Setting up a Proxmox server: the step-by-step plan

Setting up your own Proxmox server goes most smoothly in a fixed order. Below you go through the steps. Each step has the tool that helps you and the article that explains it. You don’t have to do everything in one evening: every step stands on its own.

Step 1: Work out what it costs first

A server that’s on day and night costs electricity. Use Power Costs to see what your computer uses per year. Torn between your current hardware and a more efficient one? Compare them with the Homelab Cost Comparison. Tips to keep it low are in Frugal and quiet.

Step 2: Choose the installation type

What do you run in what: a virtual machine, an LXC container or Docker? Answer a few questions in the Installation Guide and you get advice, with the guides that go with it. More background: your first virtual machine and creating an LXC container.

Step 3: Install Proxmox

Follow Installing Proxmox VE on your own server. After that it’s wise to set up the updates and repositories right away, as in Proxmox after installation.

Step 4: Create your first container

Put your container together in the LXC Generator and get the ready-made pct create command, including Docker options and a bind mount. You paste it into the shell of your Proxmox host.

Step 5: Sort out the permissions

Can’t your container write to a shared folder? That’s almost always because of user IDs. With the Permissions Helper (UID/GID) you convert between container and host and get the right chown or idmap command.

Step 6: Get the firewall in order

Use the UFW Firewall Generator to make the commands for your guests, in the right order and with a check that you don’t lock yourself out. Then use the Port Checker to test which ports are reachable from outside. Only what you deliberately open should be there. See also Cheat sheet: UFW.

Step 7: Arrange your backups

A server without a backup is a risk. With the Backup and Recovery Planner make a checklist of what you protect, where the copy goes and how you restore it. How to do it in Proxmox itself is in Making and restoring backups in Proxmox.

Afterwards

Your server is running. Useful next steps: Proxmox tips and tricks, and the other step-by-step plans: setting up Docker services, dividing your home network and arranging backups.