Proxmox VE 8.2 helps with the migration of ESXi VMs

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Five months after the previous version, Vienna-based Proxmox Solutions GmbH has released Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) 8.2, which is based on the current Debian 12.5 "Bookworm" and uses the Linux kernel 6.8 (in VE 8.1: 6.5). The core technology from the open source area has been updated: QEMU is now available in version 8.1.5, LXC makes a leap to version 6.0.0. With OpenZFS 2.2.3, the problems caused by the "block cloning bug" of OpenZFS 2.2 are - hopefully - behind us.

Wizard for importing foreign VMs

A new import wizard helps with the direct migration of guests from other hypervisors. It connects to other hypervisors via their public APIs and uses their functions to migrate guests directly to Proxmox VE. The first implementation covers VMware ESXi and should be welcome for many administrators after the radical takeover of VMware by Broadcom.

The ESXi Importer is available as a storage plugin and can import guests from an ESXi node or a vCenter instance. Administrators must stop the guests on the VMware side before importing. The live import makes it possible to start the guests immediately on Proxmox VE and migrate their hard disks in the background. The importer takes most of the settings from the source and translates them into corresponding Proxmox VE configuration options.

Proxmox VE 8.2 can be installed automatically and unattended. The developers provide a tool that makes a few necessary changes to the Proxmox VE ISO image. If you start the installation from this image, the installer retrieves all the necessary data from a response file. It can be provided directly in the ISO file, on an additional data carrier such as a USB stick or via the network.

Preview of the new Proxmox VE firewall

In the future, a firewall based on nftables will replace the current implementation with iptables. The developers are providing an optional tech preview for this purpose. The new implementation is written in Rust and should therefore be more robust and fix some long-standing problems with the old implementation. Proxmox provides the nftables firewall as a technology preview to gather feedback from the community. Administrators must therefore activate it manually. With a few exceptions, the range of functions is almost identical to that of the old firewall implementation.

In addition to many small internal improvements, the WebGUI has also been enhanced. A new meta-package "proxmox-secure-boot-support" contains all the packages required to securely boot Proxmox systems with the standard keys. This makes it easier to convert an existing system to secure boot. Another new feature is called "Backup Fleecing": When creating a backup copy of a running VM, a slow backup target can negatively affect the IO performance of the guest during the backup process. Fleecing can reduce this impact by caching data blocks in a Fleecing image instead of sending them directly to the backup target. This can improve the IO performance of the guest and even prevent hangs, but requires more (faster) disk space.

Also new: Proxmox Backup Server 3.2

Like Proxmox VE 8.2, the updated Proxmox Backup Server 3.2 also offers automatic and unattended installation. With Backup Server 3.2, the notification system has been improved and can use Postfix MTA, Gotify servers or remote SMTP servers. The notification system offers more flexibility and precision in determining when, where and how notifications are sent. A new "exclude" filter can exclude backup groups from existing jobs.

All improvements and new features as well as possible problems when upgrading from Proxmox VE 8.1 to 8.2 are documented in detail in the Proxmox roadmap. The Proxmox Virtual Environment 8.2 and the Proxmox Backup Server 3.2 are now available for download as open source software and can be used free of charge. Access to the enterprise repository is available from 105 euros (net) per year, professional support costs between 325 and 980 euros (net) per year per CPU socket.

(olb)