What is Proxmox-VE and what is it for?
Proxmox Virtual Environment is a hypervisor or virtualization server developed by the Austrian company Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH. This is based on the GNU Linux Debian distribution and allows you to create virtual machines (VM) using KVM/QEMU and containers (CT) using LXC.
KVM (Kernel based VM): Allows you to define hardware infrastructure virtually, such as network cards, hard drives, etc.
LXC (Linux Containers) : is a form of virtualization that makes it possible to run different isolated Linux systems on a single control host.
When can I use Proxmox-VE and what for?
In many cases a Proxmox-VE server can be used as a virtualization solution, these can be:
- Prepare a test environment (Laboratory) in which several servers are needed (Containers or Virtual Machines)
- Install several servers, virtually having only one physically
- To make the most of the resources of a server with good performance and that, we could divide them using virtualization
- Create both simple and complex network infrastructures using multiple network interfaces, vlans, etc.
Main features of Proxmox VE
- Server-level virtualization solution (type 1)
- Open source platform
- Based on GNU Debian.
- Administration through web interface and terminal, locally or remotely using SSH.
- Support for dark themes in the admin web interface
- Hardware virtualization using KVM
- Linux operating system virtualization using containers (LXC)
- Allows you to make backup copies of running equipment (Live Backups)
- Support for Bridges, VLans, Bonding, Open Virtual Switch
- Includes virtualization server-level firewall.
- Technology support for cluster (requires at least 3 nodes)
- Support for local directory storage over Ext4 or XFS file systems, local using LVM.
- Integration with NAS or SAN type storage, through Fiber Optic channel, iSCSI Over Ethernet or NFS.
- Network storage support allowing sharing between multiple nodes for high availability and live migration capabilities. (NFS, CIFS/SMB, GlusterFS, iSCSI, CephFS, ZFS)
- High Availability (HA) in cluster with network storage.
- Live and online migration allows you to move virtual machines between nodes without downtime, with shared storage there is no need to move virtual disks.
- ZFS or Ceph Hyperconverged Storage with easy configuration and administration through the web interface.
Minimum recommended hardware requirements
- 64-bit processor with support for virtualization and at least 4 cores
- 4 GB of RAM
- 8 Gigs of storage (minimum)
- 1 network card
Where can I download it?
It is best to download it from its official site https://www.proxmox.com in the downloads section https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/category/iso-images-pve