---
layout: post
title: Upgrading my Proxmox
date: 2023-08-04 17:03 +0200
lang: en
categories: tech
---

So yeah, today I was [upgrading my Proxmox from v7 to v8](https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Upgrade_from_7_to_8).

Due to the recommendations in their wiki I decided against doing a live upgrade
and instead went with reinstalling the new version.

So... What do I do with the existing machines in the meantime? I could just do a backup and
restore... But I wanted to try out the cluster thing. Reasoning was "if something goes wrong,
I still need my DNS server" (which runs in a Proxmox container). With the cluster
feature, I can move the VMs / containers to a different PC.

So, I first set up a VM on my Linux PC (with libvirt / KVM / QEMU), installed Proxmox
there, created a cluster from my current "main Proxmox", and joined the new machine.
All via the web interface, which went very neat.

After I migrated the containers over, I shut down my "main Proxmox" and wanted to
remove it from the cluster (to avoid problems when re-adding it later).
So I followed [the Wiki](https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_Manager),
ssh'ed to my now "backup Proxmox", happily wanted to execute `pvecm delnode srv-proxmox`
with the result of ... `cluster not ready - no quorum?`. Huh? Wait, what?

Well, turns out, Proxmox by default seems to assume enterprise setups, and no enterprise
has just two machines ;-). No, I didn't read about the specifics, but apparently you need
at least two online machines at any given time when you have a cluster. I looked it up,
after executing `pvecm expected 1` I was able to remove the soon-to-be-upgraded machine from
the cluster.

So, the installation itself went smooth. After the installation, I joined my "main Proxmox"
back into the cluster, ssh'ed into it, executed a `pvecm updatecerts` as mentioned in the Wiki.

Currently, I still have a cluster, although I may as well dissolve it, have to look up how.
The second machine in a VM will go. I have no need for it anymore... until the next upgrade.