I Think I Needed That Proxmox Volume…
I mentioned in an 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 look better sized up and maybe moved. You should just go ahead and adjust it.”
Chuck — the destructive IT entity that lives in my head and gives me bad ideas
As soon as I deleted it, I realized I might need that. I set off to put it back, but after 30 minutes I got annoyed and decided it was easier 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. I haven’t replaced the PERC controller yet — I’m running Proxmox on a Dell PowerEdge R710, and most people swap out the PERC controller for an HBA to use ZFS storage. When I first set this server up, I opted to leave the RAID alone. It was set to RAID 10, which I didn’t really need, so I reconfigured to RAID 5. That gave me 1.4 TB available versus the 700-something GB I had before. (Worth noting: RAID 5 trades some write performance for the extra space — fine for a homelab, less ideal for write-heavy workloads.)
Once the array was rebuilt, I booted from a flash drive and started to install Proxmox 8.2. Everything was going fine until it wasn’t. The error:
command 'unsquashfs -f -dest /target -i /cdrom/pve-base.squashfs' failed with exit code 1 at /usr/share/perl5/Proxmox/install.pm line 908I tried a couple of reboots and cold boots — occasionally installing an OS from a thumb drive gets screwy and a reboot will clear it. Not this time.
Fine, let’s install without the GUI. It is Linux after all. Nope, that didn’t work either.
Well, dammit. I’d ask Chuck just what the hell he was thinking, but he skipped out a while back. I swear that entity is never around when his ideas go sideways.
Off to the Interwebs
About ten minutes of searching produced a number of posts related to this particular error. Apparently the unsquashfs failure is a known issue with Proxmox v8.2 installs.
I reformatted the thumb drive and made a fresh boot image — no luck. I had a hard time believing a brand new thumb drive had corruption issues.
In the end I put the v7.4 image on the drive, installed Proxmox that way, and then upgraded to the latest v8 from within Proxmox. That path worked cleanly. I also took the opportunity to follow Techno Tim’s advice on setting up Proxmox before putting it into service — used what made sense for my environment.
Key Takeaways
- Know which Proxmox volumes are in use before you delete anything.
lvm-thinis not optional. - The Proxmox v8.2 direct install has a known
unsquashfsfailure on some hardware — install v7.4 and upgrade from there. - Swapping the PERC controller for an HBA is worth doing if you want ZFS; RAID 5 works but comes with write-performance tradeoffs.
- Chuck is a liability. Document your changes before you make them.