Where it fits
Why a third box
The lab runs on a two-node Proxmox VE cluster with a QDevice for quorum (see the implementation plan). Those two nodes are busy. One runs the GNS3 VM, FoodLab, a k3d Kubernetes sandbox and a Docker container. The other runs UbuntuServ, which serves this site, and FedServ, which runs the Road to CISSP API. Each node has 8 GB of RAM, and that's what limits them.
A game server wants a steady few gigabytes of its own and doesn't need anything the cluster offers. So it got its own machine: a third Proxmox VE install running as a standalone host.
Design
Standalone, not a third cluster node
- Quorum stays simple. The cluster has two votes plus the QDevice. Adding a third node changes quorum maths that already work. A standalone host can be rebooted, rebuilt or unplugged without affecting the cluster.
- Separate failure domains. If the game server falls over, or the host does, the site and the lab carry on.
- Same tooling. It's still Proxmox, so VMs, backups and the web UI work the same way as on the other two nodes.
What runs on it
Guests
VM 100 was the first guest. It runs the Minecraft server, managed through Crafty Controller, and its live status is on the projects page.
Within days the host was doing much more than games. On 2026-10-13, VM 101 took over production for Aegis CloudOps and Fishing Rod Terminal from a cloud droplet (the Great Migration). The host now runs six VMs.
Operations
Boot order and backups
- Production boots first, alone. After a power or network event all six VMs once started together, and production took minutes to come up while they competed for the disk. VM 101 now has
startup: order=1,up=60, and everything else waits for it. - Nightly backups leave the host. A 03:30 vzdump job backs the VMs up locally and a hook copies each backup to the Time Capsule on the LAN, keeping four. The first push of the production VM was verified byte for byte. See the backup write-up.
- It's been assessed for the cloud. The first run of Aegis's migration readiness assessment was against this host: grade A, about $467 a month at AWS list price.
Still open
The disks aren't encrypted at rest, and the host now carries production data. Re-establishing encryption at rest, plus an external uptime check, are next.
