Proxmox - Remove a Node from PVE Cluster
Introduction
These are the steps to remove a node from an existing Proxmox cluster.
Warning: This tutorial may only be used if you want to delete permanently a node from an existing Proxmox cluster!
Migrate all virtual machines
Migrate all Virtual Machines to another active node.
You can use the live migration feature if you have shared storage or offline migration if you only have local storage.
Check all active nodes
Display all active nodes in order to identify the name of the node you want to remove.
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root@proxmox-node1:~# pvecm nodes
Membership information
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Nodeid Votes Name
1 1 proxmox-node0 (local)
2 1 proxmox-node1
3 1 proxmox-node2
4 1 proxmox-node3
Shutdown node
Shutdown (permanently) the node that you want to remove.
Please be careful: This is a permanent removal
- Never restart the removed node
- Don’t assign the local IP address of the removed node to a new node
- Never assign the name of the removed node to a new node
Remove node internally
To remove the node from the proxmox cluster, connect to an active node, for example: proxmox-node1
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root@proxmox:~# pvecm delnode NodeNameBashCopy
Example:
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root@proxmox-node1:~# pvecm delnode proxmox-node2
Remove node from the GUI
Remove the removed node from the proxmox GUI Log in to an active node, for example: proxmox-node1
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root@proxmox-node1:~# ls -l /etc/pve/nodes/
proxmox-node0 proxmox-node1 proxmox-node2 proxmox-node3
All nodes have is own directory (VM’s inventory, for example), the directory /etc/pve/nodes/ is synced between all cluster nodes.The removed node is still visible in GUI until the node directory exists in the directory /etc/pve/nodes/. If you want to remove from Proxmox GUI the node previously deleted, you just need to delete the directory /etc/pve/nodes/NodeName.
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root@proxmox-node1:~# mv /etc/pve/nodes/NodeName /root/NodeName
Warning: Don’t do this unless you understand each step of the process and don’t mind putting the node in a state where you won’t easily be able to re-add it back to a cluster. Also note that after doing this, the containers on the node do not start up automatically, even though their config file says they are supposed to.