I think I needed that Proxmox volume…

I mentioned in a earlier post that I have been working on my Homelab and that I use Proxmox to host my Linux Containers (lxc) and Virtual Machines (vms). In fact, I recently gutted my application stack and decided to start over rebuilding everything with automation. Along those lines, I was looking over my Proxmox install and thought to myself (I promise it was Chuck talking)…

”You know, that lvm-thin volume would like better sized up and maybe moved. You should just go ahead and adjust it..”

Chuck - the destructive IT dude that lives in my head and gives me bad ideas

As soon as I deleted it, I realized that I might need that. I set off to put it back, but after 30 minutes I got annoyed and just decided it was easier for me to wipe the server and start over.

A new struggle was born

I decided to take a look at the RAID configuration on the server, no I haven’t replaced the PERC controller yet (I am running Proxmox on a Dell710. Most people swap out the Perc controller for a HBA to use ZFS file storage). I guess when I first set this server up to host Proxmox, I opted to leave the RAID alone. I say this because it was set to RAID 10. I don’t really need that, so I reconfigured the drives to RAID 5 and now have 1.4 TB available vs 700 something GB available.

Once the array was built, I booted the server via a flash drive and started to install Proxmox 8.2. Everything was going fine until it wasn’t. So you don’t have to zoom in on the picture, there error is:

1
command 'unsquashfs -f -dest /target -i /cdrom/pve-base.squashfs' failed with exit code 1 at /usr/share/perl5/Proxmox/install.pm line 908

I tried a couple of reboots along with a couple of cold boots to get past this error. Occasionally installing an OS off a thumb drive will get screwy and a reboot/cold boot will get you past the error. Not this time though.

Ok fine, I have another idea. Let’s install without the GUI, I mean it is Linux right? Nope, that didn’t work either.

Well dammit. I’d ask ‘Chuck’ just what the hell he was thinking, but he skipped out awhile back. I swear that “entity” is never around when his ideas go sideways.

Off to the interwebs

I spent all of about ten minutes searching which produced a number of posts/sites that related to this particular error. Apparently it’s a common issue with Proxmox v8, the issues with ‘unsquash’ I mean.

I reformatted the thumb drive and made a new boot image, but that didn’t work either. I had a hard time believing a brand new thumb drive had corruption issues.

I ended up putting the v7.4 image on the thumb drive and installed Proxmox that way. After the install, I upgraded to the latest version of v8 from Proxmox. I also decided that as long as I had a fresh image, I might follow use Techno Tim’s advice regarding setting up Proxmox before I started using it. I used what made sense for my environment.