Install Proxmox

Download the installer .iso

Download the latest Proxmox VE release here.

Write the .iso image file to a suitable USB drive with dd or UNetbootin.

Boot the USB drive

During installation, you will need to plug in a monitor, keyboard, mouse, and the USB device into the host system. Boot the router host from the USB drive.

Select Install Proxmox VE (Graphical) and press Enter.

Accept the license agreement

Click I agree.

Select the root storage device

The device you select will be automatically partitioned for LVM storage:

Warning

Proxmox will use the entire storage device. This will destroy any existing partitions/data on the selected device.

Tip

This book assumes you using only a single storage device with the default filesystem type ext4.

You may click Options to configure the partition scheme and filesystem, but the defaults settings are already setup for efficient use of the available storage. If you have multiple identical storage devices you may configure ZFS for redundancy. For configuration help, see ZFS / RAIDZ Capacity Calculator.

Click Next.

Configure locale

Click Next.

Set password and email address

Click Next.

Setup management networking

Configure a static IP address and hostname for the management network interface:

The management interface is used to administer the Proxmox host from your existing network, and also used for the default vmbr0 bridge network and provides Internet access to the proxmox host.

Info

The Proxmox management interface is only used for adminstrative tasks, it plays no part in the new router, since the router will use a separate physical network interface.

Tip

The Proxmox management interface does not use DHCP. You must choose a static IP address in your existing (home/lab) LAN subnet range. You should also reserve this IP address with your upstream router by associating the MAC address shown (e.g., bc:24:11:22:da:99) so that the IP address does not conflict with any other devices on the upstream LAN.

The Hostname you choose (e.g., pve-router.example.com) is a permanaent administrative identifier for the Proxmox host itself. This name serves no purpose in relation to the new router. Do not use the name router for the PVE host. The name router will be reserved for the router VM.

Start Install

On the Summary page, confirm the settings you chose, then click Install.

Reboot

When the installer finishes, it will automatically reboot the host. Once fully rebooted, you should see the text console message indicating the URL to log into the management interface:

Welcome to the Proxmox Virtual Environment. Please use your web browser to configure this server - connect to

  https://192.168.1.2:8006

At this point you may remove the keyboard, monitor, mouse, and USB device. You will only need to connect by SSH or by the management web interface.