Correction, September 2026. This post originally described the server as wrapping 9 services with 32 tools, including a confirmation-gated write surface and plans for an SSE transport. The maintained server is simpler and stricter than that: local stdio plus a CLI, up to 25 read-only tools across 10 configured backends, and 15 documentation resources. There are no write tools and no remote transport. Lifecycle changes (provisioning, DNS records, container updates) are owned by Semaphore automation, and the IPAM backend is now Nautobot — NetBox is retained rollback-only. The sections below have been rewritten to describe the current architecture; the original narrative is preserved where it explains the design decisions that still hold.
The Goal # Add all 4 Proxmox VE cluster nodes (pve-mini2, pve-mini3, pve-mini5, pve-mini6) to the existing Prometheus/Grafana stack on LXC 30194. The monitoring stack already covered Graylog, Windows desktop, and PAN-OS firewall metrics – Proxmox was the last major gap.
Approach: pve-exporter vs node_exporter # I evaluated two options:
Overview # Migrated the Prometheus + Grafana monitoring stack from a shared Docker VM to a dedicated LXC container. The shared VM hosted multiple stacks (pgAdmin, Portainer, monitoring) which created resource contention and made lifecycle management messy. Moving monitoring to its own LXC follows the homelab pattern of one service per container for cleaner isolation, backups, and management.
What Changed # Added Ansible playbooks to Semaphore for automated Proxmox cluster power management:
Night Sleep: Gracefully shuts down non-essential VMs/LXCs at night Day On: Wakes up the cluster in the morning Scheduled via Semaphore cron Why # Running all VMs 24/7 wastes power when they’re not needed. Automated scheduling reduces energy costs and wear on hardware.
