Introduction

Managing a homelab can be time-consuming, especially as the number of virtual machines grows. To make the process more efficient, I used Ansible to automate key maintenance tasks across my Proxmox VMs.

This post outlines how I installed Ansible on Windows 11, set up secure SSH access to my VMs, and created a playbook to handle routine system upkeep.

Setup Process

Installing Ansible on Windows 11

To begin, I installed Ansible using WSL and pip. This allowed me to run Ansible from my Windows machine using a Linux environment.

Setting Up SSH Access

Next, I created SSH keys and copied them to each of my six Proxmox-based virtual machines. This allows passwordless access, which is essential for seamless automation.

Ansible Inventory File

I defined all my VM IPs in a simple inventory file to group them together:

[proxmox_vms]
192.168.1.101
192.168.1.102
192.168.1.103
192.168.1.104
192.168.1.105
192.168.1.106

Maintenance Playbook

Here’s an example of an Ansible playbook I created to manage routine maintenance across all VMs:

---
- name: Maintain all Proxmox VMs
  hosts: proxmox_vms
  become: yes

  tasks:
    - name: Update packages and cache
      apt:
        update_cache: yes
        upgrade: dist

    - name: Remove unused dependencies
      apt:
        autoremove: yes

    - name: Clean system cache
      shell: apt-get clean

    - name: Rotate logs
      command: logrotate /etc/logrotate.conf

    - name: Check for failed services
      command: systemctl --failed
      register: failed_services

    - name: Display failed services if any
      debug:
        var: failed_services.stdout_lines

Results and Observations

Automating these tasks helped me reduce the time spent on manual maintenance and ensured consistent system performance across all machines. With the playbook in place, I can now run regular updates and checks with a single command.

Conclusion

Using Ansible to manage my Proxmox homelab has made system administration faster, cleaner, and more reliable. As my homelab grows, I plan to extend this setup to include service monitoring, alerting, and scheduled snapshots.

Sources:

Managing My Proxmox Homelab with Ansible