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Learning Proxmox VE
Learning Proxmox VE

Learning Proxmox VE: Unleash the power of Proxmox VE by setting up a dedicated virtual environment to serve both containers and virtual machines

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Learning Proxmox VE

Chapter 2. Installing Proxmox VE

This chapter is a guide to the installation of Proxmox VE on a physical machine. After completing this chapter, you will have a working PVE server for exploration, experimentation, and perhaps production, depending on your hardware configuration.

Along the way, the chapter will explain how to determine whether a computer's hardware satisfies PVE's minimal or optimal requirements. This chapter also helps us determine whether our configurations make the most of Intel or AMD's virtualization technologies. Finally, it will outline what to expect from the Proxmox Installer, and how to initiate and, ultimately, complete the installation and configuration of a new Proxmox VE system.

The chapter is organized sequentially, moving from installation preparations through booting the new server:

  • Hardware requirements and recommendations for Proxmox VE
  • Downloading Proxmox VE
  • Ensuring hardware virtualization (or nested virtualization) is enabled
  • Preparing...

Hardware requirements and recommendations for Proxmox VE

Before starting installation activity, be sure your hardware at least meets PVE's minimum hardware requirements.

The official wiki provides recommended specifications for both evaluation and production scenarios (https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/requirements).

However, the For evaluation specifications are a bit vague and quite restrictive; they are intended for testing only. You'll find that following them will provide what one needs to become familiar with the installation process and the web-based administration interface. You may even try to run a single, minimal virtual machine and container. If your goals and objectives are more substantive, however, you're very likely to become frustrated very quickly with these specs.

The following is the configuration recommended by the Proxmox VE wiki page (https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Installation#Minimum_requirements.2C_for_evaluation) for very basic testing of PVE...

Downloading Proxmox VE

An image of the most recent PVE release, 4.1, is available on the Internet via torrent or direct download. The complete ISO is just under 720 MB, and should ultimately be burned to a blank CD or DVD.

Follow these steps to download the torrent file:

  1. Navigate to https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/category/iso-images-pve in your browser.
  2. Look for the Proxmox VE 4.1 ISO Installer (BitTorrent) subheading.
  3. Click on the gray Download button to start the download process.

Downloading Proxmox VE

Torrent download

To download directly, use your browser to navigate to the same page, https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/category/iso-images-pve, and look for the Proxmox VE 4.1 ISO Installer subheading. Click on the grey Download button to start the download.

Downloading Proxmox VE

Direct download

Note

Note that if you're on an OS X or GNU/Linux workstation, you may choose, of course, to download the disk image from the command line with the wget (or curl) command. The following line—entered...

Verifying the downloaded image

In the interest of security and your own sanity, be sure to check the md5sum value of the downloaded PVE image to make sure it matches the value at http://download.proxmox.com/iso/MD5SUMS. In the case of Proxmox VE 4.1, for example, the md5sum value is 00358ebcfeea1e33977e1be0fa2e02d3.

For Ubuntu users, for instance, the following process can be used to verify that the downloaded PVE 4.1 image is as it should be.

Enter the following line in a terminal emulator:

    md5sum /tmp/proxmox-ve_4.1-2f9650d4-21.iso

The response should be as follows:

    00358ebcfeea1e33977e1be0fa2e02d3  /tmp/proxmox-ve_4.1-2f9650d4-21.iso

This response verifies that the md5sum value corresponds to the string value provided at http://download.proxmox.com/iso/MD5SUMS.

Finally, write the ISO to a blank CD or a USB drive when the download is complete and the md5sum value is verified.

Tip

Steps to create a Proxmox VE bootable USB drive, after you have the ISO downloaded, are...

Ensuring hardware virtualization extensions are installed

Next, you'll want to ensure that hardware virtualization extensions are enabled on the intended Proxmox VE host.

Assuming there's no operating system on the machine, it's very simple to check this with a Ubuntu Desktop LiveCD. Follow these steps:

  1. Download the Ubuntu LiveCD image from http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop and burn it to a DVD.
  2. Boot the new machine from the Ubuntu LiveCD. (For more information on this process, visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD#How-To_LiveCD_Ubuntu.)
  3. Once the desktop is fully available, open the terminal emulator.
  4. For an Intel-based system, enter the following command in the terminal emulator: egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo.

If hardware virtualization extensions are enabled, as is the hope, this command should simply return an integer equal to the number of CPU cores in the machine. If the command returns a 0, hardware virtualization extensions must...

Preparing for the Proxmox VE Installer

With virtualization extensions enabled and the installation media in hand, it is wise to prepare information the Proxmox Installer will want from you. Having the following information prepared before the Proxmox Installer gets started will help ensure that your configuration is completed with all the consideration and deliberation it deserves.

Have well-considered responses prepared for when you're prompted for the following information by the installer:

  • The target installation drive (any existing data on the drive will be permanently deleted)
  • The password for the root user
  • The administrator's e-mail address
  • The country
  • The time zone (expressed in this format: Region/City (Pacific/Honolulu, for example)
  • The keyboard layout (based on region)
  • Whether to use an EXT3 or an EXT4 filesystem (or if you've configured a machine with a RAID10 array, choose zfs)
  • A fully qualified domain name for the new server
  • The fixed IP address to be assigned to...

Hardware requirements and recommendations for Proxmox VE


Before starting installation activity, be sure your hardware at least meets PVE's minimum hardware requirements.

The official wiki provides recommended specifications for both evaluation and production scenarios (https://www.proxmox.com/en/proxmox-ve/requirements).

However, the For evaluation specifications are a bit vague and quite restrictive; they are intended for testing only. You'll find that following them will provide what one needs to become familiar with the installation process and the web-based administration interface. You may even try to run a single, minimal virtual machine and container. If your goals and objectives are more substantive, however, you're very likely to become frustrated very quickly with these specs.

The following is the configuration recommended by the Proxmox VE wiki page (https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Installation#Minimum_requirements.2C_for_evaluation) for very basic testing of PVE (release 4.1):

Component...

Downloading Proxmox VE


An image of the most recent PVE release, 4.1, is available on the Internet via torrent or direct download. The complete ISO is just under 720 MB, and should ultimately be burned to a blank CD or DVD.

Follow these steps to download the torrent file:

  1. Navigate to https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/category/iso-images-pve in your browser.
  2. Look for the Proxmox VE 4.1 ISO Installer (BitTorrent) subheading.
  3. Click on the gray Download button to start the download process.

Torrent download

To download directly, use your browser to navigate to the same page, https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/category/iso-images-pve, and look for the Proxmox VE 4.1 ISO Installer subheading. Click on the grey Download button to start the download.

Direct download

Note

Note that if you're on an OS X or GNU/Linux workstation, you may choose, of course, to download the disk image from the command line with the wget (or curl) command. The following line—entered at the terminal—downloads the most recent...

Verifying the downloaded image


In the interest of security and your own sanity, be sure to check the md5sum value of the downloaded PVE image to make sure it matches the value at http://download.proxmox.com/iso/MD5SUMS. In the case of Proxmox VE 4.1, for example, the md5sum value is 00358ebcfeea1e33977e1be0fa2e02d3.

For Ubuntu users, for instance, the following process can be used to verify that the downloaded PVE 4.1 image is as it should be.

Enter the following line in a terminal emulator:

    md5sum /tmp/proxmox-ve_4.1-2f9650d4-21.iso

The response should be as follows:

    00358ebcfeea1e33977e1be0fa2e02d3  /tmp/proxmox-ve_4.1-2f9650d4-21.iso

This response verifies that the md5sum value corresponds to the string value provided at http://download.proxmox.com/iso/MD5SUMS.

Finally, write the ISO to a blank CD or a USB drive when the download is complete and the md5sum value is verified.

Tip

Steps to create a Proxmox VE bootable USB drive, after you have the ISO downloaded, are available...

Left arrow icon Right arrow icon

Key benefits

  • Create virtual machines and containers from the comfort of your workstation using Proxmox VE's web-based management interface
  • Maximize performance, security, and the quality of virtual services by tailoring container and virtual machine configurations based on established best practices
  • Put theory to practice by deploying virtual servers that promise portability, modularity, flexibility, security, and quality of service at any scale

Description

Proxmox VE 4.1 provides an open source, enterprise virtualization platform on which to host virtual servers as either virtual machines or containers. This book will support your practice of the requisite skills to successfully create, tailor, and deploy virtual machines and containers with Proxmox VE 4.1. Following a survey of PVE's features and characteristics,this book will contrast containers with virtual machines and establish cases for both. It walks through the installation of Proxmox VE, explores the creation of containers and virtual machines, and suggests best practices for virtual disk creation, network configuration, and Proxmox VE host and guest security.Throughout the book, you will navigate the Proxmox VE 4.1 web interface and explore options for command-line management

Who is this book for?

This book is intended for server and system administrators and engineers who are eager to take advantage of the potential of virtual machines and containers to manage servers more efficiently and make the best use of resources, from energy consumption to hardware utilization and physical real estate

What you will learn

  • Install and configure Proxmox VE
  • Create new virtual machines and containers
  • Import container templates and virtual appliances
  • Optimize virtual machine performance for common use cases
  • Apply the latest security patches to a Proxmox VE host
  • Contrast PVE virtual machines and containers to recognize their respective use cases
  • Secure virtual machines and containers
  • Assess the benefits of virtualization on budgets, server real estate, maintenance, and management time

Product Details

Country selected
Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Mar 31, 2016
Length: 224 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783981786
Vendor :
Proxmox
Tools :

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Product Details

Publication date : Mar 31, 2016
Length: 224 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781783981786
Vendor :
Proxmox
Tools :

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Table of Contents

7 Chapters
1. Proxmox VE Fundamentals Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Installing Proxmox VE Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Creating Containers Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Creating Virtual Machines Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Working with Virtual Disks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Networking with Proxmox VE Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Securing Proxmox VE Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.8
(4 Ratings)
5 star 50%
4 star 0%
3 star 25%
2 star 25%
1 star 0%
Jeremy Davis Jan 06, 2017
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is informative, well-written and easy to read. It contains exactly what is written on the tin! :)As noted in the blurb: "This book is intended for server and system administrators and engineers who are eager to take advantage of the potential of virtual machines and containers to manage servers more efficiently and make the best use of resources, from energy consumption to hardware utilization and physical real estate". TBH I'm not really the target audience of this book (I've been using Proxmox casually for a few years now) but there were a few things I learned. As the title, "Learning Proxmox VE" suggests, this book it is more aimed at Proxmox beginners (I've been using Proxmox since version 1.6).For anyone who has minimal prior Proxmox knowledge, I have no doubt that this book will get you up to speed in no time. It contains enough information, that even if you haven't had much prior virtualisation experience, it will make sense; but won't insult your intelligence if you have already played with other virtualisation tools.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
d.vee Jun 08, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Both in-depth and simple to follow, this guide is a must-have.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Par5Eagles Jul 11, 2016
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
This book is well written and clear, and is appropriate for a certain type of reader. My background- I have a moderate amount of virtualization experience using VirtualBox, and did a bit of reading and watching YouTube "how to" proxmox videos before buying this book. My hope was this book would take me to the next level and explain some of the sexy things proxmox can do, especially in the area of clustering and high availability. Unfortunately, intermediate and advanced topics are not covered at all in this book. It is written for someone who has moderate linux skills and doesn't really know anything about virtualization. If you are beyond that, don't waste your time and a good bit of money on this one. I was 2/3 of the way through the book (in slightly over an hour) before I learned anything of any real value to me.This book is rather short- just over 200 pages. A lot of those pages are taken up with big screen shots and a lot of white space... there might be 100 pages of "real content". To the author and editor- I recommend expanding the areas covered in this book to go beyond the very basics. There's just not enough material here for a $50 book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Douglas B Fletcher Feb 07, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 2
I was an absolute beginner with ProxMox. For the $ this was a very short book and it didn't really give a whole lot of material that wasn't easily discovered via google. I did pick up a few tricks/pieces of info, so it wasn't totally for naught, but I really did expect a bit more.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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