The installer ISO image includes the following:
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Complete operating system (Debian Linux, 64-bit) -
The Proxmox VE installer, which partitions the local disk(s) with ext4, XFS,
BTRFS (technology preview), or ZFS and installs the operating system -
Proxmox VE Linux kernel with KVM and LXC support -
Complete toolset for administering virtual machines, containers, the host
system, clusters and all necessary resources -
Web-based management interface
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All existing data on the selected drives will be removed during the
installation process. The installer does not add boot menu entries for other operating systems. |
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Make sure that booting from the installation medium (for example, USB) is
enabled in your server’s firmware settings. Secure boot needs to be disabled when booting an installer prior to Proxmox VE version 8.1. |
After choosing the correct entry (for example, Boot from USB) the Proxmox VE menu
will be displayed, and one of the following options can be selected:
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Install Proxmox VE (Graphical) -
Starts the normal installation.
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It’s possible to use the installation wizard with a keyboard only. Buttons
can be clicked by pressing the ALT key combined with the underlined character from the respective button. For example, ALT + N to press a Next button. |
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Install Proxmox VE (Terminal UI) -
Starts the terminal-mode installation wizard. It provides the same overall
installation experience as the graphical installer, but has generally better
compatibility with very old and very new hardware. -
Install Proxmox VE (Terminal UI, Serial Console) -
Starts the terminal-mode installation wizard, additionally setting up the Linux
kernel to use the (first) serial port of the machine for in- and output. This
can be used if the machine is completely headless and only has a serial console
available.
Both modes use the same code base for the actual installation process to
benefit from more than a decade of bug fixes and ensure feature parity.
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Advanced Options: Install Proxmox VE (Graphical, Debug Mode) -
Starts the installation in debug mode. A console will be opened at several
installation steps. This helps to debug the situation if something goes wrong.
To exit a debug console, press CTRL-D. This option can be used to boot a live
system with all basic tools available. You can use it, for example, to
repair a degraded ZFS rpool or fix the
bootloader for an existing Proxmox VE setup. -
Advanced Options: Install Proxmox VE (Terminal UI, Debug Mode) -
Same as the graphical debug mode, but preparing the system to run the
terminal-based installer instead. -
Advanced Options: Install Proxmox VE (Serial Console Debug Mode) -
Same the terminal-based debug mode, but additionally sets up the Linux kernel to
use the (first) serial port of the machine for in- and output. -
Advanced Options: Install Proxmox VE (Automated) -
Starts the installer in unattended mode, even if the ISO has not been
appropriately prepared for an automated installation. This option can be used to
gather hardware details or might be useful to debug an automated installation
setup. See Unattended Installation for more
information. -
Advanced Options: Rescue Boot -
With this option you can boot an existing installation. It searches all attached
hard disks. If it finds an existing installation, it boots directly into that
disk using the Linux kernel from the ISO. This can be useful if there are
problems with the bootloader (GRUB/systemd-boot) or the BIOS/UEFI is unable to
read the boot block from the disk. -
Advanced Options: Test Memory (memtest86+) -
Runs memtest86+. This is useful to check if the memory is functional and free
of errors. Secure Boot must be turned off in the UEFI firmware setup utility to
run this option.
You normally select Install Proxmox VE (Graphical) to start the installation.
The first step is to read our EULA (End User License Agreement). Following this,
you can select the target hard disk(s) for the installation.
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By default, the whole server is used and all existing data is removed.
Make sure there is no important data on the server before proceeding with the installation. |
The Options button lets you select the target file system, which
defaults to ext4. The installer uses LVM if you select
ext4 or xfs as a file system, and offers additional options to
restrict LVM space (see below).
Proxmox VE can also be installed on ZFS. As ZFS offers several software RAID levels,
this is an option for systems that don’t have a hardware RAID controller. The
target disks must be selected in the Options dialog. More ZFS specific
settings can be changed under Advanced Options.
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ZFS on top of any hardware RAID is not supported and can result in data
loss. |
The next page asks for basic configuration options like your location, time
zone, and keyboard layout. The location is used to select a nearby download
server, in order to increase the speed of updates. The installer is usually able
to auto-detect these settings, so you only need to change them in rare
situations when auto-detection fails, or when you want to use a keyboard layout
not commonly used in your country.
Next the password of the superuser (root) and an email address needs to be
specified. The password must consist of at least 5 characters. It’s highly
recommended to use a stronger password. Some guidelines are:
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Use a minimum password length of at least 12 characters. -
Include lowercase and uppercase alphabetic characters, numbers, and symbols. -
Avoid character repetition, keyboard patterns, common dictionary words,
letter or number sequences, usernames, relative or pet names, romantic links
(current or past), and biographical information (for example ID numbers,
ancestors’ names or dates).
The email address is used to send notifications to the system administrator.
For example:
All those notification mails will be sent to the specified email address.
The last step is the network configuration. Network interfaces that are UP
show a filled circle in front of their name in the drop down menu. Please note
that during installation you can either specify an IPv4 or IPv6 address, but not
both. To configure a dual stack node, add additional IP addresses after the
installation.
The next step shows a summary of the previously selected options. Please
re-check every setting and use the Previous button if a setting needs to be
changed.
After clicking Install, the installer will begin to format the disks and copy
packages to the target disk(s). Please wait until this step has finished; then
remove the installation medium and restart your system.
Copying the packages usually takes several minutes, mostly depending on the
speed of the installation medium and the target disk performance.
When copying and setting up the packages has finished, you can reboot the
server. This will be done automatically after a few seconds by default.
Installation Failure
If the installation failed, check out specific errors on the second TTY
(CTRL + ALT + F2) and ensure that the systems meets the
minimum requirements.
Accessing the Management Interface Post-Installation
After a successful installation and reboot of the system you can use the Proxmox VE
web interface for further configuration.
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Point your browser to the IP address given during the installation and port
8006, for example: https://youripaddress:8006 -
Log in using the root (realm PAM) username and the password chosen during
installation. -
Upload your subscription key to gain access to the Enterprise repository.
Otherwise, you will need to set up one of the public, less tested package
repositories to get updates for security fixes, bug fixes, and new features. -
Check the IP configuration and hostname. -
Check the timezone. -
Check your Firewall settings.
Advanced LVM Configuration Options
The installer creates a Volume Group (VG) called pve, and additional Logical
Volumes (LVs) called root, data, and swap, if ext4 or xfs is used. To
control the size of these volumes use:
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hdsize -
Defines the total hard disk size to be used. This way you can reserve free space
on the hard disk for further partitioning (for example for an additional PV and
VG on the same hard disk that can be used for LVM storage). -
swapsize -
Defines the size of the swap volume. The default is the size of the installed
memory, minimum 4 GB and maximum 8 GB. The resulting value cannot be greater
than hdsize/8.
If set to 0, no swap volume will be created.
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maxroot -
Defines the maximum size of the root volume, which stores the operation
system. The maximum limit of the root volume size is hdsize/4. -
maxvz -
Defines the maximum size of the data volume. The actual size of the data
volume is:datasize = hdsize - rootsize - swapsize - minfree
Where datasize cannot be bigger than maxvz.
In case of LVM thin, the data pool will only be created if datasize is
bigger than 4GB.
If set to 0, no data volume will be created and the storage
configuration will be adapted accordingly.
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minfree -
Defines the amount of free space that should be left in the LVM volume group
pve. With more than 128GB storage available, the default is 16GB, otherwise
hdsize/8 will be used.
LVM requires free space in the VG for snapshot creation (not required for
lvmthin snapshots).
Advanced ZFS Configuration Options
The installer creates the ZFS pool rpool, if ZFS is used. No swap space is
created but you can reserve some unpartitioned space on the install disks for
swap. You can also create a swap zvol after the installation, although this can
lead to problems (see ZFS swap notes).
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ashift -
Defines the ashift value for the created pool. The ashift needs to be set at
least to the sector-size of the underlying disks (2 to the power of ashift is
the sector-size), or any disk which might be put in the pool (for example the
replacement of a defective disk). -
compress -
Defines whether compression is enabled for rpool. -
checksum -
Defines which checksumming algorithm should be used for rpool. -
copies -
Defines the copies parameter for rpool. Check the zfs(8) manpage for the
semantics, and why this does not replace redundancy on disk-level. -
ARC max size -
Defines the maximum size the ARC can grow to and thus limits the amount of
memory ZFS will use. See also the section on
how to limit ZFS memory usage for more
details. -
hdsize -
Defines the total hard disk size to be used. This is useful to save free space
on the hard disk(s) for further partitioning (for example to create a
swap-partition). hdsize is only honored for bootable disks, that is only the
first disk or mirror for RAID0, RAID1 or RAID10, and all disks in RAID-Z[123].
Advanced BTRFS Configuration Options
No swap space is created when BTRFS is used but you can reserve some
unpartitioned space on the install disks for swap. You can either create a
separate partition, BTRFS subvolume or a swapfile using the btrfs filesystem
mkswapfile command.
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compress -
Defines whether compression is enabled for the BTRFS subvolume. Different
compression algorithms are supported: on (equivalent to zlib), zlib, lzo
and zstd. Defaults to off. -
hdsize -
Defines the total hard disk size to be used. This is useful to save free space
on the hard disk(s) for further partitioning (for example, to create a
swap partition).
ZFS Performance Tips
ZFS works best with a lot of memory. If you intend to use ZFS make sure to have
enough RAM available for it. A good calculation is 4GB plus 1GB RAM for each TB
RAW disk space.
ZFS can use a dedicated drive as write cache, called the ZFS Intent Log (ZIL).
Use a fast drive (SSD) for it. It can be added after installation with the
following command:
# zpool add <pool-name> log </dev/path_to_fast_ssd>
Adding the nomodeset Kernel Parameter
Problems may arise on very old or very new hardware due to graphics drivers. If
the installation hangs during boot, you can try adding the nomodeset
parameter. This prevents the Linux kernel from loading any graphics drivers and
forces it to continue using the BIOS/UEFI-provided framebuffer.
On the Proxmox VE bootloader menu, navigate to Install Proxmox VE (Terminal UI) and
press e to edit the entry. Using the arrow keys, navigate to the line starting
with linux, move the cursor to the end of that line and add the
parameter nomodeset, separated by a space from the pre-existing last
parameter.
Then press Ctrl-X or F10 to boot the configuration.
