Provision through durable work.
Approved allocations enqueue Django-Q jobs for cloning, configuring, activating, patching, reconciling, and retiring virtual machines.
Sqoia Labs tool · Open source
PVE VM Provisioner for ColdFront
Turn approved ColdFront allocations into managed Proxmox VE virtual machines, with network assignment, guest policy, access, and lifecycle state kept in one administrator-controlled workflow.
What it adds to ColdFront
From allocation approval to a configured guest.
The plugin keeps the requester, operator, VM, address, and guest-policy state connected instead of scattering the lifecycle across one-off scripts.
Use built-in IPAM or add NetBox.
Configure the IPv4 range, prefix, gateway, DNS, and VMID pool in Django admin. The built-in ledger works by default; NetBox is an optional inventory mirror.
Declare the guest state.
Versioned policy can reconcile packages, non-secret managed files, systemd units, allocation users, and an administrator-selected patch cadence through a reviewed helper.
Keep generated private keys client-side.
Requesters can generate an Ed25519 pair in the browser. The private key downloads locally while ColdFront and cloud-init receive only the public key.
How it works
One allocation record drives the VM lifecycle.
ColdFront remains the source of allocation authority. The plugin adds persistent VM, address, job, event, and policy state around that record.
- 01Request
The requester selects a VM flavor and supplies or generates an SSH public key.
- 02Approve
The approved allocation transition enqueues durable provisioning work.
- 03Provision
The job reserves an address, clones the template, and applies cloud-init configuration.
- 04Configure
An optional version-matched guest helper applies the bounded policy manifest.
- 05Maintain
Membership changes, patch schedules, and retirement create explicit follow-up jobs.
OPERATING GUARDRAILS
Power stays inside a reviewed contract.
- The built-in database allocator remains authoritative; NetBox support is opt-in inventory mirroring.
- Managed files are for non-secret configuration and reject private-key material, executable modes, and account or privilege paths.
- The guest helper accepts a bounded, versioned schema rather than administrator-provided shell commands.
- Generated private keys remain in the requester's browser and are never submitted to ColdFront.
Rendered interface
See the operator and requester surfaces.
These views come from a disposable ColdFront fixture populated with synthetic users, addresses, jobs, and virtual machines. The plugin inherits the adopting site's ColdFront branding.
The admin form centralizes VMID and IP ranges, gateway and DNS, optional NetBox, packages, services, patch policy, and managed files.
Open full rendering ↗
Durable job records expose the action, target VM, status, and attempt history instead of hiding the work in an ad hoc script.
Open full rendering ↗
The VM record keeps desired and applied access, policy hash, patch time, errors, address, and retirement metadata together.
Open full rendering ↗
The request form can create and download an Ed25519 private key locally while placing only the public key into the allocation request.
Open full rendering ↗Operating requirements
Bring the control plane. Configure the site policy.
This is an installable ColdFront plugin, not a hosted provisioning service. Adopters own their credentials, templates, networks, directory policy, and production validation.
COLDFRONT
Host application
ColdFront, Django-Q, the plugin migrations, and one active administrator-managed provisioner configuration.
PROXMOX VE
Virtualization target
PVE API access, an approved cloud-init template, a storage and bridge configuration, and QEMU guest agent support where guest policy is enabled.
GUEST POLICY
Optional reconciliation
An operator-installed, version-matched helper on supported Linux guests, plus site-specific package, service, LDAP or SSSD, and patch choices.
CANARY FIRST
Validate provisioning, access, reconciliation, patching, failure recovery, and retirement on an isolated VM before enabling the workflow for real allocations.
Use it, inspect it, adapt it.
The source, migrations, reference guest helper, configuration examples, and operator documentation are public.