The release of Proxmox Virtual Environment 8.2 has been published, a specialized Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux, aimed at deploying and managing virtual servers using LXC and KVM, and capable of serving as an alternative to products such as VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix Hypervisor. The size of the installation ISO image is 1.3 GB.
Proxmox VE provides tools for deploying a fully functional industrial-grade virtual server system, managed through a web interface designed for handling hundreds or even thousands of virtual machines. The distribution includes built-in tools for organizing backups of virtual environments and offers out-of-the-box clustering support, including the ability to migrate virtual environments from one node to another without downtime. Features of the web interface include: support for secure VNC console; role-based access management to all available objects (VM, storage, nodes, etc.); and support for various authentication mechanisms (MS ADS, LDAP, Linux PAM, Proxmox VE authentication).
In the new release:
- Synchronization with the Debian 12.5 package base has been completed. The Linux kernel has been updated to release 6.8. New releases of QEMU 8.1.5, LXC 6.0.0, and OpenZFS 2.2.3 have been included. Support for creating storage based on the releases of Ceph 18.2.2 'Reef' and Ceph 17.2.7 'Quincy' is now available.
- A new import wizard has been proposed, allowing the migration of guest systems directly from other hypervisors by accessing them through their APIs. The migrated guest systems can be started in Proxmox VE without waiting for the completion of the data transfer, which takes place in the background. Support for migration from the VMware ESXi hypervisor is provided first.
- Support for automated installation of Proxmox VE without administrator involvement has been added. The generation of the ISO image for automated deployment is carried out using the new proxmox-auto-install-assistant utility. Installation parameters can be specified through a special configuration file, which can either be embedded in the ISO image or placed on a separate USB drive or loaded over the network.
- A backup disk buffering mode (Backup fleecing) has been added, allowing for the minimization of performance degradation of the guest system during its backup to external storage. Before transmission to external storage, blocks can now be saved to a separate local partition, which helps significantly reduce the drop in input/output performance in the guest system when copying a backup over a slow network connection or during high input/output activity in the guest system.
- A new experimental implementation of the firewall has been added, migrated from iptables to the nftables packet filter, which allowed for the resolution of many issues from the old implementation and increased operational reliability. The new implementation is written in Rust and is nearly equivalent in functionality to the old firewall.
- The web interface has been enhanced with a tool for device passthrough into containers, utilizing a graphical configurator. The transition to field editing mode upon double-clicking has been disabled, preventing accidental launches of the editor during text selection and copying operations. The reset button on the editing screen has been relocated to reduce the risk of unintentional clicks.
- Extended backup settings have been added, including performance options and bandwidth limitations.
- Support for custom certificate authorities using the ACME protocol has been introduced.
Source: opennet.ru
