I know what you’re thinking, Why do we need another blog topic on installing Proxmox? after all there’s not much else to do but insert the USB and click “Next” at the prompts right? I would agree that is “partially” true. I did in fact do just that “A couple” times in fact while trying to pass through a GPU to Windows 10! Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. Hours of frustration in discovering critical packages had not been installed, System commands were not recognized etc. I finally decided on going with a different approach.
A friend suggested to install Debian 9 first, then install Proxmox on top of that, ensuring that all packages were intact and leaving me with more control over the system. I decided to take his word on it, and was given a link to a proxmox wiki page you can view Here
If it weren’t for a few discrepancies on the latest Debian release, most could follow the Wiki without any issues, but with a few snags followed by some troubleshooting I figured I would share my experience filling in the blanks.
To get started you will need the latest Debian Release you can download from Here
Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will only need to download debian-x.x.x-amd64-DVD-1.iso (aprox 3.4GB)
Once we have that downloaded we will need to burn the image to USB, I personally use a free utility called “Etcher”
- Boot up with the ISO Loaded from the First menu
- Choose Install (Not Graphical Install)
- Select Language
- Select Country
- Select Keyboard Config
- Enter Hostname (examp: server1)
- Enter Domain (examp: homelab.local)
- Set the Root Password
- Set a User Account/Password
- Choose “Guided – Use Entire Disk” (Unless doing a Raid, that’s a bit different. For this example, I am not)
- Select the primary HDD/SSD you will be installing Proxmox too
- Select “All Files in one partition (recommended for new users)”
- Select yes to partition
- The install should begin
- When you get to the “Network Mirror” Select No
- In Software Selection, I only chose “SSH Server & Standard System Utilities” and unchecked everything else
- Install GRUB Select Yes
Now you will be instructed to reboot, upon doing so pull your USB stick out.
Before we can continue on with proxmox wiki there are a couple changes we need to make.
Let’s start with the biggest issue being the sources.list
From the terminal type:
nano /etc/apt/sources.list
If you see anything in there referencing that looks like “deb [Debian GNU/Linux 9.4.0 _Stretch_ – Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 20180310-11:21] stretch Release” be sure to comment that out. While you’re at it just delete everything or comment it out and be sure the list looks like this:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ stretch/updates main
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ stretch/updates main
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates main
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates main
now save the file (Ctrl+O) & Exit (Ctrl+X) Next step, lets go edit our hosts file with the following command:
nano /etc/hosts
You should see the following:
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
127.0.0.1 sever1.homelab.local server1
# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1 localhost ip6-localhost
ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
change “Only” the host line to the IP you intend to designate for this machine as such:
192.168.1.200 sever1.homelab.local server1
leave the rest, save changes exit. Now type:
hostname --ip-address
verify that the IP has been in fact updated and lets set that IP address Static!
nano /etc/network/interfaces
you should see something like this towards the bottom:
# The primary network interfaceallow-hotplug eth0iface eth0 inet dhcp
Lets change only lines under “# The primary network interface” to the following:
# The primary network interface
auto eth0 iface
eth0 inet static address 192.168.1.200
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 10.0.0.255
gateway 10.0.0.1
dns-nameservers 10.0.0.1
Excellent now let’s restart by typing:
The next thing we are going to do is add the Proxmox Repository to our configuration by simply typing:
echo "deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve stretch pve-no-subscription" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-install-repo.list
Now we will follow that up with the repository key:
wget http://download.proxmox.com/debian/proxmox-ve-release-5.x.gpg -O/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxmox-ve-release-5.x.gpg
Let’s be sure to update our repository!
apt update && apt dist-upgrade
Now the moment of truth, lets install Proxmox!
apt install proxmox-ve postfix open-iscsi
The Wiki here has additional information you really should review for the next few steps.
Last but not least let’s do one last thing to ensure we can access root via SSH in the event you are having to use something like SFTP to move a large ISO over.
Type:
nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config
We are looking for the following:
#PermitRootLogin without-password
let’s change that to:
PermitRootLogin yes
Be sure to save your change and exit, lastly you should be able to simply type:
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
Congratulations, you have proxmox installed in the event you used the example ip you would point your browser to:
https://192.168.1.200:8006
Accept the security exception, and when prompted login with user: root and the password you chose.
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