How do you handle Proxmox clusters when you only have 1 or 2 servers?

I technically have 3 servers but I keep one offline because I don’t need it 24/7 most point wasting power on a server I don’t need.

I believe I read somewhere that you can force Proxmox it to a lower number but it isn’t recommended. Has anyone done this and if so have you run into any issues with this?

My main issue is I want my VM to start no matter what. For example I had a power outage. When the servers came back online instead of starting they waited for the quorum number to reach 3. (it will never reach 3 because the third server wasn’t turn on.) so they just waited forever until I got home and ran

pvecm expected 2

  • CatsrulesOP
    1·
    2 years ago

    I will have to look into the qdevice. I do have an old PI3 setup as a software defined radio. I might be able to also set it up as a qdevice.

    https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Cluster_Manager#_corosync_external_vote_support

    Looking at the documentation it isn’t recommended to use a a qdevice in a odd number node. I guess I technically have.

    If the QNet daemon itself fails, no other node may fail or the cluster immediately loses quorum. For example, in a cluster with 15 nodes, 7 could fail before the cluster becomes inquorate. But, if a QDevice is configured here and it itself fails, no single node of the 15 may fail. The QDevice acts almost as a single point of failure in this case.

    But it seems to be more of an issue in large node clusters. In my situation I don’t think this is a big deal because if the qdevice fails and my third server is offline I am in the same situation I am now.

    Just out of ceriosity do you backup your PI at all? Not sure what the recovery process is if the Qdevice fails how easy is it to replace resetup.