This time I focused on virtualization, high availability, and software-defined storage by building a Proxmox Virtual Environment with Ceph. The project covered several important areas of infrastructure administration.
Virtual Machines and LXC Containers
I gained practical experience in managing both virtual machines and Linux containers, including:
- Creating and managing VMs and LXC containers.
- Building reusable templates.
- Creating and restoring snapshots
- Cloning virtual machines and containers.
- Managing storage and virtual resources.
Networking
The project included the design and configuration of virtual networking services:
- VLAN implementation.
- Open vSwitch configuration.
- Virtual DNS and DHCP services.
- Bonded network interfaces.
- Virtual bridge management.
These technologies helped build a flexible and scalable network environment.
Backup and Disaster Recovery
A strong focus was placed on data protection and service availability. The project included:
- Built-in Proxmox backup features.
- Virtual machine and container snapshots.
- Live migration between nodes.
- Machine cloning.
- Proxmox Backup Server for dedicated backup management.
Monitoring and Performance
Infrastructure monitoring was integrated into the environment using Zabbix. This allowed:
- Resource usage monitoring.
- Performance analysis.
- Service availability checks.
- Infrastructure visibility through dashboards and alerts.
Security and Automation
The project also introduced several security and automation features. Security improvements included:
- Built-in Proxmox firewall.
- Two-factor authentication (2FA).
- System hardening.
- Operating system security best practices.
To improve deployment and management, I developed an Ansible playbook for automatic LXC container creation. The playbook performs:
- Initial system configuration.
- Package updates and upgrades.
- Hostname and IP address configuration.
- Installation of Apache, HAProxy, and VRRP services.
- Automatic web page deployment.
- Service provisioning using Ansible templates.
It became an important milestone in the development of my home lab and provided the foundation for future high availability projects based on Proxmox, Ceph, and enterprise-style infrastructure management.
