Installation

The installation of Proxmox is usually a pretty quick process. Once the installer image has booted and you have chosen to Install Proxmox VE, the first step is to accept the EULA for Proxmox VE.

Once agreed, configure which drive to install Proxmox on. If there are multiple drives on the system of the same size, Proxmox can be installed on ZFS with underlying drive redundancy. I was unable to do so due to errors in the current Proxmox installer related to setting up Grub on such a setup.

Next, set the country and timezone, which will mainly be used for scheduled tasks like triggering VM backups.

Next, set a secure root password and email. This password will be used to log into the host via the console, SSH, and the web GUI, so the password should be as strong as possible. The email is used for notifications like backup failure warnings.

The next step is to configure networking on the node. By default, Proxmox will only accept a static IP for the host, though this can be changed to DHCP from the command line later. Note, however, that if DHCP assigns the address, it must not change. The static IP entered here is stored in the hosts file and used for various clustering and other purposes, and failing to keep that address up to date will prevent VMs from starting.

Lastly, confirm all the installer settings are correct, then start the installation. If the automatic reboot box is checked, then a while later, the host should reboot, and Proxmox will be set up.

Once Proxmox has booted, access it via its IP at port 8006, using HTTPS. A good first step is to set up a second drive as a Directory storage and a backup job to back up VMs to this storage automatically.