Introduction

Proxmox VE is only provided for 64-bit CPUs using the debian amd64 architecture. While this makes sense for the KVM hypervisor that depends on special hardware features not available in 32-bit CPUs, at least the container based virtualization OpenVZ can be supported on 32-bit CPUs.

Unfortunatly you cannot install Proxmox VE on those old 32-bit machines, that's why I ported the packages for i386 architecture.

Using these unofficial packages your 32-bit Server will run Proxmox VE for OpenVZ only.

This document should serve different purposes:

1. provide a "howto use it" for people who like to continue to use their old servers with Proxmox VE. (go ahead to the next section if you are purely interested in this)
2. document the work done (thinking of the next Proxmox VE release, this work has to be done again)

Packages

Original Packages

I tried to make only minimal changes that are nessessary and keep most of the original PVE packages. Although they have not changed and are cross-plattform, they need to be included as the original PVE repository is 64-bit only.

• dab_1.1-3_all.deb
• libapache-authcookie-perl_3.12-1_all.deb
• libjs-prototype_1.6.0.3-1_all.deb
• libpve-storage-perl_1.0-6_all.deb
• pve-firmware_1.0_all.deb
• scstadmin_1.0.6-1_all.deb
• vzdump_1.2-5_all.deb

Modified Packages

These packages were rebuild for i386 architecture from the published PVE sources at ftp://pve.proxmox.com/sources/.

• qemu-server_1.1-6_i386.deb
  • rebuild and repackaged
• vncterm_0.9-2_i386.deb
  • rebuild and repackaged
• proxmox-ve_1.4-2_all.deb
  • stripped kvm dependencies
  • corrected dependencies for replaced packages
    • pve-kernel -> linux-image-openvz-686
  • rebuild and repackaged
• pve-manager_1.4-9_all.deb
  • corrected dependencies for replaced packages
    • vzctl
  • rebuild and repackaged

Replaced Packages

Some packages already existed in another repository at http://debian.systs.org.

• vzctl_3.0.23-1dso1_i386.deb
  • http://debian.systs.org/debian/pool/openvz/v/vzctl/vzctl_3.0.23-1dso1_i386.deb
• vzprocps_2.0.11-1dso2_i386.deb
  • http://debian.systs.org/debian/pool/openvz/v/vzprocps/vzprocps_2.0.11-1dso2_i386.deb

Install

You can follow the instructions from Install Proxmox VE on Debian Lenny in general, but instead of amd64 you will choose i386 as architecture (as it's all about this issue, here).

Another difference is that for now i'm using a standard ubuntu-openvz-kernel instead of pve-kernel, because the package build the whole kvm stuff, too which is not needed for our purpose. besides compiling it is a horror, so install linux-image-openvz-686 as a kernel package. (this breaks with the i386 architecture)

Instead of the official Proxmox VE package repository you have to take mine.

Package Repository

The modified packages are available online in a trivial debian package repository. Therefore the resulting entry in sources.list looks different to the official debian lines, which use a more complex repository. At least for now the repository is not signed! You'll get some warnings about that during install.

/etc/apt/sources.list (use the repository)

To use the package repository, you'll have to add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

 deb http://flippy.medialisten.net/~pille/pve-1.4-i386 ./

	

tools for building the repository (not needed for end user)

• dpkg-deb -e, dpkg-deb -x, dpkg-deb -b are your friends when dissecting .debs.
• dpkg-scanpackages pve-i386 |gzip -9 >Packages.gz produces the needed package database for the trivial repository.