Hello World,

Note : This post is based on the Proxmox VE 2.0 – Beta Version

As you know the PVE 2.0 (Beta) has been out since 2-3 days.  I’ve already started playing a little bit with the software (but not too much because busy busy busy…). In a  previous post, based on the information released by Proxmox VE team, I was already mentioning that an installation from an usb stick was possible with this release.

From the Proxmox VE web site, you can read that the installation media has been released as an hybrid ISO image.  This simply means that you can decide to burn the ISO image into a physical media and perform the installation from it or to write the image directly into a usb stick.

Get the PVE 2.0 ISO image and the Usb image writer utility

You will first need to download the

• Proxmox VE 2.0 beta iso image from the Proxmox Web site (http://www.proxmox.com/downloads/proxmox-ve/17-iso-images).

• You should then download the Suse Studio ImageWriter Software from this location.  The software work under Windows or Linux.  This post will be using the Windows version.

With the previous versions of Proxmox VE, in order to perform the installation, you would have followed these instructions and used a utility such as unetbootin.exe or universal USB-Installer to create the bootable usb stick. The drawback of these utilities was that it took some time to create the bootable usb media. (You could used syslinux to create your bootable device but the idea was to provide a simple procedure for majority of the users). The new format of the media makes  it really easy to create the bootable usb device from which you can perform a fast installation as well. It didn’t take more than 5 minutes to create the PVE bootable usb stick which would be used to perform my first  PVE 2.0 installation.

Note: You need a USB stick of minimum 512 Mb in order to perform this procedure.

Creating the Bootable USB Stick

Note: I’m performing this operation from a Windows Machine.  If you are using linux machine, you need to download the linux version of the tool/utility

Step 1 – Renaming the proxmox ve iso file

After downloading the PVE 2.0 ISO image file, you will need to change the extension of the file.  Instead of using the *.iso extension, you will need to change it to *.raw.  So, if you have downloaded a file proxmox-ve-2.0.iso, you have to rename it into proxmox-ve-2.0.raw

Step 2 – Launch the image writer tool

Plug in your usb device into your computer. Browse to the location where you have downloaded the  Suse Studio ImageWriter  and simply double-click the imagewrite.exe self-executable file

 

Click on image

You will be presented with a really simple dialog box. Simply Press the “Select” button

 

Click on image

Locate the PVE 2.0 source  *.raw file and select it.

Click on image

The utility will also display the list of available usb devices.  If you have  only one usb device connected, you can select this one. If you have multiple ones, ensure that you select the correct usb device.

Click on image

When you are ready, simply press the copy Button. You will get a warning. Press OK in order to proceed and create your bootable usb stick.

Click on image

After click on Yes in the confirm dialog box, you will see the dialog box with the progress bar and in a few minutes, you will get your bootable usb stick from which you will be able to perform the installation on your system.

Click on image

 

Perform the Installation from your Usb Stick

At this stage, you can simply walk to the machine where you are about to install the PVE 2.0 software, plug in your stick (check that you are booting for the usb device), and the PVE Installer Wizard will simply start.

Click on image

The installation process has not changed compared to the previous versions. You can still use the installation procedure as described in the post Setup your ProxMox VE Infrastructure – Part 1.  You will however noticed that some small esthetic changes have been made in the PVE Installer ( new splash screen, new header in the installer section as shown in the screenshot below)

 

Click on image

Final Notes

As we have seen, the Proxmox VE Team has finally included the possibility to install PVE from a usb stick natively. The new hybrid iso image format make it a breeze to create such bootable usb device.  Another good point is that the installer has not changed drastically. I hope that in the future they might change the installer layout and appearance to make it even more friendly.

As a special bonus, I’ll post here some screenshots of the new  PVE management interface (based on ext js 4 javascript framework).  This is a big change compared to the previous web interface.  I see improvements but also some inconveniences in this new management interface. This will be for the next post.

Till then see ya

Bonus – Screenshots New interface

 New Login Screen

Click on image for better resolution

New Interface with some new feature Roles, permissions, users,Groups…

Click on image for better resolution

New Interface used to manage PVE HOSTS

Click on image for better resolution

New Wizard based interface to create KVM Virtual machines

Click on image for better resolution