What is Proxmox VE – and why you should patch it live

• Proxmox VE, like any software, is vulnerable to security risks. Patching helps address these vulnerabilities and protects your virtual machines from attacks.
• Traditional patching methods often require systems to be taken offline, leading to downtime and disruptions to critical business operations.
• TuxCare’s live patching ensures your Proxmox instances stay safe with the latest security solutions without having to restart or shut down your virtual machines.

Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) is an open source virtualization platform that allows you to manage virtual machines (VMs) and containers on a single physical server. It integrates two popular virtualization technologies: KVM (kernel-based virtual machine) for full virtualization and LXC (Linux Containers) for lightweight container-based virtualization. The built-in web interface makes it easy to manage your VMs and containers.

In this guide we will discover more about Proxmox VE and what it is used for. We will also explain why patching Proxmox is important – and why live patching can be the solution.

The history of the Proxmox virtual environment

The creation of Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) was initiated by two Linux developers, Dietmar Maurer and Martin Maurer, who discovered that OpenVZ lacked a backup tool and management GUI. Proxmox Virtual Environment was first released on April 15, 2008 and the first public release was declared as version 0.9.

From the start, Proxmox VE enabled its users to manage KVM and OpenVZ through a web-based management interface. In the years that followed, it has undergone eight major releases and countless minor updates.

For example, in March 2012, Proxmox 2.0 was launched with high availability based on Red Hat Cluster, Proxmox 3.0 was introduced with VM templates and clones, and Proxmox 8.0 introduced a new Ceph Enterprise repository. The version we are currently working with is Proxmox 8.1.

What is Proxmox VE used for?

Like other virtualization platforms, Proxmox can help with a range of different tasks. It is suitable for a variety of virtualization needs, ranging from small-scale virtualization for development and test environments to large-scale production deployments in data centers. Some common use cases include research and educational institutions, government organizations, web hosting providers, and large enterprises.

Proxmox is used for various purposes:

Virtualization: Proxmox is primarily used for virtualization and can be used to create and manage multiple virtual machines on a single host server. You can consolidate physical infrastructure into virtual machines to save costs, improve server utilization, and increase flexibility in managing server workloads.

High availability: With Proxmox VE you can configure high availability (HA) for VMs and containers, so if a physical host server goes down, the workload is automatically moved to another host server. Proxmox HA creates a cluster of multiple physical servers (nodes), of which at least 3 are required for reliable operation. If a node fails, it automatically migrates the affected virtual machines to other healthy nodes within the cluster, ensuring minimal downtime. This use case is ideal for businesses or organizations that need high uptime and reliability for critical workloads.

Containerization: Containers are lightweight forms of virtualization. They share the host system kernel, while maintaining separate user spaces and using resources more efficiently than traditional virtual machines. With support for Linux Containers (LXC), Proxmox provides an efficient way to run multiple isolated Linux systems (containers) on a single host.

Backup and disaster recovery: Another use case is to create and manage backups of VMs and containers – whether full or incremental backups. Proxmox VE also offers disaster recovery tools, such as restoring from backups, migrating virtual machines to other hosts, or replicating virtual machines to a secondary data center.

Storage management: Proxmox has built-in support for various storage options, such as local storage, network storage (NFS, iSCSI, etc.) and distributed storage solutions such as Ceph. This flexibility allows users to configure storage to meet their specific requirements.

Networks: Proxmox provides networking features such as virtual LANs (VLANs), bridged networks and firewall configuration, allowing users to create complex network topologies for their virtual environments.

Which tools are similar to Proxmox

Virtualization tools are a broad category. There are plenty of open source solutions, including Proxmox and KVM, while commercial vendors like that Microsoft And VMWarealso provide tools that are popular with companies:

VMware vSphere: VMware vSphere is one of the most popular enterprise virtualization platforms on the market. It includes advanced features such as live migration, high availability, and distributed resource management. However, it is a proprietary solution that entails high costs.

Microsoft Hyper-V: As with VMware vSphere, Windows Server is required, including live migration, high availability and clustering. Hyper-V is a good alternative for those who prefer Microsoft technologies, but it may not be as feature-rich as VMware. It’s also expensive.

Xen: Xen is an open-source hypervisor widely used in cloud environments. It provides strong isolation between virtual machines and supports a wide range of guest operating systems. Xen can be used as a standalone virtualization solution or integrated with other cloud platforms, such as OpenStack.

OpenStack: OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform that includes components for managing computing, storage, and networking resources. Although more complex to set up and manage compared to Proxmox, OpenStack offers extensive scalability and flexibility.

The respective pros and cons of each of these virtualization solutions are beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that Proxmox VE is an open-source virtualization solution that is feature-rich enough to be preferable to vSphere or Hyper-V. .

Patching the Proxmox virtual environment

You should keep your Proxmox VE instances up to date for all the usual reasons, because virtualization platforms are vulnerable to security threats – just like any other software. Attackers are always looking for weaknesses they can exploit, and these weaknesses are often addressed by software updates. Proxmox patches contain security fixes that address known vulnerabilities, helping to protect your virtual machines from attacks.

Installing patches can also ensure that your virtualization platform is stable and running smoothly. Patches can also contain bug fixes. Additionally, many industries have compliance regulations that require software to be kept up to date with the latest security patches. This means that if you do not update Proxmox, your organization is at risk of violating these regulations.

That said, patching Proxmox can be tricky. In large technology parks, it can take a lot of time to consistently apply the latest updates. Traditional patches often require a restart, which causes downtime for the virtual machines running on Proxmox. This can be disruptive, especially for critical business operations. Arranging the required downtime, or limiting performance loss, can be a logistical challenge.

Simplify and modernize your Proxmox patching

TuxCare supports automated live patching on Proxmox 8. Unlike traditional patching methods that require downtime and disruption to critical systems, TuxCare’s live patch solution allows real-time updates to be applied without any interruption to operations.

This means companies can keep their virtualized workloads secure and up to date without sacrificing performance or productivity. Live patching ensures that your virtualized workloads continue to run seamlessly during the patching process, and you don’t have to worry about downtime. This also minimizes the period of vulnerability, reducing the chance of data breaches and other security incidents.

Live patching is a powerful tool that allows organizations to keep their infrastructure running smoothly and securely with minimal disruption or downtime.

Proxmox VE can help enterprises modernize and centralize their IT infrastructure, transforming it into a flexible and cost-effective software-defined data center. This open source project helps you implement a flexible, efficient and simplified IT infrastructure.

Nevertheless, you have to patch it too and it’s so much easier with live patching. Read more about TuxCare’s live patching for Proxmox and other Linux distributions here.

The post What is Proxmox VE – and why you should perform a live patch? It first appeared on TuxCare.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from TuxCare, written by Rohan Timalsina. Read the original post at: https://tuxcare.com/blog/what-is-proxmox-ve-and-why-you-should-live-patch-it/