This article is intended for administrators wishing to create a 2x node + witness High Availability cluster utilizing Proxmox Virtual Environment (https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-virtual-environment/overview) and StorMagic SvSAN (https://stormagic.com/svsan/).

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Information

Guide Summary/shortcuts
Create the Guests
Creating a Ubuntu guest called ubuntu-1
Install a Windows Guest
Enable HA on the Guests

Guide Summary/shortcuts

This multipart guide will walk through the process to deploy 2x hyperconverged Proxmox VE nodes utilizing SvSAN virtualized block storage and a lightweight witness node, such as a Raspberry Pi.

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/17158984245789-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-0-5-Creating-nested-VMs-for-Proxmox-on-VMware

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/15088839377053-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-1-Installing-Proxmox

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/15567317393181-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-2-Preparing-the-Hosts

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/16198574072733-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-3-Creating-the-Proxmox-Cluster

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/16204170204061-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-4-VSA-Deployment

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/16343256511261-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-5-Storage-Provisioning

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/16347739183005-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-6-Create-Guests-and-Enable-HA

https://support.stormagic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/27437315756573-Deploying-a-2x-node-witness-Proxmox-and-SvSAN-HA-cluster-Part-7-Enabling-healthy-login-and-cluster-restart

Create the Guests

Via the same process to create the VSA VM, upload the Guest OS install ISO, via the GUI or SCP/WinSCP to the below path:

/var/lib/vz/template/iso/

The below copies the install ISO from node1 (10.10.194.3) to node2 (10.10.94.4)

scp /var/lib/vz/template/iso/ubuntu-24.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso root@10.10.194.4:/var/lib/vz/template/iso/ubuntu-24.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso

Creating a Ubuntu guest called ubuntu-1

Note: the storage on the below showing as Local is the storage of the ISO not the VM

Set the install ISO and guest OS type

Specify the graphics and storage controller, noting that different operating systems include different virtual hardware drivers and performance may vary depending on what is utilized:

Select the storage for the boot disk to sit on, e.g the shared storage

Select the disk size, in this example 32GiB

Specify the CPUs and cores

Specify the memory, in this example 4096MiB:

Specify the network bridge for the VM to attach to and the virtual NIC hardware as VirtIO or VMXnet3, noting that different operating systems include different virtual hardware drivers and performance may vary depending on what is utilized

Review the Summary and Finish to create the VM

Install and set a static IP:

Install a Windows Guest

Via the same process to create the VSA VM, upload the Guest OS install ISO, via the GUI or SCP/WinSCP to the below path:

/var/lib/vz/template/iso/

The below copies the install ISO from node1 (10.10.194.3) to node2 (10.10.94.4)

scp /var/lib/vz/template/iso/en-us_windows_server_2022_x64_dvd_620d7eac.iso root@10.10.194.4:/var/lib/vz/template/iso/en-us_windows_server_2022_x64_dvd_620d7eac.iso

Installing a Windows VM on KVM requires a few extra steps which aren’t required for Linux VMs. This is a quick overview of those extra steps.

Prerequisites:

Two ISOs, copied to both hosts

1. A Windows installation ISO

2. The VirtIO Drivers ISO downloadable from the below URL:
https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

Creating the Windows VM:

Create the VM as a standard VM in Proxmox, noting that different operating systems include different virtual hardware drivers and performance may vary depending on what is utilized.

Attach the Windows installation ISO and the Virtio ISO to the VM you are creating.

The VM will boot into the Windows installer, due to Windows being the first attached ISO.

Proceed to the “Which type of installation do you want” screen selecting Custom

No disks will be visible, with a warning "We couldn't find any drives. To get a storage driver, click Load driver."

If the necessary driver is not shown select Rescan.

Select the driver for the version of Windows selecting Next to install the driver.

The drive should now display as a selectable location to install to.

If the drive does not appear then select refresh, select the drive to attach.

Select load driver again.

Select Browse, browsing to the NetKVM folder,

Select the OS, the AMD64 folder and select OK

Select next.

This will bring you back to the empty drive screen once more.

Select Load Driver.

Select the driver for the Windows version needed.

Select Browse, browse to the Balloon folder, select your OS and AMD64

Click OK.

Click next to install the driver.

Note from virtIO driver maintainers:

Fedora infrastructure hosts virtIO drivers and additional software agents for Windows virtual machines running on kernel-based virtual machines (KVM). virtIO is a virtualization standard for network and disk device drivers.

Fedora cannot ship Windows virtIO drivers because they cannot be built automatically as part of Fedora’s build system: the only way to build Windows virtIO drivers is on a machine running Windows. In addition, shipping pre-compiled sources is generally against Fedora policies. Microsoft does not provide virtIO drivers, you must download them yourself in order to make virtIO drivers available for Windows VMs running on Fedora hosts.

Detail here the needed ISO driver and how to get/use

https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso