How To Install Proxmox VE Hypervisor

In this edition of Before the Home Lab we'll look at installing Proxmox, the hypervisor for Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE). PVE is an open-source server virtualization environment. PVE is a Debian-based Linux distribution with a modified Ubuntu LTS kernel and allows deployment and management of virtual machines and containers​.

In this edition of Before the Home Lab we'll look at installing Proxmox.

What is Proxmox VE?

Proxmox is the hypervisor for Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE). PVE is an open-source server virtualization environment. PVE is a Debian-based Linux distribution with a modified Ubuntu LTS kernel and allows deployment and management of virtual machines and containers​.

How to Install Proxmox VE

First thing we should do is go download Proxmox, head over to the page, get ready for another useless account… wait a minute, is that a download button that downloads stuff? 

In a physical deployment, you’d make a bootable disk out of this ISO on a flash drive and then install it on your hardware on an SD card or USB drive. Since this is a virtual deployment, we’re going to move this ISO file directly into the main datastore on my ESXi test bed.

For reference, we added 50GB of thin-provisioned hard drive and an ISO file for Server 2016. 

We can then start the VM and see the Proxmox installer.

And away we go.

After reboot, we get a screen telling us to go to https://local-ip:8006/

Head over to the URL, bypass the security warning under Advanced.

Login to your new proxmox install

Ready to go. You might get a warning telling you there’s no subscription assigned, this can be safely ignored for evaluation.

In the next Before The Lab we'll look at installing oVirt.

Proxmox