Home Server. Virtual Machines.

Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups, Anonymous.

SPICE Virtual Device Agent

Running apt install spice-vdagent in Proxmox installs the SPICE Virtual Device Agent on a virtual machine. This agent enhances the interaction between the guest operating system and the SPICE client:

1. Enables client mouse mode, which eliminates the need for the client to grab the mouse.
2. Adjusts the resolution of the guest OS to match the client’s resolution.
3. Support of copy and text.
4. The guest screen dynamically resizes to fit the client window.

Repositories.

ProxmoxVE by default receives updates from the paid Enterprise repository, updates from which are only available to customers with a paid subscription. To get the latest updates without a subscription, you need to disable the paid repository and enable the non-subscription repository. I

1. vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list. Comment the only line in this file: #deb https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm pve-enterprise

2. vi /etc/apt/sources.list:

   # Debian Main and Contrib Repositories
   deb http://ftp.es.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib
   deb http://ftp.es.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib
   
   # Debian Security Updates
   deb http://security.debian.org bookworm-security main contrib
   
   # Proxmox no-subscription repositoryProxmox: For Proxmox updates without requiring a subscription.
   deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm pve-no-subscription
   

3. After updating your sources list, be sure to run the following commands to update your package lists and upgrade your system: apt update && apt upgrade -y. Then, reboot.

Create a Virtual Machine

1. Go to Node (e.g., Datacenter, myserver), local (myserver), select ISO Images. Click “Download from URL” or upload the ISO from your local computer. Typically, you will not want to enable Start at boot.

2. Click Create VM button at top right.

3. General tab. Give it a VM ID (auto-generated is typically OK) and a name (e.g., “ubuntu-desktop”).

4. OS tab. Select your downloaded ISO. Type: Linux. Version: 6.x - 2.6 Kernel.

5. System tab. BIOS: OVMF (UEFI), which is a UEFI implementation for virtual machines. Add EFI Disk: Yes. This option adds an EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) disk to your virtual machine. The EFI disk stores the bootloader and other UEFI-related data. It’s necessary for booting the VM in UEFI mode. EFI Storage, e.g., mypool. It specifies the storage pool where the EFI disk will be stored. Machine: q35.

   q35 is a newer chipset model used in virtual machines for better hardware compatibility and performance. SCSI Controller: VirtIO SCSI. This sets the virtual machine’s storage controller to VirtIO SCSI, which is a high-performance storage controller that provides better performance and efficiency compared to traditional IDE controllers. Qemu Agent: Yes. It enables the Qemu Agent. It allows for better integration between the host and the guest operating system, providing features like graceful shutdown and reboot, and improved clipboard sharing.

6. Disks tab. Bus/Device: SCSI. It specifies that the disk will use the SCSI, a high-performance bus that is widely used for connecting and transferring data between computers and storage devices. Storage: local-lvm (a local Logical Volume Manager -LVM- storage on the Proxmox host) or mypool (a storage pool that I have configured). Disk size: Min 25GB recommended - 200Gb, the size of the virtual disk to be allocated for the VM. Cache: Write back improves performance by temporarily storing write operations in the cache before writing them to the disk. This can speed up disk operations but may also carry a risk of data loss in the event of a power failure.

7. CPU tab. Cores: 4. It allocates 4 CPU cores to the virtual machine. Type: host so the virtual machine will use the host’s CPU model directly. It will typically provides better performance and compatibility since the VM will have access to all the features and extensions supported by the host CPU.

8. Memory tab: Minimum 4GB (4096MB) recommended up to 16GB (16384MB). Disable Ballooning device. It is a memory management technique used in virtualized environments to optimize memory usage. However, ballooning can introduce a slight performance overhead due to the additional memory management tasks.

9. Network tab. Bridge: vmbr0. Model: VirtIO (paravirtualized). VLAN Tag: Leave empty unless needed.

10. Click Finish and start the VM.

11. Select the VM (e.g., Datacenter, myserver, 100 (ubuntu-desktop)). Click the Start button and Console to see the installation.

12. If the system is unresponsive, you may need to change the browser. In my particular case, it did not work in Ubuntu Chrome, but it was just fine in Mozilla Firefox.

13. Remove the Installation Medium: Select the virtual machine. In the Hardware tab, you’ll see a list of attached storage devices. Click on the installation medium (e.g., CD/DVD Drive) that you want to remove and select Do not use any media.

14. Select the virtual machine. In the Option tab, you may want to enable Start at boot (the VM will automatically start at boot time) and QEMU Guest Agent.

15. Post-installation tasks:

# Installing SSH
sudo apt install openssh-server
# Updating the system
sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

# After Installation: Install QEMU Guest Agent.
# It facilitates better communication between the host (Proxmox) and the guest (Ubuntu VM).
# It allows the host to send commands to the guest and receive responses ...
# enables the host to perform management tasks more effectively, such as shutdown, reboot, and snapshot operations, directly from the Proxmox interface, etc.
sudo apt install qemu-guest-agent
sudo systemctl start qemu-guest-agent
# Let's check that it is up and running
sudo systemctl status qemu-guest-agent

# It frees up disk space by deleting old package files that are no longer needed after installations or upgrades
sudo apt clean
# It cleans up your system by removing orphaned packages that can accumulate over time
sudo apt autoremove

# Grant sudo privileges to our user
sudo usermod -aG sudo username

sudo visudo # Then, add this line:
sudo username ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Increase the Virtual Disk Size in Proxmox

1. In the Proxmox Web UI, navigate to the VM you want to expand. Go to Hardware, click on the hard disk you want to resize. Then, click on Disk Action and then select Resize. Enter the new desired size for the virtual disk in gigabytes (GB) and confirm the resize operation by clicking on Resize.
2. Start the VM and resize the Partition within the VM to match the increased virtual disk size by using gparted (recommended), fdisk or parted.
3. Verify and Reboot