proxmox-win-cloudinit

⚠️This project does not belong to us. The github repository is just a fork of Gecko-IT which is at the origin of this project but which does not maintain it any more up to date, this is why we decided to maintain it up to date on the current version proxmox.

This is an implementation of Cloudbase-Init to Windows virtual machines running in a Proxmox Node in order to use cloud-init with those vms.

What can you do with this implementation? Use Cloudbase-Init with Windows VMs to:

• Create a new user with username or enable administrator.
• Set a password on the new user or administrator.
• Set static ip or dhcp on network adapters.
• Set DNS on network adapters.
• Automatic VM update on boot
• Active RDP
• Set machine hostname.
• Insert public ssh keys to "user/.ssh/authorized_keys" file of created/enabled user.
• Expand partition volumes automatically when there's a resized disk.

You can do all below on system startup with the data provided by the cloud-init section of the proxmox gui.

There is two files that we need to modify Qemu.pm and Cloudinit.pm.

• Qemu.pm to get password as cleartext in meta_data drive when it is a Windows VM.
• Cloudinit.pm to generate a metadata json file with variables that are compatible with Cloudbase-Init.

Install Proxmox patch

⚠️ The patch has been tested and approved for proxmox version 8.2.2 please make a backup of both Cloudinit.pm stored in /usr/share/perl5/PVE/QemuServer/Cloudinit.pm and Qemu.pm stored in /usr/share/perl5/PVE/API2/Qemu.pm if you are trying to apply the patch in a version prior to proxmox 8.2.2 or higher.

Launch below as a test to see if you can apply the patch file, change path to where you downloaded the files and run this for two .patch files.

patch --force --forward --backup -p0 --directory / --input "/absolute/path/to/patchfile.pm.patch" --dry-run && echo "You can apply patch" || { echo "Can't apply patch!";}

If the result is "Can't apply patch!", you can type "apt reinstall qemu-server" to reinstall the qemu-server files(If you have made changes to qemu-server source files they will be lost!)

Apply the patch if the result is "You can apply patch"

patch --force --forward --backup -p0 --directory / --input "/absolute/path/to/patchfile.pm.patch"

If you want to revert the patch:

patch --force --reverse --backup -p0 --directory / --input "/absolute/path/to/patchfile.pm.patch"

If you want to apply the patch manually you can follow these steps: Manual Patching

After installing the patch, run the following command to restart the pve daemon to apply the patches:

service pvedaemon restart

You can run auto update cron job if qemu-server version change with the following commands:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Pinous-Heberg/proxmox-win-cloudinit/main/proxmox-patch/checkupdate.sh -O /opt/checkupdate.sh
chmod +x /opt/checkupdate.sh
crontab -e

And add this in crontab :

0 5 * * * bash /opt/checkupdate.sh -y

Windows VM Configuration

• Create a Windows VM in proxmox
• Go to Hardware section of your VM, add Cloud-Init Drive and Serial Port 0

⚠️ For non-server versions of Windows, please press CTRL + SHIFT + F3 when configuring the network and the user to switch to constructor mode, which will allow you to run the Sysprep at the end of this tutorial.

Then configure Windows to your needs and proceed to Cloudbase-Init installation.

Install Cloudbase-Init

Install Cloudbase-Init Continous Build from the official website.

Why Continous Build? Because the stable build dates from 2020 and doesn't include functionalities we use.

Cloudbase-Init LocalScripts

We have five scripts that do some fonctionality that Cloudbase-Init doesnt have;

• Enabling administrator user when it's name is given to the Cloudbase-Init.
• Enabling DHCP on the network adapters.
• Update the dns with those set in the cloud-init configuration
• Update the system on startup (may slow down VM startup time)
• Eject the cloud-init disk after all the steps performed at startup (optional).

Move those scripts into Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\LocalScripts\ in your program files of your Windows VM.

If you were using the update script, please run these two commands before running the SysPrep:

⚠️ If you are running cloudbase-init on Windows Server 2016, please run these commands before running the commands to install "PSWindowsUpdate":

Set-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\.NetFramework\v4.0.30319’ -Name ‘SchUseStrongCrypto’ -Value ‘1’ -Type DWord
Set-ItemProperty -Path ‘HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NetFramework\v4.0.30319’ -Name ‘SchUseStrongCrypto’ -Value ‘1’ -Type DWord

Install-Module PSWindowsUpdate -Force -AllowClobber
Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate

⚠️ If you have an error like below when you try to sysprep your windows server 2025 template you can try to running this commands and try again:

Import-Module Appx
Import-Module Dism
Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackage

Configure Cloudbase-Init

Deploy these two conf files to C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\conf.

Inside those files you will find the default Administrator name and the user group that will be used while user creation. You can launch our ModifyConf.ps1 script to modify that file to get the correct username and group of your Windows language.

Run PowerShell Script

This powershell script has a few uses.

• Deletes the "cloudbase-init" user, delegates "cloudbase-init" service to local Systeme user and modifies execution path of the script also to use local system user.
• Installs OpenSSH-Server from optional features of Windows.
• Removes a store language package that causes an error when generelazing for sysprep.

Run this script after installing and configuring Cloudbase-Init Continous Build.

Run SysPrep

When everything is installed simply run below in powershell to launch sysprep:

cd "C:\Program Files\Cloudbase Solutions\Cloudbase-Init\conf"
C:\Windows\System32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /unattend:Unattend.xml