Proxmox integrated in napp-it cs for Storage Management

[gea]

Napp-it cs is a S3, Storage Spaces and ZFS web-gui.
It can manage a single server(free) or a whole servergroup remotely via tiny 30K chacha20 encrypted backend socket service

The frontend web-gui (webserver with menus) and the backend support any OS incl Free-BSD, Illumos, Linux, OSX, Solaris and Windows
Proxmox can be embedded in the web-gui for combined Storage and VM management

new: rc 10.1
Integrated Perl http/https webserver (Apache or similar no longer required), real copy and run

Download csweb-gui folder (copied to /opt) and start webserver via
curl -ksL https://www.napp-it.org/cs_setup_dev.sh | sh

Open a browser with https://proxmoxip

 

[gea]

Proxmox as All in One with NAS functionality

- install ksmbd and acl
- Share ZFS filesystems as guest rw or ro or for a group (click on sharesmb off and set share to on)

No stress, ultra fast and easy. If you need users, add them in menu User or set File ACL in menu User > ACL

 

[gea]

Coming from ESXi, there are two things I'm used to / that matter to me:

1. When I take a ZFS snap of a VM storage, it shouldn't just contain the virtual disks but also the VM configuration, so I can restore a VM from a ZFS snap (creating a snap, unlike PBS, is instant with nothing to copy, and even zfs send over LAN is much faster). On ESXi that was a .vmx file in the VM folder. On Proxmox, VM configurations live in /etc/pve.

Solution: I've added a snap option "include regular folder" to the snap job. This lets me capture the state of /etc/pve at snap time along with the snap.

Another use case would be Windows, to have c:/Users/"me" with personal documents on NTFS included in the ZFS snap.

1. Consistent VM snaps
   A ZFS snap is always consistent for the host managing the ZFS pool, thanks to copy-on-write and ZFS's internal snapshot handling. It looks completely different for VMs and their guest filesystems on ZFS. A ZFS snapshot on the host doesn't care whether their filesystems stay consistent. They end up in the snap in the same state as after an unexpected power outage. The risk of corrupted data can be reduced by making sure no write operations happen during the snap (VM freeze). Proxmox has various methods for that. I've now integrated zfs snapshot into a Go-based tool that automatically provides various freeze options to reduce the likelihood of a corrupted VM in the snap. The only way to avoid it entirely would be to snap while offline, or to also save RAM state — but with current RAM sizes that's very slow.

Go tool (included in current napp-it CS in autosnap and replication jobs)
GitHub - guenther-alka/cs-freeze4snap: Consistent ZFS snapshots for Proxmox VM/LXC guests - freeze if possible, snapshot regardless

 

[gea]

Changelog napp-it cs (rc)
####################
Update: Menu About > Frontend Update

26.08.15
-create snap/replication job with freeze and include /etc/pve
-Restore: select a snap with included /etc/pve and clone/rollback/undo
-new menu Snap > Restore Proxmox VM from snap

Restrictions:
A ZFS snap alone is versioning not a VM backup, you must add replication or PBS backups
If you delete a VM in Proxmox, you delete all related snaps too (no undo from snaps).
ZFS snaps are per dataset not per VM, it works only if all VM disks are on this dataset
A VM restore from snaps via clone requires a reboot

Restore from nvme480 dataset,
to restore LXC, you must select a rpool snap


Plus:
A ZFS snap or a restore/clone from snap is done within seconds
A ZFS backup via zfs send is the fastest option at all

 

[gea]

napp-it cs 26.08.27.20
-AI summary translated to selected language (About > Settings)
-widget and full page helpdesk can work independent
-quick ai analysis of pool, disk, os, cs, job and member stat for selected member

-cs-tools no longer included, download via About > Download CS Tools
(cs-aihelp + ollama lokal ai, cs-freez4snap (Proxmox), cs-send, cs-sleeper, cs-stream, cs-sync)
cs-aihelp (AI Helpdesk):
- fullscreen menu Help > AI Helpdesk with plan and act mode (run local commands on members)
- read only widget on any page
- two selectable providers including local Ollama

Setup AI Helpdesk
GitHub - guenther-alka/cs-aihelp: AI Helpdesk module for napp-it cs: chat helpdesk in the web-GUI with free/cloud LLM providers, RAG, optional web research and chat history.
- download cs-aihelp + Ollama optionally (lokal AI) in menu About > Download CS Tools
- configure System > Service > AI Helpdesk