02 - Configuring the Inventory

One inventory folder per customer or cluster. Never mix multiple clusters in a single inventory — variables are global within an inventory and will cross-contaminate.

1. Create the Inventory

cp -r inventories/_template inventories/<customer>

The template contains two files to fill in:

inventories/<customer>/
├── hosts.ini
└── group_vars/all.yml

2. Configure hosts.ini

Each line defines one node. The inventory alias (left-hand label) is used by Ansible internally and does not need to match the real system hostname — Proxmox and Linstor operations always use the actual hostname gathered from the node at runtime.

[proxmox]
pve-node-01 ansible_host=192.168.1.1 priv_ip=10.0.0.1 priv_nic_1=enp2s0 priv_nic_2=enp3s0
pve-node-02 ansible_host=192.168.1.2 priv_ip=10.0.0.2 priv_nic_1=enp2s0 priv_nic_2=enp3s0
pve-node-03 ansible_host=192.168.1.3 priv_ip=10.0.0.3 priv_nic_1=enp1s0 priv_nic_2=enp4s0

Variable	Required	Description
`ansible_host`	Yes	Management IP — used for SSH and Proxmox GUI
`priv_ip`	No	Private IP for Corosync and DRBD replication. Falls back to `ansible_host` if omitted
`priv_nic_1` / `priv_nic_2`	No	The two NICs forming the p2p bridge. Required only when running `network.yml`. NIC names can differ per node — check with `ip link show`
`pve_enterprise_key`	No	Per-node Proxmox subscription key. If omitted, the node uses the no-subscription repository

Single-node example (no cluster, no Linstor):

[proxmox]
pve-standalone ansible_host=10.0.0.50

3. Configure group_vars/all.yml

Deployment Toggles

Variable	Default	Description
`standalone_mode`	`false`	Skip all clustering and Linstor tasks, even with multiple nodes in inventory
`deploy_linstor`	`false`	Install and configure Linstor + DRBD. Requires 3+ nodes and `standalone_mode: false`
`disable_ipv6`	`false`	Disable IPv6 system-wide via sysctl. Useful when IPv6 is unrouted and causes connection timeouts
`wipe_linstor_disks`	`false`	Wipe partition tables and signatures from raw block devices before LVM creation. Destructive — only set on first deployment

Proxmox Cluster

pve_cluster_name: "my-cluster"
# pve_enterprise_key: ""  # Optional global key; prefer per-host in hosts.ini

Linstor HA Controller

ha_pool: "fast_pool_1"     # Storage pool used for the linstor_db HA volume
ha_vip: "10.0.0.10"        # Floating VIP managed by drbd-reactor
ha_vip_cidr: "24"          # Prefix length — also used for the p2p bridge address

Linstor Storage Pools

Each entry defines one Resource Group. All nodes in a pool share the same pool_name. Keys under targets must match the inventory alias from hosts.ini.

linstor_storage_pools:
  - pool_name: "fast_pool_1"
    rg_name: "fast_pool_1"
    vg_name: "pve"
    thin_name: "data"
    targets:
      pve-node-01: "pve/data"   # Register existing pve/data thin pool (no disk changes)
      pve-node-02: "pve/data"
      pve-node-03: "pve/data"

  - pool_name: "slow_pool_1"
    rg_name: "slow_pool_1"
    vg_name: "sp1"
    thin_name: "data"
    targets:
      pve-node-01: "/dev/sdb"   # Create VG sp1 + thin pool on /dev/sdb
      pve-node-02: "/dev/sdb"
      pve-node-03: "/dev/sdb"

Target path rules:

/dev/... — playbook creates the VG and LVM thin pool on that raw device. If wipe_linstor_disks: true, the disk is wiped first with wipefs and sgdisk.
vg_name/thin_name (e.g. pve/data) — playbook registers the existing thin pool directly in Linstor without touching the underlying storage.

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