Proxmox
In addition to established virtualization solutions such as: VMware , VirtualBox , the latter being Open Source, there is a solution based on the Linux kernel.
The KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) solution, which can be translated as Kernel-based Virtual Machine, is a complete virtualization solution for Linux that relies on a main module kvm.ko and a module that depends on the type of microprocessor, kvm-intel.ko for Intel processors and kvm-amd.ko for AMD processors.
Using KVM, multiple virtual machines can run Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, video card, etc.
KVM is an open-source virtualization technology that turns the Linux kernel into a hypervisor that can be used for virtualization and is an alternative to proprietary virtualization technologies, such as those offered by VMware.
For this purpose, the folks at Proxmox have created a distribution based on Debian that provides a cloud-type virtualization solution called Proxmox VE .
Proxmox VE Installation
For the installation, on a physical machine, the processor must provide virtualization capabilities, and this must be enabled in the BIOS.
After downloading the image and creating a USB stick with this image, we will proceed to install the distribution.
The following screenshots were taken from a virtual machine created specifically for the installation of Proxmox, but the steps are the same as for a real machine.
Thus, upon starting the computer and using the boot sequence of the created stick, we will be greeted by the following screen:
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We select the first option from the bootloader for installation.
If we are greeted with a warning like the one below, we will need to check if we have enabled virtualization in the BIOS or if our processor has such capabilities:
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After enabling the virtualization options in the BIOS (this varies from BIOS to BIOS) and following the previous steps, we will be greeted by a screen where we must agree to the license terms in order to continue:
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Upon accepting the license conditions, we will need to select the hard disk on which we want the installation to take place:
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From the Options button, we can make some modifications regarding the type of file system used, how much disk space we will allocate to the system and the nodes related to the virtual machine images:
For ease, especially if this is the first contact with the Linux operating system, we will leave the default options.
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We press the Next button to proceed to the next screen where we will need to enter/select the country, time zone, and keyboard layout:
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In the next screen, we will need to enter the password for the root user (the system administrator) and choose the email address to which important information will be sent. A real email must be provided:
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We press Next and in the next screen we will need to enter information related to network identification such as: the machine name, machine address, subnet mask, gateway, and the name server address (I am trying to adapt the translation with terms as close as possible to the Romanian language). If there is a DHCP server on the network, the fields will be automatically populated with the information retrieved from the server regarding network identification:
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After pressing the Next button, a window will open informing us with a summary of what has been done previously:
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If we agree with what has been presented, we will press the Install button, and as a result, the installation process will begin by transferring the system packages from the USB stick and configuring the system according to our previous choices:
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After the transfer and configurations are completed, a window will open notifying us of the installation's completion and the address and port at which we can connect using a browser to the environment containing the virtual machine, cluster, storage space configuration server, etc.:
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We pressed the Reboot button in order to exit the installation environment of the machine's reboot, and we will be greeted by the boot manager of our machine:
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After selecting the first option or automatic startup, the system loads, and at the end, the console will inform us of the address where we can access the Proxmox virtualization environment. It can also be accessed from the same computer, but we will need to install the X.Org server, a desktop, a window manager, and a browser (preferably Firefox):
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With the help of another computer within our network, we will log in to the indicated address, in this case https://192.168.1.91:8006
We will be greeted by a login window where we will use User name as the user root and the password we chose during installation, as shown in the image below:
After successfully logging in, we will be greeted by a window reminding us that we do not have a valid subscription. We press the OK button since this does not hinder the operation of the system:
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The configuration environment is presented in the image below:
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In the left window, we have the pve node where two storage environments are defined: local, which contains the ISO images of the operating systems used for installation, and local-lvm, which holds the virtual disks of our virtual machines:
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The virtual machines will also be created within this node, and their numbering starts from 100:
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