Management Hypervisor #

Purpose #

The management hypervisor hosts infrastructure-critical services for the substrate. This is Proxmox Node 1 in the two-hypervisor architecture, dedicated to management-plane workloads that must remain stable and available to support recovery operations.

Hardware Platforms #

Operating System #

Both management hypervisors run Proxmox VE.

Automation Capability #

• Installation: Manual ISO install (no PXE support for Proxmox)
• Post-install: Ansible configuration via deevnet.builder collection
• VM provisioning: Ansible-only (no Terraform for management plane)
• Templates: Packer-built Fedora templates stored locally

Proxmox is treated as an API surface for management workloads, not a declarative state engine.

Roles #

The management hypervisor hosts these workload categories:

Note: Core network services (DNS, DHCP, NAT) run on the Core Router, not as VMs on the management hypervisor.

VM Templates #

Templates are built using Packer and stored locally on each hypervisor. New VMs clone from templates for rapid, consistent deployment.

Deterministic MAC Addressing #

For management-plane VMs, network identity must be stable and reproducible.

Policy #

• Proxmox does not generate deterministic MAC addresses automatically
• All management-plane VMs explicitly define MAC addresses
• MACs are generated outside Proxmox and stored in inventory/code
• DHCP and DNS rely on these fixed MACs

This enables:

• Stable DHCP reservations
• Predictable IP addressing
• Safe VM rebuilds without network reconfiguration
• Clear mapping between hostnames, MACs, and roles

Non-Clustered Design #

The management hypervisor operates independently without Proxmox clustering:

Rationale #

For a two-node lab environment:

• Clustering adds complexity without meaningful HA
• Two-node clusters introduce quorum challenges
• Local storage is simpler and faster
• Manual VM placement is acceptable at this scale

Provisioning Workflow #

1. Manual Proxmox install: ISO boot, installer wizard
2. Ansible post-config: Apply deevnet.builder roles
3. Template import: Upload Packer-built templates
4. VM creation: Clone from templates via Ansible

Management VMs are created using Ansible only — simplicity and recoverability are prioritized over drift detection.

Network Position #

graph LR
    A[Core Router] <--> B[Management Hypervisor
Proxmox Node 1] <--> C[Management VMs
observability, automation]

Guest VMs receive network configuration from Core Router DHCP, using static mappings for known management-plane hosts.

Separation from Tenant Compute #

The management hypervisor is intentionally separate from tenant workloads:

This separation reduces blast radius and ensures that tenant experimentation cannot impact platform stability.