Introduction
Proxmox VE is an open source server platform for enterprise virtualization. As a Debian-based Linux distribution, Proxmox uses a modified Ubuntu kernel to run multiple virtual machines and containers on a single server. You can deploy and manage virtualized environments through a web console or command line, ensuring simple and fast accessibility.
Read on to find out how to install and configure Proxmox.
Prerequisites
A physical or dedicated server.
- 64-bit CPU
- of RAM (and additional RAM needed for guests).
- A USB stick with at least 1 GB
- physical or dedicated server.
. At least 1 GB
. Install the Proxmox virtual environment Follow the steps listed below to install Proxmox VE on a
Step 1: Download
Proxmox ISO image The first step is to download Proxmox VE ISO image
.
1
. Go to the official Proxmox download page and select Proxmox Virtual Environment.
2. This takes you to the Proxmox virtual environment archive that stores ISO images and official documentation. Select ISO Images to continue.
3. At the time of writing, the latest version of Proxmox VE ISO installer is 7.1. If a newer version is available, it appears at the top. Click Download and save the file.
Step 2: Prepare the installation media
Copy the Proxmox ISO image to a CD/DVD or USB flash drive. Although both options are possible, most systems’t are supposed to have an optical drive.
Connect the USB
drive and copy the ISO image to the USB stick using the command line or a USB format utility (such as Etcher or Rufus).
If
you are working on Linux, the quickest way to create a bootable USB is to run the command:
dd bs=1M conv=fdatasync if=./proxmox-ve_*.iso of=/device/name
If necessary, modify the file name and path in if=./proxmox-ve_*.iso and make sure to provide the correct USB device name in of=/device/name.
To find the name of your USB stick, run the following command before and after connecting the device:
lsblk
Compare the output. The additional input in the second output is the device name.
Step 3: Launch the Proxmox 1 installer
. Go to the server (machine) where you want to install Proxmox and connect the USB device.
2. While the server is booting, access the boot menu by pressing the required keyboard key(s). Most commonly, they are Esc, F2, F10, F11 or F12.
3. Select the installation media with the Proxmox ISO image and boot from it.
4. Next, the Proxmox VE menu appears. Select Install Proxmox VE to start the standard installation.
5. Read and accept the EULA to continue.
6. Choose the destination hard drive where you want to install Proxmox. Click Options to specify additional parameters, such as the file system. By default, it is set to ext4.
7. Then, set the location, time zone and keyboard layout. The installer automatically detects most of these settings.
8. Create a strong password for
your administrator credentials, retype the password to confirm, and type an email address for system administrator notifications
.
9. The final step to install Proxmox is to configure the network settings. Select the management interface, a host name for the server, an available IP address, the default gateway, and a DNS server. During the installation process, use an IPv4 or IPv6 address. To use both, modify the settings after installation.
10. The installer summarizes the selected options. After confirming that everything is in order, press Install.
11. After the installation is complete, remove the USB drive and restart the system.
Step 4: Run Proxmox
1. After the installation is complete and the system reboots, the Proxmox GRUB menu is loaded. Select Proxmox Virtual Environment GNU/Linux and press Enter.
2. Next, the welcome message from Proxmox VE appears. Includes an IP address that loads Proxmox. Navigate to that IP address in a web browser of your choice.
3. After navigating to the required IP address, you will most likely see a warning message that the page is not secure because Proxmox VE uses self-signed SSL certificates. Select this option to switch to the Proxmox web administration interface.
4. To access the interface, log in as root and provide the password set when installing Proxmox.
5. A dialog box appears saying that there is no valid subscription for the server. Proxmox offers an additional service that you can subscribe to, which is optional. To ignore the message, click OK.
Step 5: Create
a virtual machine
Now that you are logged into the Proxmox web console, create a virtual machine
.
1. Before you follow the steps to create a virtual machine, make sure you have ISO images for the installation media. Navigate to the resource tree on the left side of your GUI.
Select the server you are running and click Local (pve1). Select ISO Images from the menu and choose between uploading an image or downloading it from a URL.
2. Once you have added an ISO image, move on to spinning a virtual machine. Click the Create Virtual Machine button located on the right side of the header in the GUI.
3. Provide general information about the virtual machine:
- Start by selecting the node. If you are booting and do not yet have nodes, Proxmox automatically selects node 1 (pve1).
- Provide a virtual machine ID. Each resource must have a unique ID.
- Finally, create a name for the virtual machine. Use an easily identifiable name.
3. Next, switch to the OS tab and select the ISO image you want for your virtual machine. Set the operating system type and kernel version. Click Next to continue.
4. Modify system options (such as graphics card and SCSI controller) or leave default settings.
5. Next, configure the hard disk options that you want the virtual machine to have. Generally, you can leave all default settings. However, if the physical server is using an SSD, enable the Discard option.
6. The number of cores that the physical server has determines how many cores it can provide to the virtual machine. The number of cores allocated also depends on the expected workload.
7. Next, choose how much memory (MiB) you want to allocate to the virtual machine.
8. Go to the Network tab. We recommend that you separate the management interface and the VM network. For now, leave the default settings.
9. After clicking Next, Proxmox loads the Confirm tab that summarizes the selected VM options. To start the virtual machine immediately, select the check box below the information listed, or start the virtual machine manually later. Click Finish to create the virtual machine.
10. View the newly created virtual machine in the resource tree on the left side of the screen. Click the virtual machine to view its specifications and options.
Configure the
Proxmox
virtual environment After you create a virtual machine,
continue with the configuration of the environment
. Start the virtual machine at boot If the
Start
on boot option is set to No, the virtual machine does not start automatically after you restart the server. This means that you must log in to the Proxmox interface and start the virtual machine manually.
To change the default settings, highlight the option and click the Edit button above.
Check the box and click OK.
Increase/
decrease the size of the virtual disk The easiest way to increase or decrease the size of a virtual machine’s virtual disk is through the
command-line interface, which can be done online or offline
. When increasing disk space, modify the
partition table and file system within the virtual machine to upgrade to the new size. When
decreasing the disk space of a virtual machine,
be sure to back up the data you want to save and shrink the file system and partition within the virtual machine first.
The main syntax for increasing / decreasing
the size of the virtual disk is: qm resize [virtual_machine_ID] [disk] [size] For example, To add 10G to a virtio0 disk in a virtual machine with ID 100, run: qm resize
100 virtio0 +10G
Enable
NAT
network mode
As mentioned earlier, it is a good idea to change the default bridge network mode to prevent the Proxmox host and virtual machines from being on the same network. To create a separate network, enable NAT network mode.
1. To do this, edit the interfaces file. Open the command line and run
: sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
The file shows that vmbr0 is the default bridge network for Proxmox, as in the following lines: auto lo iface lo inet loopback iface eno1 inet manual auto vmbr0 iface vmbr0 inet
static address 10.10.22.215 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 10.10.22.1 bridge_ports eno1 bridge_stp off bridge_fd
0 2. Add the following content to the file:
auto vmbr1 iface vmbr1 inet static address 10.10.10.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 bridge_ports none bridge_stp off bridge_fd 0 post-up echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward post-up iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s ‘10.10.10.0/24’ -o vmbr0 -j MASQUERADE post-down iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -s ‘10.10.10.0/24’ -o vmbr0 -j MASQUERADE
3. Save and exit.
4. Finally, open the new interface with:
sudo ifup vmbr1
The next time you create a virtual machine, vmbr0 and vmbr1 will be available for the bridge network option. Select vmbr1 to keep the virtual machine on a separate network from Proxmox.
Conclusion
In this article you learned how to install and configure Proxmox VE. For more information, see the official Proxmox documentation.
If you’re interested in exploring automated Proxmox deployments, check out the available Bare Metal Cloud instances and see if there’s a configuration that fits your needs and budget.
If you want to find out how Proxmox differs from other Type 1 hypervisors, read our Proxmox vs. ESXi article.
