View source for Creating Your Own ProxCP KVM Templates

This tutorial covers how to create a custom KVM template for use with ProxCP and Proxmox.

Required: at least 1 Proxmox node

Assumption: The desired operating system ISO is already downloaded onto your Proxmox node.

The commands covered here are relevant to Debian and RHEL-based operating systems however the process can be applied to any other operating system.

== Create VM ==

* Create a new VM in Proxmox with the following settings:
** VMID: anything
** Name: operating system description (i.e. centos-8-amd64)
** OS: your chosen ISO image
** Hard Disk: use VirtIO SCSI (scsi0) with 10GB storage and no caching
** CPU & Memory: 1 kvm64 CPU core, 1GB memory
** Network: VirtIO (virtio0), vmbr0 bridge, no firewall
* After creation, go to the Hardware tab and delete the CDROM ISO. Add a cloud-init drive on ide2. Add the CDROM ISO back as ide0.

== Base OS ==

* Boot the new VM and complete the base operating system installation. Generally, templates should use most default settings and minimal packages. There are a few things to keep in mind during installation:
** Partitions: create 1 ext4 root "/" partition (no LVM, no SWAP)
** Networking: use a generic hostname (i.e. localhost or centos-8-amd64)
** Packages: use minimal packages, however the OpenSSH server is required

== OS Setup Stage 1 ==

* Once the base OS installation is complete, shutdown the VM
* In Proxmox, go to Options and set the boot order to scsi0 only (1 option)
* Go to the Hardware tab and remove the ide0 CDROM. Verify the network device is net0 using vmbr0 bridge
* Power on the VM
* Login as root
* If you created a user during installation, remove that user with <code>deluser [username] && rm -rf /home/[username]</code>
* Complete updates <code>apt update && apt upgrade && apt install setserial</code> or <code>yum update && yum install setserial</code>