Allow version pinning of the Proxmox kernel

Signed-off-by: lae <[email protected]>

Author: lae

README.md

@@ -389,6 +389,7 @@ pve_check_for_kernel_update: true # Runs a script on the host to check kernel ve
 pve_reboot_on_kernel_update: false # If set to true, will automatically reboot the machine on kernel updates
 pve_reboot_on_kernel_update_delay: 60 # Number of seconds to wait before and after a reboot process to proceed with next task in cluster mode
 pve_remove_old_kernels: true # Currently removes kernel from main Debian repository
+# pve_default_kernel_version: # version to pin proxmox-default-kernel to (see https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap#Kernel_6.8)
 pve_pcie_passthrough_enabled: false # Set this to true to enable PCIe passthrough.
 pve_iommu_passthrough_mode: false # Set this to true to allow VMs to bypass the DMA translation. This might increase performance for IOMMU passthrough.
 pve_iommu_unsafe_interrupts: false # Set this to true if your system doesn't support interrupt remapping.
@@ -883,6 +884,20 @@ pve_metric_servers:
 - `mtu`: (optional) MTU for UDP metric transmission.
 - `verify_certificate`: (optional) Verify SSL certificate. Available only for influxdb with https.
 
+## Non-default scenarios and other use cases
+
+### Preventing upgrade to Linux kernel 6.8
+
+Proxmox 8.2 introduces Linux 6.8, which may cause issues in some deployments.
+To work around this, you can pin the kernel version used to 6.5 by adding the following role variable:
+
+```yaml
+pve_default_kernel_version: 1.0.1
+```
+
+This creates a pin on the `proxmox-default-kernel` package, which is [the method suggested by PVE](https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Roadmap#Kernel_6.8).
+It can be later removed by unsetting this role variable.
+
 ## Developer Notes
 
 When developing new features or fixing something in this role, you can test out

defaults/main.yml

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ pve_check_for_kernel_update: true
 pve_reboot_on_kernel_update: false
 pve_reboot_on_kernel_update_delay: 60
 pve_remove_old_kernels: true
+# pve_default_kernel_version:
 pve_run_system_upgrades: false
 pve_run_proxmox_upgrades: true
 pve_pcie_passthrough_enabled: false

tasks/main.yml

@@ -169,6 +169,21 @@
 
 - import_tasks: identify_needed_packages.yml
 
+- name: Pin Proxmox kernel to specific version
+  ansible.builtin.copy:
+    content: |
+      Package: proxmox-default-kernel
+      Pin: version {{ pve_default_kernel_version }}
+      Pin-Priority: 1000
+    dest: /etc/apt/preferences.d/proxmox-default-kernel
+  when: pve_default_kernel_version is defined
+
+- name: Ensure preferences exist for kernel pinning only if needed
+  ansible.builtin.file:
+    path: /etc/apt/preferences.d/proxmox-default-kernel
+    mode: '0644'
+    state: "{{ 'file' if pve_default_kernel_version is defined else 'absent' }}"
+
 - name: Install Proxmox VE and related packages
   apt:
     update_cache: yes