How to set up the OOTBI Virtual Appliance on Proxmox VE

Out-of-the-Box Immutability (Ootbi) is a purpose-built backup storage appliance developed by the founders of Veeam, specifically for Veeam customers (users). OOTBI delivers secure, simple, and powerful on-premises backup storage without requiring any security expertise. In this article, we shall discuss the steps on how to set up the OOTBI virtual appliance on Proxmox VE. Please, see how to fix “Error importing OVA file to AWS: Client error saved empty is empty“, What is the difference between iDRAC, IPMI, and ILO, and how to configure Windows LAPS.

If you do not have money yet to buy an OOTBI appliance, you can play with the vSA in a virtual environment as demonstrated in this guide. Below are some caveats to note.

Note: Because you cannot run a Type 2 hypervisor when you have Credential Guard enabled due to the following issue: “see how to fix VMware Workstation and Credential Guard are not compatible“. This indirectly enables Hyper-V. Also, this is applicable if you have a Hyper-V only environment. This is because Hyper-V is a Type 1 hypervisor and takes exclusive control of virtualisation extensions (VT-x/AMD-V), which prevents Type 2 hypervisors (like VirtualBox or VMware Workstation) from accessing hardware virtualisation directly.

Because of this, I will be showing you the steps to run OOTBI on Proxmox-VE. But Proxmox VE does not natively support direct OVA/OVF imports. You can work around this limitation by converting the files into a compatible format.

With the right steps, you can successfully migrate an OVA/OVF appliance to Proxmox VE. Thereby, ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance.

Virtual Appliance Formats: OVA vs. OVF Explained

The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) developed OVA and OVF as standards for packaging and distributing virtual appliances. OVF is an open, vendor-neutral format that packages virtual machines with metadata and disk images, enabling seamless portability across different virtualisation platforms.

OVA, on the other hand, is a single-file implementation of OVF. It bundles all necessary components, including the OVF descriptor and virtual disks into a compressed tar archive. Thereby, simplifying virtual appliance distribution.

Please, see how to create a bootable USB on Mac: Proxmox VE Setup, how to Disable device encryption on Windows, and how to Configure and Run Performance Tests in Postman.

OOTBI virtual Storage Appliance

You can download the OOTBI virtual Storage Appliance from this URL. If you would like to test, you can contact the sales team and request a “VSA multi-node license“.

Here is how to install Java Runtime Environment on Mac OS, and how to Disable Hardware Acceleration in Browsers and Windows.

Import OVA into Proxmox

Let’s connect to Proxmox over the terminal. Since I am using a Mac PC. I will open iTerms and connect using SSH

ssh root@<Proxmox-IP>

Note: Proxmox’s web GUI does not support uploading OVA files directly to the template folder. The upload option is greyed out due to the wrong extension. Also, you cannot upload the OVA file to Proxmox’s local storage through the GUI.

To proceed, locate the OVA file path. On macOS, you can quickly get the full file path of your OVA file on your desktop using the method below. Open Terminal (Cmd + Space, then type Terminal). Drag and drop the OVA file into the Terminal window. This will automatically paste the full path. Next, upload the OVA File to Proxmox using SCP as shown below.

scp /Users/christian/Desktop/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49.ova [email protected]:/var/lib/vz/template/

 Navigate to the directory where you copied the OVA file

cd /var/lib/vz/template/

Extract the OVA file using the tar command. Replace ova_file.ova with the actual filename of your OVA file

tar -xf VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49.ova

Once the extraction is complete, you should have several files. This includes a disk image file. (Here I got this in VMDK format. These represent the virtual machine’s hard drives that will be converted for use in Proxmox.

Note: We have an OVF package extracted from an OVA file, which includes:

• OVF descriptor (.ovf)
• Manifest file (.mf)
• Virtual disks (.vmdk)

Please see how to “Fix Error 1069: Windows could not start the Veeam backup service on local computer“, and steps in Deploying Next.Js App Using Heroku Cloud Application Platform.

Convert VHDX to Proxmox-Compatible Format

We have to convert this into Proxmox-compatible format (QCOW2 or RAW). But QCOW2 in my case, using qemu-img. Before proceeding with this step, we have to create a Virtual Machine on Proxmox.

Create a New VM in Proxmox

Launch Proxmox Web UI and navigate to Datacenter and select the Node and select or right-click to create a new VM.

Configure the VM by populating the VM parameters as shown below

For the OS type, choose the correct OS type (or “Do not use any media”).

Ensure all necessary VM parameters are set under the system section as shown below. This includes an EFI disk to prevent boot-related warnings on the cluster disk.

I am fine with the disk parameters, but will slightly increase the disk size to 90 GiB as shown below.

Configure the VM with 2 CPU sockets, 2 cores per socket, and enable the x86-64-v2-AES CPU type for optimal compatibility and performance.

I will set 8 GiB here which is 8192 MiB.

Remember to change the model to vmxnet3, else it will not work. Each VM can have many Network interface controllers (NIC) types. Below are some:

• Intel E1000 is the default, and emulates an Intel Gigabit network card.
• the VirtIO paravirtualized NIC should be used if you aim for maximum performance. Like all VirtIO devices, the guest OS should have the proper driver installed.
• the Realtek 8139 emulates an older 100 MB/s network card, and should only be used when emulating older operating systems ( released before 2002 )
• Lastly, the vmxnet3 is another paravirtualized device, which should only be used when importing a VM from another hypervisor

On the confirm VM creation window, click on Finish to complete the setup.

Option 1: Convert and move manually (QCOW2 Format)

To manually convert and move a QCOW2 disk, use qemu-img convert to convert the image. To do this, run the following commands one by one

mkdir -p /var/lib/vz/images/101/
qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 /var/lib/vz/template/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49-disk1.vmdk /var/lib/vz/images/101/vm-101-disk-1.qcow2
qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 /var/lib/vz/template/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49-disk2.vmdk /var/lib/vz/images/101/vm-101-disk-2.qcow2
qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 /var/lib/vz/template/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49-disk3.vmdk /var/lib/vz/images/101/vm-101-disk-3.qcow2

Note: The command mkdir -p /var/lib/vz/images/101/ creates the directory path /var/lib/vz/images/101/, including any necessary parent directories, if they don’t already exist.

Option 2: Direct Import to Proxmox Storage (Recommended)

If your Proxmox uses local-lvm, use the following command to convert to the qcow2 format. This helps to converts and imports the vmdk disk image into a Proxmox storage (like local-lvm) and prepares it for attachment to a VM and links it to the VM as an unused disk.

qm importdisk 101 /var/lib/vz/template/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49-disk1.vmdk local-lvm --format qcow2
qm importdisk 101 /var/lib/vz/template/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49-disk2.vmdk local-lvm --format qcow2
qm importdisk 101 /var/lib/vz/template/VSA-OF2024_05_20_21_52_49-disk3.vmdk local-lvm --format qcow2

Here is How to update Object First OOTBI Cluster, and how to resolve the Update Package Database failure on Proxmox VE.

Attaching Converted QCOW2 Disks in Proxmox

After converting your virtual disks to the QCOW2 format, follow these steps in the Proxmox Web UI to attach and boot from them:

To do this, navigate to your VM, and then Hardware and click on Add. Choose Existing Disk, and select the converted QCOW2 file from the correct storage location. Use the VirtIO SCS interface for optimal performance (Recommended for Linux VMs).

Do not forget to set the boot order in VM by navigating to options and then Boot Order.

Start the VM and verify that it boots properly.

Setup OOTBI vSA on Proxmox

If you were to set up a physical OOTBI appliance, here is a blog post on “Object First OOTBI Appliance Unboxing and Quick Setup“. Also, see how to Configure Object First OOTBI Appliance.

Let’s start the VM.

When this is done, you will have to select “ObjectFirst OOTBI from the GNU GRUB bootloader menu as shown below.

Accept the license agreement when prompted

Cluster Setup

To set up a cluster, please select “Setup New Cluster”.

Configure the network interface(s)

Enter the host name and hit Enter to proceed

The network settings is currently being updated

Currently checking for updates. This step can take a while, please be patient

Note: If you get stuck and unable to apply the updates, you are required to configiure the Proxy. In my case, I fix this by configuring NAT on the Proxmox node.

Next, proceed with the Cluster IP configuration as shown below

Set the Cluster Administrator password as shown below. Upon configuration, this password will be required to access the Objectfirst-TUI

Note: The cluster management IP address will be used to access the Cluster Web Console for management and monitoring. The IP address of each node could also be used to access the cluster management console. Press Enter to proceed.

As you can see, the cluster has been created successfully. Click on Enter to proceed

Please enable Telemetry. This is vital and will notify support in case of any issues. This enables Object First to react effectively in case of hardware failure, etc.

Remove Node from Cluster

If you wish to remove your node from the cluster, you can do this from here.

Also, you can also apply software updates from the TUI. Here is a guide on how to update Object First OOTBI Cluster

When completed, hit the ESC button to log out. Now, you will be prompted to sign in as shown below

Henceforth, you will need the cluster credential for the Ootbi user that were specified during the setup process to access the TUI.

Enter the password you created above

Here is how to Disable device encryption on Windows, and how to Configure and Run Performance Tests in Postman.

Access Cluster Endpoint (Web UI Address)

The cluster management console can be accessed using the IP address and credentials we have specified and this step completes the steps to configure Object First OOTBI Appliance.

Your browser is displaying a security warning because the connection isn’t private. Click ‘Advanced’ to view the certificate details or continue to the site because I trust it.

Click “continue to (unsafe) to access the cluster management console.

Integrate OOTBI with VBR

Here is a blog post on “how to integrate ObjectFirst OOTBI Appliance with VBR“. In this blog post, I explain why you should consider purchasing an OOTBI appliance. I walk through the steps to create an S3 key and bucket on OOTBI, and I demonstrate how to integrate the appliance with Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR).

Note: To access the portal, use the objectfirst user account and the password that we created in the cluster configuration.

FAQs

I hope you found this article very useful on how to set up the OOTBI virtual appliance on Proxmox VE. Please feel free to leave a comment below.