Installation on Proxmox fails

[gunstr]

My intention is to spin up an InvenTree installation on Proxmox but have issues to get the installation to work.

• I have a running postgresql container in a proxmox container
• I can spin up an Ubuntu 22.04 OS as a Virtualbox VM and install InvenTree with no issues
• If I create a new Proxmox VM using the same Ubuntu ISO, configuration and installation commands the InvenTree installation fails with the error Unknown command: 'collectplugins'

Below is the last part of the log:

Requirement already satisfied: zopfli==0.2.3.post1 in /home/inventree/env/lib/python3.10/site-packages (from -r /home/inventree/src/src/backend/requirements.txt (line 1939)) (0.2.3.post1)
Installing plugin packages from '/home/inventree/src/config/plugins.txt'
2025-07-16 04:54:47,898 DEBUG Loading SECRET_KEY from '/home/inventree/src/config/secret_key.txt'
2025-07-16 04:54:47,899 INFO {'event': 'Adding plugin sample static content', 'timestamp': '2025-07-16T09:54:47.899127Z', 'logger': 'inventree', 'level': 'info'}
2025-07-16 04:54:47,899 DEBUG {'event': 'Configuring database backend:', 'timestamp': '2025-07-16T09:54:47.899525Z', 'logger': 'inventree', 'level': 'debug'}
2025-07-16 04:54:47,899 INFO {'event': 'DB_ENGINE: django.db.backends.postgresql', 'timestamp': '2025-07-16T09:54:47.899662Z', 'logger': 'inventree', 'level': 'info'}
2025-07-16 04:54:47,899 INFO {'event': 'DB_NAME: inventree', 'timestamp': '2025-07-16T09:54:47.899741Z', 'logger': 'inventree', 'level': 'info'}
2025-07-16 04:54:47,899 INFO {'event': 'DB_HOST: 192.168.4.7', 'timestamp': '2025-07-16T09:54:47.899845Z', 'logger': 'inventree', 'level': 'info'}
Python version 3.10.12 - /home/inventree/env/bin/python3
Unknown command: 'collectplugins'
Type 'manage.py help' for usage.
ERROR: InvenTree command failed: 'python3 manage.py collectplugins'
- Refer to the error messages in the log above for more information

I use the same InventTree config file for both cases and the same installation commands (from the InvenTree docs).

Although I beleive everything is exactly the same there is obviously something that differs but I cannot figure out what... Any suggestion how to troublehoot why manage.py does not recognize the collectplugins command is appreciated - I'm completely stuck here...

[gunstr]

I finally found a solution.

It turned out that the Postgresql libraries has to be installed also on the InvenTree VM or container even if the Postgresql server is running elsewhere. I do not know if all libraries are required but adding postgresql postgresql-contrib libpq-dev to the required packages for InvenTree solved the problem.

It's somewhat strange that this happens when running invoke install as I thought that there is no connection to the database during that phase.

@SchrodingersGat Is it a proper solution to add the Postgresql libraries as a requirement or do you think there is any underying issue in the install script? If it's only a documentation issue I can open a PR if you want.

[asnreadily3d]

Personally I went with a blank debian lxc container with docker installed (and eventually Portainer) and I deploy the docker image as shown in the docs

[gunstr]

That would probably work but this issue was related to the Bare Metal setup procedure where I had to install the Postgresql libraries also in the InvenTree containter to get it working.

[SchrodingersGat]

@gunstr as per the docs?

https://docs.inventree.org/en/stable/start/install/#postgresql

[gunstr]

@SchrodingersGat Yes, I installed Postgresql in one container according to the Postgres docs - no issues with that.

However for the InvenTree container I had to add also the Postgresql librararies to the list of required system packages.

For Bare metal systems where InvenTree and Postgresql are installed on the same server or VM this is not an issue, but this time I wanted to run them in separate containers and had this little problem. Not sure what is the root cause here, but if the Postgresql libraries are actually required for the Postgresql Python Bindings I would suggest to clarify that in the docs.

[SchrodingersGat]

@gunstr we would happily review a PR to improve the documentation around this :)

[gunstr]

@SchrodingersGat I'm happy to open a PR for this but I'm still a bit puzzled what is the root cause. I tested to remove the postgresql libraraies from the InvenTree container after completing the installation and the system is up and running. Everything seems to still run OK and it turned out that I can even run the invoke install command witout errors why it seems the libraries are required only when doing a fresh install.

The simple way out is to just add to the database section in the docs that the postgresql libraries should be installed also on the InvenTree server and not dig any further into the root cause for now. It solves the problem and does not harm anything - do you agree?

[SchrodingersGat]

The docs need to specify that in a container environment, the InvenTree container needs the postgres client libs, as it needs to connect to the remove postgres server.

In our docker image this is what we do already. Does this explain it sufficiently?

[gunstr]

I was not aware there is a client only library that can be used. I have tested that now on a fresh install and it works as expected. I will open PR also including a couple of other clarifications to the Bare Metal installation instruction.

[gunstr]

Closed with #10086