hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4271.txt

Episode: 4271
Title: HPR4271: Beginners guide to Proxmox
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4271/hpr4271.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 22:20:36

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4271 from Monday the 16th of December 2024.
Today's show is entitled Beginner's Guide to Proxmox.
It is part of the series' virtualization.
It is hosted by Al and is about 12 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, I'll give the overview of what Proxmox isn't how to set it up.
Hi, I'm Al. Today, I want to talk about Proxmox.
What it is, how to install it and its license term.
Proxmox is an ex-fertitation platform where you can still like computers such as the server desktop or laptop.
As long as it has a processor, it supports fertitation.
What is fertitation and why do we need it?
Over the last 15 years, CPUs have been become more powerful,
often featuring multiple cores.
When hosting the CPUs in Daytona, it was found that these were underutilized,
if only one operating system was running on them.
First, I tell you to divide the CPU into smaller CPUs and allocate RAM accordingly,
and create virtual machines at as its own independent OS and hardware,
allowing you to run multiple virtual servers on the physical host.
You start with a bare server image in our case Proxmox, which is your host,
and then create virtual machines on top of it.
These fertitations are quick to create, boot and restart.
You can also easily change the configuration of a virtual machine
by just an imaginary source that you use it.
The advantage of using VM is that you can dedicate a VM to either application.
For example, you can have a DNS server on one VM and a web server on another.
This allows you to update and repeat each VM independently of each other.
Before considering whether your computer can handle virtualization,
you need to check if your CPU is compatible and is 64-bit.
A reliable method is to check the specification provided by your CPU,
you may not make a random factor.
Visit the management website and locate the specification for your CPU model,
like Intel VGX, or Intel VD, or AMDV.
You will only do enable virtualization option in your computer BIOS.
For the process, I recommend that these are an HGN Intel i5 CPU,
with a minimum of 16 giga RAM.
This has a provide you with six cores, allowing you to allocate two cores to the
HOTOP rank system and four cores of virtual machines.
This means you could have up to four VCPUs to distribute
about among the VMG crate.
There's no strict rules that a VCPU for a virtual CPU must correspond to a physical core.
It depends on the intended processing needs of your virtual machine.
It is essential to manage your CPU workload accordingly,
to decide how many cores you would need.
Similarly, you can divide the available RAM in your computer and allocate it to the VMs I needed.
Next, you need to decide if your story is set up.
If you just experiment and don't care about your data,
you could use a single hard drive over my case in SSD.
However, for production use, you should separate the props,
not OS, from where we install the virtual hard drives for the VMs.
You might also want to consider a raid to handle this failure,
but remember, raid is not a backup.
I will include a link in the show notes to a YouTube video that goes into this into more details.
As is beyond the scope of this episode, if you'd like me to dive deep dive into this topic,
please let me know in our other episode.
Proxmox is based on Debian.
You can download the installation of OS ISO from their website and write it through USB
to make them be your computer for the USB.
Please note, this will wipe your entire hard drive.
As Proxmox is not like a desktop OS, where you can load VMs from a desktop using GUI.
For that, you might consider using KVM or QEMU.
Once Proxmox is installed, you can access the server via web browser.
Personally, I prefer using a mini PC or a laptop.
Once the OS installs, I'll just click the motor and place a device in the corner.
As you don't need to access the server via the monitor,
unless you encounter a problem.
So that process is quite easy.
At the time of recording, I'm using Proxmox 8, which is based on Debian 12 bookworm.
I'm presuming that you have a single neck and single SSD.
Once the install is booted, you can agree to the end user agreement.
I'll explain a bit more about this further on the podcast.
You can select the hard drive you want to install the Proxmox on.
You can either partition it if you like or choose that to it or take partition it right for you.
Then you set a root password.
Then you need to give it a hostname.
A free IP address on your network, which is not on your DHCP right now.
So you have set an exclusion.
Set a subnet mask.
Do you feel a gateway in a DNS server?
Then it will install.
It will then shut down and you can remove the USB and then power it back on.
When the machine boots up, Proxmox successfully loads.
It will display a prompt for using them in part along with a banner showing you
the URL of the web interface or the screen of your computer.
This is a B in the format of HTTPS,
colon, forward, forward, fast.
The IP address of your Proxmox server, colon,
80006.
For my example, it would be HTTPS,
colon, forward, fast, forward, fast, 192.168.1.100,
colon, 80006.
From a computer on the same network,
enter this web address into your browser.
You will then be prompted for a user in password.
Enter root and the password you set earlier.
You will then see a dialog box that says that you don't have a valid description for this.
Proxmox is licensed under the AGPL, V3, the Afro,
general public license version 3.
I'm not going to get delve into details of the license here.
You can link us up for yourself.
You can use this, the open source version for free,
and have access to all the features in source code.
The only downside is it's an ag screen that appears when you look into Proxmox.
Web app and indicating you don't have a license.
If you purchase a license, you can access support and the stable package repo.
The Proxmox Enterprise Repository, which provides you a reliable software update since security
handsets.
The first thing you want to do is you want to update your Proxmox.
Firstly, SSH into the Proxmox server using its IP address.
Looking with the root user in password,
since Proxmox is based on Debian, you can use app-get-update-app-get-upgrade.
This will fail because it tries to connect to the enterprise.proxmox.com repo.
And the X is within the error.
What we need to do is edit two files to use a community repository,
instead of the enterprise ones.
I will put these into the show notes, but I will just quickly describe what you need to do.
Using a text in the review of your choice, edit these files.
You first need to do it in the main repository of this file.
So, edit using of the user name.
So, now, space, Fortsatz, ETT, Fortsatz, APT, Fortsatz, source.list.
The Fortsatz, pve, hyphen, enterprise.list.
Once you open that, you will see at the top, it will say,
Debian, HTTPS, colon, Fortsatz, enterprise.proxmox.com, Fortsatz, Debian,
slash pve, space, bookworm, space, pve, hyphen, enterprise.
So, what you want to do is, you want to comment that out by personning a hash at the start of it.
And then, what you will enter goes, you want to add an out, you will then want to add in
depth, space, HTTP, Fortsatz, Fortsatz, download.proxmox.com, Fortsatz, Debian, slash pve,
space, bookmark, space, pve, hyphen, no hyphen, subscription.
So, even exit the file by purchasing 12x, then y, and then enter.
You now need to enter the set, repository list.
Open the set, repository file by going nano, space, Fortsatz, ETT, Fortsatz, APT, Fortsatz,
source.list.sef.list. Again, you will see the enterprise one at the start.
So, just comment that out and then add a new line, which is depth, space, HTTP, colon,
Fortsatz, download.proxmox.com, Fortsatz, Debian, slash Fortsatz,
sef.quincy, space, bookmark, space, no hyphen, subscription.
Okay, save an exit the file by pressing 12x and enter.
Well, get update, app, get upgrade, and it will then successfully install your updates.
Okay, I will then, I will just say, I will put those commands and config files,
what you need to put into the shooting notes. Ask that, repeat your proxmox,
and log into web console. The next screen will still say it will still appear,
but you'll be confident that your system is up to date and can't be updated.
From the web console, you can monitor the users of the RAM and CPU that host machine,
as you create more VMs, you can review them all, you've been used, and how much is still available.
Okay, so when you first log in, you will, you need to go there, you will see on the left hand side,
a thing that has data center, and in my case, I called my host PVE,
and the tree, open tree, you'll see the name of the server, PVE, and you've got,
you have a local network, and I've got two disks, got local, which is where you will be uploading,
like ISO, it's two in a minute, and then you've got local hyphen LVM,
which is where the actual hard drives sit, the virtual hard drives sit.
If you click on the left hand side, sorry, you can click on summary, and you can see,
how many virtual machines running, and what CPU memory storage you've got left on machine.
So, first thing we need to do is you need to create a first virtual machine, you need to download
the ISO of the VM, you want to download a copy of a Mint 20 server, the latest one,
once it's downloaded, it's machine. On the left hand side, on the tree,
you want to expand your, your project server, you will see that you've got local,
and local hyphen LV, if you click on local, and then you will see on the right hand side,
you see ISO images, you click on ISO images on the right hand side,
you can then click on upload, and then you can then upload the file, so select the ISO images,
and then you will upload them. Once you've done that, you can create your first VM,
so right at the top of the, on the top bar, you'll see that there will be a blue icon,
what's that create VM. So, click on that, you can give a name for your VM, and then click next.
On the OS tab, you click your ISO image, you've just uploaded. Once you're chosen,
you're afraid to click next, you can also click next, this is a tab for most use cases.
On the hard drive tab, choose how much storage space you need for your VM,
I'll just give it 30 gigabytes of RAM. Once you're selected for the hard drive space,
you can click next on the CPD, you can choose number of calls, so I'll just give it one,
and click next, and then I'll set the RAM to 4, click your bytes to RAM.
On the next one, you go on to the next one, tab, you shouldn't need to do anything here,
just make sure that the bridge is selected. This means the first machine will pair as if it's
clicked to your local network, and we'll get an IP address from your DHCP server.
The only thing you have to do is start up, you can click start from the top menu,
you will then see a screen on the virtual machines, like a VNC window will come up,
and you can click on it, and you can use your virtual keyboard, the mouse, control the VM.
You can set the server as normal, once the VM is set up, and you have a beauty, you can
connect to it, and the VM remotely via the IP address. It does like it with your own server,
so back when you get a summary, you'll be able to see what's actually on the,
that you actually now got one VM running, and you're probably seeing that the CPU is being a lot
more used, and then on the left hand side, you will see, probably say, 100, then open brackets,
and the name of your VM, so that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and I was
speaking to you soon, and I'm tuned tomorrow for another exciting episode on Hacker Public Radio.
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