Proxmox Virtual Environment is a Debian based open-source virtualization management platform for KVM hypervisor and LXC containers. Proxmox provides an easy-to-use web interface to manage Virtual Machines and Containers. All its enterprise-grade features are available for free.
If you haven’t installed Proxmox VE yet go to Install Proxmox VE. In the next section, we will create a Ubuntu VM in Proxmox, and run it.
Create your first VM in Proxmox
1. Download the Ubuntu Desktop ISO from the website here
2. Upload the ISO image to a directory storage in Proxmox VE web interface.
3. Click Create VM at the top right to open the wizard and enter a Name for the VM.
4. In the next window, select the Ubuntu ISO image we just uploaded. Make sure the Guest OS Type and Version are populated correctly.
5. Here, at the System config I leave everything as is.
6. Choose a Storage location and the Size of main disk for your VM in this window. ‘tank’ is my ZFS storage backend, and I am creating a 128GB disk there.
7. Add as many as CPU Cores you need here, these are virtual cores – do not have to depend on the actual number of cores in your hypervisor. I am going to add two cores for my VM.
8. Memory is fixed and Proxmox VE also requires at least 2GB for operation. So allocate size based on your available total memory.
9. Pick the network (‘vmbr0’ here) of Proxmox as Bridge, this will allow your VM to connect through it. For the Model of device choose VirtIO for best performance.
10. Review all the settings on the next page. Check Start after created and Finish.
11. Your VM will should start running now. If it is up, click on Console at the top right corner to access it via noVNC
You have created your first VM Proxmox successfully. You can go ahead and install Ubuntu fully from here on the virtual disk.
