This builds an up-to-date Proxmox Backup Server Vagrant Base Box.

Currently this targets Proxmox Backup Server 3.

Usage

Create the base box as described in the section corresponding to your provider.

If you want to troubleshoot the packer execution see the .log file that is created in the current directory.

After the example vagrant environment is started, you can access the Proxmox Backup Server Web Interface with the default root user and password vagrant.

libvirt

Create the base box:

make build-libvirt

Add the base box as suggested in make output:

vagrant box add -f proxmox-ve-amd64 proxmox-ve-amd64-libvirt.box

Start the example vagrant environment with:

cd example
vagrant up --no-destroy-on-error --provider=libvirt

Proxmox

Set the Proxmox VE details:

cat >secrets-proxmox.sh <<EOF
export PROXMOX_URL='https://192.168.1.21:8006/api2/json'
export PROXMOX_USERNAME='root@pam'
export PROXMOX_PASSWORD='vagrant'
export PROXMOX_NODE='pve'
EOF
source secrets-proxmox.sh

Create the template:

make build-proxmox

NB There is no way to use the created template with vagrant (the vagrant-proxmox plugin is no longer compatible with recent vagrant versions). Instead, use packer or terraform.

Packer build performance options

To improve the build performance you can use the following options.

Accelerate build time with Apt Caching Proxy

To speed up package downloads, you can specify an apt caching proxy (e.g. apt-cacher-ng) by defining the environment variables APT_CACHE_HOST (default: undefined) and APT_CACHE_PORT (default: 3124).

Example:

APT_CACHE_HOST=10.10.10.100 make build-libvirt

Decrease disk wear by using temporary memory file-system

To decrease disk wear (and potentially reduce io times), you can use /dev/shm (temporary memory file-system) as output_directory for Packer builders. Your system must have enough available memory to store the created virtual machine.

Example:

PACKER_OUTPUT_BASE_DIR=/dev/shm make build-libvirt

Remember to also define PACKER_OUTPUT_BASE_DIR when you run make clean afterwards.

Variables override

Some properties of the virtual machine and the Proxmox Backup Server installation can be overridden. Take a look at proxmox-backup-server.pkr.hcl, variable blocks, to get an idea which values can be verridden. Do not override iso_url and iso_checksum as the boot_commands might be tied to a specific Proxmox Backup Server version. Also take care when you decide to override country.

Create the base box:

make build-libvirt VAR_FILE=example.pkrvars.hcl

The following content of example.pkrvars.hcl:

• sets the initial disk size to 128 GB
• sets the initial memory to 4 GB
• sets the Packer output base directory to /dev/shm
• sets the country to Germany (timezone is updated by Proxmox VE installer) and changes the keyboard layout back to "U.S. English" as this is needed for the subsequent boot_command statements
• sets the hostname to pbs-test.example.local
• uses all default shell provisioners (see ./provisioners) and a custom one for german localisation

disk_size = 128 * 1024
memory = 4 * 1024
output_base_dir = "/dev/shm"
step_country = "Ger<wait>m<wait>a<wait>n<wait><enter>"
step_hostname = "pbs-test.example.local"
step_keyboard_layout = "<end><up><wait>"
shell_provisioner_scripts = [
  "provisioners/apt_proxy.sh",
  "provisioners/upgrade.sh",
  "provisioners/network.sh",
  "provisioners/localisation-de.sh",
  "provisioners/reboot.sh",
  "provisioners/provision.sh",
]

Packer boot_command

As Proxmox does not have any way to be pre-seeded, this environment has to answer all the installer questions through the packer boot_command interface. This is quite fragile, so be aware when you change anything. The following table describes the current steps and corresponding answers.

step	boot_command
select "Install Proxmox Backup Server (Graphical)"	<enter>
wait for boot	<wait3m>
agree license	<enter><wait>
target disk	<enter><wait>
type country	United States<wait><enter><wait><tab><wait>
timezone	<tab><wait>
keyboard layout	<tab><wait>
advance to the next button	<tab><wait>
advance to the next page	<enter><wait5>
password	vagrant<tab><wait>
confirm password	vagrant<tab><wait>
email	pbs@example.com<tab><wait>
advance to the next button	<tab><wait>
advance to the next page	<enter><wait5>
hostname	pbs.example.com<tab><wait>
ip address	<tab><wait>
netmask	<tab><wait>
gateway	<tab><wait>
DNS server	<tab><wait>
advance to the next button	<tab><wait>
advance to the next page	<enter><wait5>
install	<enter><wait5>

NB Do not change the keyboard layout. If you do, the email address will fail to be typed.