With the release of version 1.1.0 of ProxLB, the community of users of Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) now has an open-source tool that incorporates key features traditionally associated with enterprise solutions like VMware. Published by Florian Paul Azim Hoberg (@gyptazy), ProxLB is presented as an intelligent load balancer for virtualization clusters based on Proxmox VE, offering features such as workload relocation, assisted maintenance, and affinity rules.
In corporate environments, features like DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler), planned live migration, or maintenance of nodes without interruptions have been the exclusive domain of proprietary platforms for years. ProxLB fills this gap within the Proxmox VE ecosystem with a 100% free solution that can be easily installed via .deb package, Docker container, or even from source code.
Dynamic Balancing and Affinity Rules
ProxLB allows for the rebalancing of workloads (virtual machines and containers) based on CPU, memory, and local storage usage. This is done by analyzing the state of all nodes in the cluster in real-time through the Proxmox API. If it detects imbalances greater than the defined threshold, ProxLB initiates an optimized redistribution of the loads, all automatically.
The system also supports affinity and anti-affinity rules based on labels, allowing certain groups of VMs to remain together or be separated across different nodes, optimizing both performance and high availability.
Maintenance Mode and Automation Support
One of the standout features is the maintenance mode. This feature allows for the automatic evacuation of all workloads from a specific node for updates or reviews, respecting the configured balancing rules. Additionally, ProxLB can integrate into automation workflows (CI/CD) such as Ansible or Terraform, providing suggestions for the best node for new deployments.
All of this is done without the need for SSH access, as it operates solely with the official Proxmox API, including full support for ACLs (access control lists).
Integration with Proxmox Web Interface
Although currently on pause, ProxLB has offered integration with the Proxmox VE web interface through a complementary package, allowing administrators to perform relocation operations directly from the cluster panel. This functionality is expected to be available again in future releases.
Simple Installation and Flexible Configuration
ProxLB can be installed on Debian distributions and derivatives with just a few commands or deployed as a container via Docker. Its configuration is based on a YAML file where maintenance nodes, nodes to ignore, types of resources to balance (CPU, RAM, disk), affinity and anti-affinity rules, and more can be defined.
Additionally, it supports running in daemon mode, with periodic balancing scheduled by hours or minutes.
Community Project with Great Potential
Although developed by a single individual, ProxLB positions itself as a valuable tool for any organization using Proxmox VE as an alternative to VMware. Thanks to its free license, transparency, and potential for community-driven evolution, the project could become a key piece in the free virtualization ecosystem.
More information, source code, and complete installation instructions are available in its official repository: https://github.com/gyptazy/ProxLB