

[oooyay]

Kind of. You can run Talos on Proxmox so I don't see why you couldn't run this, but frankly I'd just install Talos or SmartOS on the metal like god intended.