How to Install Proxmox on the Raspberry Pi

In this tutorial, you will learn how to install the Proxmox Virtual Environment on the Raspberry Pi.

Proxmox Virtual Environment is an open-source virtualization platform that has an incredibly powerful and useful web interface.

You can easily manage virtual machines and containers on your Raspberry Pi using the built-in web interface.

This web interface even allows you to set up software-defined storage, network, and more. If you want to run VMs on your Raspberry Pi, Proxmox is one of the go-to solutions.

Thanks to recent advancements in Proxmox VE, it now supports ARM systems. The downside is that the team does not provide any builds for ARM64. Luckily, we can use a third-party fork of Proxmox that adds support for ARM systems like our Pi.

The fork that we are relying on is called Pxvirt. This fork maintains feature parity with Proxmox VE but features many additional optimizations that help Proxmox run even better on ARM.

The version of the Promox Virtual Environment that you will be installing in this guide depends on the version of Raspberry Pi OS you are running. If you are running Bookworm, then you will get Proxmox 8. If you are running Raspberry Pi OS Trixie, you will be running Proxmox 9.

Remember that while running virtual machines on your Raspberry Pi, avoid using anything too heavy. The Raspberry Pis aren’t the strongest machines, but they should be able to handle a few little VMs. You will have a better experience using the newer Pis with Proxmox, such as the Raspberry Pi 5.

Please note that for this tutorial to work, you must be running the 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite Bookworm or Trixie. Using other operating systems is not guaranteed to work and is likely to cause issues.

Equipment

Below is a list of the equipment we used when setting up the Proxmox Virtual Environment on our Raspberry Pi.

Recommended

• Raspberry Pi Amazon
• Micro SD Card Amazon
• Power Supply Amazon
• Ethernet Cable Amazon or Wi-Fi Amazon

Optional

• Raspberry Pi Case Amazon
• USB Mouse Amazon
• USB Keyboard Amazon
• HDMI Cable Amazon
• Monitor Amazon

This tutorial was last tested on a Raspberry Pi 5 running the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS Lite Trixie 64-bit.

Installing Proxmox on the Raspberry Pi

Over the following sections, we will walk you through installing the Promox virtual environment on your Raspberry Pi.

We highly recommend that you follow these steps using a clean installation of Raspberry Pi OS Lite. In particular, you should be using the 64-bit version.

A non-clean version of the operating system may cause the Proxmox installation process to break.

If you prefer video, you can follow our video guide embedded below. Otherwise, continue to see our full written guide on installing Proxmox to the Raspberry Pi.

Preparing your Raspberry Pi for Proxmox

1. Our first task before installing Proxmox onto the Raspberry Pi is to update the package list cache and upgrade any out-of-date packages.

You can perform both tasks by using the following two commands within the terminal.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgradeCopy

2. Your next step is to ensure that curl is installed on your Pi. We will be using curl to grab the GPG key for the PXVirt repository that we will be relying on to install Proxmox.

You can install this package by using the following command within the terminal.

sudo apt install curlCopy

3. Before proceeding with this tutorial, you must set up your Raspberry Pi to use a static IP address.

The best way to do this is using DHCP reservation in your router. However, we have a guide that shows you how to do this through your Raspberry Pi if you don’t have access to your router.

Modifying your Hosts File for Proxmox

4. After setting up a static IP address, we must now edit the hosts file. Proxmox expects your hostname to point to the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.

You can begin editing the hosts file on the Raspberry Pi using the nano text editor by running the following command.

sudo nano /etc/hostsCopy

5. With the hosts file open, you should see a line similar to the one below. Our hostname is set to the default “raspberrypi“, but yours might differ.

127.0.0.1            raspberrypi

After finding this line, you will want to replace “127.0.0.1” with the local IP address of your Raspberry Pi.

In our case, our Pi’s IP is “192.168.0.32” so we changed the line to look like the following.

192.168.0.32            raspberrypi

6. After making these changes, save and quit by pressing CTRL + X, Y, and then the ENTER key.

7. To verify that our changes are working, we can use the hostname command to output the IP address of our Raspberry Pi.

hostname --ip-addressCopy

If you have configured everything properly, the static IP of your Pi should be returned.

192.168.0.32

Stopping Cloud Init From Managing the Hosts File

8. Recent versions of Raspberry Pi OS now have Cloud-init set up. As part of that setup, it will now automatically update the hosts file and remove our changes.

Luckily, we can switch off this functionality by modifying the “cloud.cfg” file and disabling a particular option.

sudo nano /etc/cloud/cloud.cfgCopy

9. Within this file, you will want to find the following line. This will be under the “cloud_init_modules” header.

  - update_etc_hosts

Once you have found this line, all you need to do is add a hashtag (#) to the front of it. This comments out that line and will mean Cloud-Init will not override our changes when you restart.

#  - update_etc_hosts

10. After making this change, you will want to save and quit by pressing CTRL + X, Y, and then ENTER.

Set a Password for the root User

11. The next thing we must do to use Proxmox on our Raspberry Pi is set a password for the “root” user. If we don’t set a password for this user we will be unable to login through the Proxmox web interface.

You can set a password for the root user using the command below within the terminal.

sudo passwd rootCopy

12. To set a password, you must enter it twice, as shown below. We recommend that you set a strong password for this.

A password manager such as NordPass (Affiliate Link) makes generating and storing strong passwords significantly easier.

New password:
Retype new password:

Adding the Proxmox Port Repository to your Raspberry Pi

13. We are finally at the stage where we can begin adding the PXVirt repository to our Raspberry Pi. This repository is managed by a third party but allows us to install versions of Proxmox that can run on the Raspberry Pi’s hardware.

Our first step in this process is to add the GPG key for the repository. This key helps verify that the packages legitimately come from the PXVirt repository.

curl -L https://mirrors.lierfang.com/pxcloud/lierfang.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/lierfang.gpg >/dev/nullCopy

14. Before we add the repository itself that enables us to install and run Proxmox, we should use the “source” command to read in the “/etc/os-release” file. This will enable us to easily get and print the current OS codename.

You can read in this file by running the command below.

source /etc/os-releaseCopy

15. With the GPG key added, we can now add the repository itself to our sources list.

Use the command below to save the repository link into a file called “pveport.list“.

echo "deb [arch=arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/lierfang.gpg] https://mirrors.lierfang.com/pxcloud/pxvirt $VERSION_CODENAME main" | sudo tee  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pveport.listCopy

16. Since we made changes to the sources list, we must update the package list cache again by running the following command.

If we don’t do this, the package manager will be unaware of the repository we just added.

sudo apt updateCopy

Preparing your Pi’s Network for Proxmox

The next couple of sections will ensure that your network will continue to function once Proxmox has been installed. Without these steps, you will lose network connection later.

Preventing Network Manager from Managing your Network

17. By default, Raspberry Pi OS comes with Network Manager installed and set up to start at boot. We must disable this service to prevent it from automatically managing and breaking Proxmox’s own networking.

The first step in this process is to disable the “networkmanager” service so it will not automatically start when your Raspberry Pi boots.

sudo systemctl disable NetworkManagerCopy

18. Next, we can stop NetworkManager from running by using the command below in the terminal.

This will stop the service immediately, saving you from having to restart your Raspberry Pi.

sudo systemctl stop NetworkManagerCopy

19. Finally, for good measure, we will also apply a mask to the NetworkManager service. Applying a mask prevents this service from being re-enabled without the mask first being removed.

sudo systemctl mask NetworkManagerCopy

Installing ifupdown2

20. With everything in place, we can finally begin installing Proxmox on the Raspberry Pi.

The first package that must be installed on our system is “ifupdown2“. Proxmox uses this package to handle the network.

sudo apt install ifupdown2Copy

Please note, if you run into an error that says the following, there are a couple of extra

If you see the following error message when installing “ifupdown2” then you will need to follow steps “a” and “b” below. Otherwise, skip straight to step 14.

error: Another instance of this program is already running.

a. To work around the “already running” error, we will need to do some workaround steps to get ifupdown2 running.

This step involves deleting a temporary file that the ifupdown2 package is searching for during installation

sudo rm /tmp/.ifupdown2-first-installCopy

b. With the temporary file removed, we need to re-run the install process for ifupdown2 again by using the following command.

This will ensure that the final setup steps are properly executed.

sudo apt install ifupdown2Copy

Modifying Your Network Interfaces

21. Our next step is to make some adjustments to the interfaces file. If we don’t make these changes, Proxmox will break when your Raspberry Pi restarts.

With these changes we will be setting our “eth0” interface to manual and create a new network interface that will bridge your connections and be used by your virtual machines.

You can begin to write this file by using the following command.

sudo nano /etc/network/interfacesCopy

22. Within this file, you will want to add the following lines to the bottom of the file. There is a chance some of these interfaces are automatically specified, delete them and replace them with the values we have specified here

While filling out this file you must replace two values.

• <IPADDRESS>: Change this placeholder with the IP address of your Raspberry Pi. This must be the local IP that it is accessible on.
• <GATEWAY>: Replace this placeholder with the IP address of your gateway. Typically this will be the IP of your router.
  
  In a lot of cases this will actually be “192.168.0.1“.

auto lo
  iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
  iface eth0 inet manual

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet manual
        address <IPADDRESS>
        gateway <GATEWAY>
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        bridge-ports eth0
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0

23. Once you have filled out this file, save and quit by pressing CTRL + X, Y, and then ENTER.

24. To ensure these network changes are working, restart your Raspberry Pi by running the following command in the terminal.

sudo rebootCopy

Installing Proxmox to the Raspberry Pi from the Repository

25. Finally, you can install Proxmox VE and a few required packages by typing the following command in the terminal.

This installation process can take a few minutes, so be prepared to wait a few minutes. Additionally, there are a few prompts you will have to go through during installation.

sudo apt install proxmox-ve postfix open-iscsi pve-edk2-firmware-aarch64Copy

26. During installation, you will be asked to configure Postfix. You can navigate this menu using the ARROW keys to move and ENTER to select.

If you are unsure what you are doing here, select the “Local only” option.

27. Next, you will be asked to set the mail name for Postfix to utilize (1.).

Again, if you don’t know what you are doing here, leave the default name and press ENTER to continue (2.).

28. Please note that if you run into an error message after installing with a message like the following, just try re-running the install command again.

Errors were encountered while processing:
 pxvirt-spdk

Accessing the Proxmox Web Interface

29. Once Proxmox finishes installing on your Raspberry Pi, it should be safe to access its web interface.

All you need to access the web interface is the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.

hostname -ICopy

30. With your IP address in hand, you will want to go to the following address in your favorite web browser. Please note if you can’t connect, try restarting your Raspberry Pi and waiting a few minutes.

Ensure that you replace “<IPADDRESS>” with the IP of your Raspberry Pi.

https://<IPADDRESS>:8006

31. With the Proxmox web interface now open in your web browser, you must log in to your account.

Start by typing in the username as “root” and then use the password you set earlier for this user (1.).

Once you have filled in your information, click the “Login” button (2.).

32. You should now have access to the Proxmox web interface.

You can begin to set up new VMs through this interface as well as configure Proxmox VE itself.

Conclusion

Hopefully, at this stage in the tutorial, you will now have Proxmox VE installed on your Raspberry Pi.

You can utilize this tool to set up and manage virtual machines on your Pi. It is a powerful hypervisor, especially for those dealing with multiple virtual machines.

Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have run into any issues with getting this software to work on your device.

If you found this tutorial to be helpful, we highly recommend checking out our many other Raspberry Pi projects.