Home Server & Proxmox

Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof, Alan Moore

Proxmox

Proxmox is an open-source server management platform that provides powerful virtualization and containerization capabilities. It offers a user-friendly web interface for easy management of VMs and containers

BIOS configuration

Configuring the BIOS for Proxmox is crucial for optimizing virtualization performance and ensuring that the system runs smoothly.

• Video Setup, select PEG, PCIe Graphic Devices. Selecting PEG (PCI Express Graphics) ensures that the BIOS prioritizes the PCIe GPU for graphical output, ensuring that the server can effectively manage and display the Proxmox web interface, especially if you’re using a dedicated GPU for tasks such as video transcoding or GPU passthrough for virtual machines.
• Advanced, CPU Setup, make sure that Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-d, it allows direct assignment of I/O devices to virtual machines, this is critical for scenarios where you want to passthrough devices like GPUs or network cards directly to a VM) and VT-x (it allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on an x86 computer in a safe and efficient manner) are enable.

Install Proxmox

1. Go to the official Proxmox website, then navigate to the ISO Downloads page and download the latest Proxmox Installer available.
2. Create a bootable USB using tools like dd, balena, Rufus, Etcher or Ventoy: sudo dd if=proxmov-ve_*.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync.
3. Access your boot menu (Esc, F2, F10, F11, or F12) and select your pendrive.
4. Launch the Proxmox Installer. Install Proxmox VE, read and accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). Choose the target hard disk where you want to install Proxmox (by default, ext4 is used). Set the location, time zone, and keyboard layout. Create a password for your admin credentials and type in an email address.
5. Set up the Network Configuration. Select the Management interface (e.g., enp42s0), a hostname for the server (myserver.local), IP Address (192.168.1.33), the default gateway (192.168.1.1) and a DNS server (80.58.61.254). Finally, press Install, remove the USB drive, and reboot the system.

Run Proxmox

1. Select Proxmox Virtual Environment GNU/Linux and navigate to the IP address (e.g., https://192.168.1.33:8006 -IP Proxmox Web management interface-) that loads Proxmox as it is indicated in ProxMox VE welcome message.
2. Open your favorite browse to the required IP address, click Proceed to IP Proxmox Web management interface, then log in as root and type the password you set when installing Proxmox. Finally, ignore the message saying there is no valid subscription for the server.

EasySSH

EasySSH is a user-friendly SSH connection manager designed to simplify your SSH connections. It organizes connections into groups fro better management. It allows to customize the terminal appearance to better suites your preferences and supports a dark theme.

1. Install EasySSH. It’s available as Flatpask: flatpak install flathub com.github.muriloventuroso.easyssh
2. Run it: flatpak run com.github.muriloventuroso.easyssh
3. Click on Add Connection: Name (you can name your connection for easy reference, e.g., mypromoxserver), Group (myservers), Host (e.g., 192.168.1.33), Port (22 -ssh-), let enable set credentials, an type your username (root) and password.
4. Create an alias (e.g., aliases.nix in ~/dotfiles/zsh/) “myserver = “flatpak run com.github.muriloventuroso.easyssh”;

IOMMU Setup

PCI passthrough allows you to use a physical PCI device (graphics card, network card) inside a VM (KVM virtualization only). If you “PCI passthrough” a device, the device is not available to the host anymore.

To enable IOMMU (Assuming Intel), vim /etc/default/grub:

#Change "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=" to this line below exactly
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet intel_iommu=on"

# Save and run the command update-grub to finalize changes
update-grub

reboot # Reboot Proxmox
dmesg | grep -e DMAR -e IOMMU # Verify, you should see something like
[...]
ssh root@192.168.1.33 -p 22
[📦 com.github.muriloventuroso.easyssh scripts]$ ssh root@192.168.1.33 -p 22
Last login: Fri Dec 27 12:00:03 2024 from 192.168.1.36
root@myserver:~# dmesg | grep -e DMAR -e IOMMU
[    0.043302] DMAR: IOMMU enabled
[    0.994367] pci 0000:00:00.2: AMD-Vi: IOMMU performance counters supported
[    0.998321] perf/amd_iommu: Detected AMD IOMMU #0 (2 banks, 4 counters/bank).
[...]

Biography

• YouTube’s channel. Hardware, Haven. My Proxmox Home Server Walk-Through (TrueNAS, Portainer, Wireguard)
• WunderTech.net, How to Passthrough a Disk in Proxmox, How to Install TrueNAS on Proxmox & How to Install TrueNAS on Proxmox.
• truenas.com, Documentation Hub, TrueNAS Tutorials.