Managing virtual machines and containers

A guest is a Proxmox virtual machine (QEMU) or container (LXC). Tenvara lists every guest on every host you manage, and lets you run the everyday actions without signing in to each Proxmox web interface.

The guest list#

Infrastructure > Guests shows every guest with its Status, VMID, Type, Platform, Cluster, Node, Customer, CPU, memory and last backup. Filter by Status, Type, Platform, Cluster, Node, Customer and Last backup, and save the views you use; Stopped guests and Failed backups are ready-made in the Views picker. Templates are listed with a Template badge.

A virtual machine that Proxmox is holding on a disk write error shows as Disk error, and one stopped by an internal error as Internal error. Both raise a critical alert, and the guest's page offers Resume, Reset and Stop for them. See Proxmox tasks, backups and alerts.

Keyboard shortcuts on the list:

Select several rows to Start or Shut down them in bulk.

The guest page#

Open a guest to see its state and everything about it:

• The header shows its status, type and VMID, and operating system type, with Device (when it runs the agent), Console, Snapshot, the power action that fits its state and a More actions menu.
• Customer, Cluster, Node (with the node's status), VMID, Addresses (from the guest agent), Own device and Up for.
• Any open alerts for the guest, with a link to each.
• Live: CPU, memory, network and disk figures every ten seconds while the page is open.
• Performance: hourly CPU, memory, network in and out, and disk read and write, over 24 hours to 90 days.
• Configuration: operating system, cores, memory, disks and networks, Guest agent, Start at boot and Should be running.
• Snapshots, Backups and Tasks (everything Proxmox did to this guest, and who asked).

Console#

Console (or press C on the guest's page or row) opens the guest's console in a tab of its own: the screen for a virtual machine, a terminal for a container. For a virtual machine the toolbar has Ctrl+Alt+Del, Type text, Paste and Full screen. If the connection drops, click Reconnect.

Typing and pasting into a virtual machine#

A virtual machine's console has no shared clipboard, so Tenvara types for you, key by key, in the guest's own keyboard layout:

• Type text opens a box for a password or a long command. Enter the text and press Type it.
• Paste types whatever is on your clipboard.

Each character is sent as the key that makes it in the guest's layout, with Shift or AltGr where it needs them, so symbols, capitals and characters such as \ and £ arrive as you wrote them. Characters go one at a time at a pace the guest can take, so a long install command arrives whole. The dialog shows "Typed 340 of 2,012 characters" with a progress bar, and Cancel stops between characters with no key left held down.

Keyboard layout says where the layout came from: the guest's own agent, the virtual machine's keyboard setting in Proxmox, or the one you picked (remembered in your browser for that guest). English (UK), English (US), German, French (AZERTY), Spanish and Italian are offered. If the layout has no key for a character, the dialog lists those characters before anything is sent: pick another layout, or press Type the rest to leave them out.

Tip: Tenvara turns Caps Lock off while it types (and puts it back afterwards), so letters keep their case even if the guest had Caps Lock on.

Consoles need Infrastructure Manage. Each one is recorded as a task on the guest, with who opened it and for how long.

Power actions#

The main button offers the action that fits the guest's state (for example Shut down for a running guest, Start for a stopped one). The rest are in More actions:

The action runs through the agent on the guest's own node when that node is online. If it is not, another connected node of the cluster runs it on its behalf. If no node of the cluster is connected, the action is refused with "No node of this cluster is connected". Progress follows live on the page and the finished task appears under Tasks.

Only one action runs on a guest at a time; the buttons say "Wait for the current action to finish" until it is done.

Tip: Shutting down cleanly needs the guest agent (QEMU guest agent) in a virtual machine. When it is off, the configuration shows "Off (no addresses or clean shutdowns)".

Snapshots#

A snapshot keeps the guest's disks as they are, so you can go back to that point later. Take one before a risky change and delete it afterwards: snapshots slow disks down and use storage the longer they are kept.

Take a snapshot#

1. Press Snapshot (or Take snapshot in the Snapshots section).
2. Enter a Name: 2 to 40 letters, digits, hyphens or underscores, starting with a letter.
3. Add a Description if you like, such as "Before the September updates".
4. For a running virtual machine, tick Include the memory if you want rolling back to return the machine running, exactly where it was. It takes longer and uses as much storage as the guest's memory.
5. Confirm. The snapshot appears in the list once Proxmox has made it.

Roll back#

1. In Snapshots, open the snapshot's menu and choose to roll back.
2. Read the confirmation: everything written to the guest since the snapshot is lost. If the memory was saved too, the guest comes back running; otherwise you can choose to start it again afterwards.
3. Press Roll back.

Delete a snapshot#

Choose delete on the snapshot and confirm with Delete snapshot. You can no longer roll back to it. The guest keeps running and its disks are merged back in the background.

Back up now#

Scheduled backups stay in Proxmox (Datacenter > Backup). Back up now runs a one-off vzdump backup, the same as the scheduled ones:

1. Press Back up now in the Backups section.
2. Choose the Storage. Only storage on the node that accepts backups is offered.
3. Choose the Mode:
   • Snapshot: the guest keeps running (live backup). The usual choice.
   • Suspend: pauses the guest while its disks are read. Short downtime.
   • Stop: shuts the guest down for the backup and starts it again. The most consistent, with downtime.
4. Add Notes if you want to find the backup again in Proxmox, for example "Before the line of business upgrade".
5. Confirm. Large guests take a while; the task follows on the page.

The Backups section lists each backup of the guest Tenvara has seen: result, when it started, how long it took, size, storage and the archive name or the error. It also says which scheduled backup job the guest is in. A guest in no job says "This guest is not backed up" with a prompt to add it to a job in Proxmox or back it up now.

Host updates and Never move#

When a host update or a host restart moves guests off a node (see Proxmox clusters and nodes and Restarting and patching hypervisor hosts), some guests should stay where they are: one with disks on local storage, a PCI or USB device passed through, or one too big for any other node. Mark those Never move: from the guest page's menu (Never move for host updates), or for several at once by selecting them on Infrastructure > Guests and choosing Never move (or Allow moves to undo it). The guest page suggests it, with the reason and a Never move it button, for a guest that fits one of those cases.

A guest marked Never move stays on its node during every host update: it is shut down cleanly if the node reboots and started again once the node is back. The guest page's Host updates line says which applies, and Start order shows Proxmox's start order, start delay and shutdown timeout, which a host update follows when it starts guests again.

Should be running#

Some guests must never be down: a domain controller, a line of business server. Mark them so Tenvara alerts you when they stop.

1. On the guest page, open More actions.
2. Turn on Should be running. The configuration then shows "Yes, alert when it is not".

A marked guest that is not running in two reports in a row raises a warning alert. It clears when the guest runs again or you remove the mark. Guests are "Not watched" by default.

Permissions#

Viewing guests needs Infrastructure View. Every action (consoles, power, snapshots, backups, the should-be-running and never-move marks) needs Infrastructure Manage and an adopted host.