Proxmox VE Installation

Plakar Control Plane can be deployed on Proxmox VE by creating a virtual machine manually and booting it from the Plakar Control Plane ISO image. The official ISO image can be downloaded from the Plakar Control Plane Downloads Page.

Uploading the ISO

Before creating the virtual machine, the ISO needs to be added to a storage location on your Proxmox node so it can be attached as installation media.

In the Proxmox web interface, select the storage you want to hold the ISO from the left-hand tree, then open its ISO Images section. From here you can either upload the file directly from your computer, or provide a publicly accessible URL and have Proxmox download it for you. Either way, you can optionally supply the SHA-256 checksum from the downloads page and select SHA-256 as the hashing algorithm, so Proxmox verifies the file’s integrity once it’s added.

Creating the Virtual Machine

Click Create VM in the top-right of the Proxmox interface to open the creation wizard.

General

Give the virtual machine a name. The VM ID can be left at its pre-assigned value unless you need a specific one for your environment.

OS

Set Use CD/DVD disc image file (iso), choose the storage where you uploaded the ISO, and select the Plakar Control Plane image from the list. For Guest OS, set the type to Linux and the version to 7.x - 2.6 Kernel.

System

Set BIOS to OVMF (UEFI) and check Add EFI Disk, selecting any storage available to hold it. Leave the EFI disk format on the default (qcow2).

Everything else on this tab can be left at its default.

Disks

Set the disk size to the data disk size given in Appliance Sizing. The disk stores the database, logs, and all Plakar state, separate from wherever you configure backups themselves to be stored. Leave the format (qcow2) and storage selection on default, or pick a specific storage if your node has more than one available.

CPU

Set Cores to the number of vCPUs given in Appliance Sizing, and Sockets to 1. Leave Type on its default (x86-64-v2-AES).

Memory

Set memory to the amount given in Appliance Sizing, in MiB.

Network

Select the network bridge the appliance should attach to. Leave the model on VirtIO.

Confirm

Review the summary of your selections, then click Finish to create the virtual machine.

Configuring the Appliance

By default the appliance boots with DHCP networking and no SSH access. If that’s enough for you, skip ahead to Accessing Plakar Control Plane. Otherwise, the appliance reads its settings from a cloud-init user data document, whose keys are described in Appliance Configuration. This section covers how to deliver that document on Proxmox.

Pick one of the two tabs below, not both. A Proxmox VM only takes a single cloud-init user-data source, so if you use the Advanced tab’s snippet, set the SSH key there too, alongside any proxy, registry, or network settings, instead of from the UI.

Basic (UI)Advanced (CLI)

If SSH access is all you need (no proxy, no registry mirror, no static IP), set the key from the Proxmox UI, no YAML required.

1. On the VM, go to Hardware, click Add, and select CloudInit Drive.
2. Set Bus/Device to IDE, and change the index from the default 0 to 3, so the drive lands on ide3.
3. Choose a Storage location.
4. Leave Format on the default (QEMU image format, qcow2).
5. Click Add.

6. Open the Cloud-Init tab, click SSH public key, and paste in your public key, or upload the key file directly.

   

The Proxmox UI can only set an SSH key. It has no fields for a proxy, registry mirrors, a release server, NTP servers or a static IP. For any of those, write a cloud-init YAML snippet on the Proxmox node instead. A single snippet carries all of these settings.

If the appliance goes through a proxy or firewall, the hosts it has to reach are listed in Required outbound access.

Write the user-data snippet

Write the cloud-init document to a snippet on the Proxmox node. The document below sets every key. Remove the ones your environment does not need, each key is optional.

Shell

mkdir -p /var/lib/vz/snippets
cat > /var/lib/vz/snippets/plakar-appliance.yaml << 'EOF'
#cloud-config
ssh_authorized_keys:
  - ssh-ed25519 AAAA...

proxy:
  http: http://proxy.corp.example:3128
  https: http://proxy.corp.example:3128
  no_proxy: .corp.example

registry:
  mirrors:
    docker.io: harbor.corp.example/dockerhub-proxy
    ghcr.io: harbor.corp.example/ghcr-proxy
  insecure: false

releases:
  url: https://dist.corp.example/plakar/enterprise
  version: v1.1.2

ntp:
  servers:
    - 10.20.0.1
    - ntp.corp.example

network:
  ethernets:
    eth0:
      addresses: [10.0.1.5/24]
      gateway4: 10.0.1.1
      nameservers:
        addresses: [10.0.1.53]
EOF

Each key, including the network options and their rules, is described in Appliance Configuration.

Note

The IP configuration fields of the Proxmox Cloud-Init tab, such as ipconfig0, are not read by the appliance. Static addressing has to go through the network: key of the snippet instead.

The Proxmox web interface only lists existing snippets under Storage -> Snippets. It has no option to create or upload one. Snippets have to be placed directly on disk, e.g. via the node’s shell. On the default local storage, that path is /var/lib/vz/snippets/.

Attach the user-data to the VM

Add a cloud-init drive so Proxmox can generate the cidata image, and point it at your snippet. The cloud-init drive must always be attached at ide3:

Shell

qm set <vmid> --ide3 local:cloudinit
qm set <vmid> --cicustom "user=local:snippets/plakar-appliance.yaml"
qm cloudinit update <vmid>

Apply and reboot

Shell

qm reboot <vmid>

Verify

The appliance reads the snippet once, when it boots, so a change to it takes effect after the next reboot. To check the result, connect over SSH and run doktor.

Connect over SSH

If you configured an SSH key, connect to the booted appliance with the plakar user:

ssh plakar@<assigned-ip>

Replace <assigned-ip> with the appliance’s configured or DHCP-assigned IP address.

Accessing Plakar Control Plane

Power on the virtual machine. Once the appliance has booted, Plakar Control Plane is reached from a browser at http://<assigned-ip>, the IP address configured for the appliance or assigned by DHCP.

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i <public-bridge> -p tcp --dport <public-port> -j DNAT --to-destination <appliance-ip>:80
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o <private-bridge> -p tcp -d <appliance-ip> --dport 80 -j MASQUERADE

For production environments, restrict access to trusted IP ranges, private networking, a VPN, or a reverse proxy or load balancer with TLS.

For first-time installations, you will be guided through the enrollment process to:

• Register the instance with Plakar services for licensing and billing
• Create the initial administrator account

See the enrollment documentation for more details.