Virtualization / Proxmox questions

[Donut417]

Ive been wanting to rebuild my Plex server for some time. Mainly something more purposed built and physically smaller if I can. But I started thinking. Ive been wanting to potentially use PiHole, which I found out will run in Linux. Id also like to maybe run some Game servers (Part time) when me and my buddy play games on Sunday, plus Im niece and nephews are at the age where they like to game and I think it would be cool if we can have our own server. Currently Im under a data cap with my ISP but its $30/m for unlimited and with the data usage my dad use while working 4 10 hour shifts and the fact that he is retiring at the end of the year...... I have a feeling unlimited data is in my future. 

 

Been watching craft computing on YouTube. He does a lot with Proxmox and such. My first question or more of a confirmation..... Its free to use correct? Secondly I always wondered, that when you have multiple VM's on one machine, how does networking work? Does it NAT on the server for each VM? Would I need multiple network interfaces? 

[Senzelian]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Its free to use correct?

Yup. I run my Teamspeak server and PiHole currently on ProxMox and have not paid a penny.

 

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Does it NAT on the server for each VM? Would I need multiple network interfaces?

I have them set up as a network bridge. You can read more about it here:

https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Network_Configuration

[Master Disaster]

13 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Ive been wanting to rebuild my Plex server for some time. Mainly something more purposed built and physically smaller if I can. But I started thinking. Ive been wanting to potentially use PiHole, which I found out will run in Linux. Id also like to maybe run some Game servers (Part time) when me and my buddy play games on Sunday, plus Im niece and nephews are at the age where they like to game and I think it would be cool if we can have our own server. Currently Im under a data cap with my ISP but its $30/m for unlimited and with the data usage my dad use while working 4 10 hour shifts and the fact that he is retiring at the end of the year...... I have a feeling unlimited data is in my future. 

 

Been watching craft computing on YouTube. He does a lot with Proxmox and such. My first question or more of a confirmation..... Its free to use correct? Secondly I always wondered, that when you have multiple VM's on one machine, how does networking work? Does it NAT on the server for each VM? Would I need multiple network interfaces? 

1) Yeah Proxmox is free.

2) That depends on how you set things up. I'm not totally familiar with Proxmox but generally you can do either bridged mode where the client has a physical connection to your network or you create Vlans with virtual switches running on subdomains.

3) Using a VM for each service is not the ideal way to do it since each VM instance has some overhead so the more VMs you run the more resources you use just running the VMs. Create a single VM and do everything in that through Docker, Snap or even Screen.

[brwainer]

Proxmox is free, but to get updates for free you have to make a change to a config file. You will also get a nag reminder that you don’t have a subscription every time you log in and when you check for updates through the interface.

https://lunar.computer/posts/no-subscription-proxmox-60/

(there are many sites that show these steps, and there is also official documentation, but the documentation requires you understand how to change the apt repositories and doesn't just give instructions)

[Windows7ge]

Q1.

As everyone else has mentioned it's free to use but you do have to deal with an annoying pop-up message every login:

 

 

Just click OK and it goes away. Everything you can see is usable. None of the tools are locked out except the Enterprise Repositories.

 

Q2.

From the Node -> System -> Network menu you create a Linux Bridge (vmbr#) and assign the physical interface as a slave (enp#s#):

 

 

Then you just assign the bridge when you go to create your VM or CT:

 

 

What happens here is the VM or CT gets assigned a randomly generated or manually designated MAC address. These MACs can be recognized on the network as separate physical interfaces and collect IP's via DHCP or be given static addresses. The bridge doesn't use NAT you have direct access to the LAN that the physical interface is connected so Port Forwarding is entirely doable and I have done for a series of servers.

 

Random side note:

Also as of version 6.0-4 there is no Dark Mode/Theme to my knowledge. 

 

[Donut417]

Now with Plex you can pass thru a GPU for hardware transcoding. So does that mean that there is no video out for the server if the GPU is passed thru? As in I would need a second GPU or at the very least a IGPU on the chip? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

15 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Now with Plex you can pass thru a GPU for hardware transcoding. So does that mean that there is no video out for the server if the GPU is passed thru? As in I would need a second GPU or at the very least a IGPU on the chip? 

If a gpu is passed to a vm, the host can't use it at the same time.

 

Id normally suggest 2 gpus so you can manage it if something goes wrong, but you can tell it to not use a gpu and give the only gpu to a vm.

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If a gpu is passed to a vm, the host can't use it at the same time.

 

Id normally suggest 2 gpus so you can manage it if something goes wrong, but you can tell it to not use a gpu and give the only gpu to a vm.

Cool beans. 

[Windows7ge]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Now with Plex you can pass thru a GPU for hardware transcoding. So does that mean that there is no video out for the server if the GPU is passed thru? As in I would need a second GPU or at the very least a IGPU on the chip? 

If you use a server motherboard you'll be all set with onboard video then all your dGPU's can be passed through. PROXMOX uses a WebUI though so beyond initial setup the host having a GPU isn't critical. It is useful though if you lose remote access to the WebUI.

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

If you use a server motherboard you'll be all set with onboard video then all your dGPU's can be passed through. PROXMOX uses a WebUI though so beyond initial setup the host having a GPU isn't critical. It is useful though if you lose remote access to the WebUI.

Thanks for the info guys. I did see several mATX and mini ITX server boards. Because when I decide to build my new server, Im going to try for a smaller than ATX build, hopefully. I still haven't found a case I like yet. Plus right now isn't really the time to be buying hardware. 

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Thanks for the info guys. I did see several mATX and mini ITX server boards. Because when I decide to build my new server, Im going to try for a smaller than ATX build, hopefully. I still haven't found a case I like yet. Plus right now isn't really the time to be buying hardware. 

Maybe not hardware but any time is a good time to do as much research as you can.

 

I don't know if this is something you're aware of but if you plan to use an NVIDIA GPU that is anything other than RTX 3XXX series expect to run into Error Code 43 when you try to install the NVIDIA driver on the Windows VM (if that's your plan).

 

NVIDIA doesn't like people using their desktop series cards in VM's so they locked everyone out at the driver level. You can bypass the driver lock but I only know how to do it using QEMU/KVM & Libvert...if you have a Quadro kicking around that should work. Anything AMD will work too except the RX 5XXX series. They don't play friendly with GPU pass-through.

[Donut417]

18 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

series expect to run into Error Code 43 when you try to install the NVIDIA driver on the Windows VM (if that's your plan).

 

1) I dont plan on using Windows. Hopefully I can do everything in Linux. 

2) I planned on buying a Nvidia Quadro. I know that there are a few models that are affordable and should be able to handle Plex no issues.