Note New FAQs are appended to the bottom of this section.

  1. What distribution is PVE based on?

    PVE is based on Debian GNU/Linux

  2. What license does the PVE project use?

    PVE code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.

  3. Will PVE run on a 32bit processor?

    PVE works only on 64-bit CPUs (AMD or Intel). There is no plan for 32-bit for the platform.

    Note VMs and Containers can be both 32-bit and/or 64-bit.

  4. Does my CPU support virtualization?

    To check if your CPU is virtualization compatible, check for the vmx or svm tag in this command output: 

    egrep '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

  5. Supported Intel CPUs

    64-bit processors with Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT-x) support. (List of processors with Intel VT and 64-bit)

  6. Supported AMD CPUs

    64-bit processors with AMD Virtualization Technology (AMD-V) support.

  7. What is a container, CT, VE, Virtual Private Server, VPS?

    Operating-system-level virtualization is a server-virtualization method where the kernel of an operating system allows for multiple isolated user-space instances, instead of just one. We call such instances containers. As containers use the host’s kernel they are limited to Linux guests.

  8. What is a QEMU/KVM guest (or VM)?

    A QEMU/KVM guest (or VM) is a guest system running virtualized under PVE using QEMU and the Linux KVM kernel module.

  9. What is QEMU?

    QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. QEMU uses the Linux KVM kernel module to achieve near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. It is not limited to Linux guests but allows arbitrary operating systems to run.

  10. How long will my PVE version be supported?

    PVE versions are supported at least as long as the corresponding Debian Version is oldstable. PVE uses a rolling release model and using the latest stable version is always recommended.

    PVE Version Debian Version First Release Debian EOL Proxmox EOL

    PVE 5.x

    Debian 9 (Stretch)

    2017-07

    tba

    tba

    PVE 4.x

    Debian 8 (Jessie)

    2015-10

    2018-06

    2018-06

    PVE 3.x

    Debian 7 (Wheezy)

    2013-05

    2016-04

    2017-02

    PVE 2.x

    Debian 6 (Squeeze)

    2012-04

    2014-05

    2014-05

    PVE 1.x

    Debian 5 (Lenny)

    2008-10

    2012-03

    2013-01

  11. LXC vs LXD vs Proxmox Containers vs Docker

    LXC is a userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features. Through a powerful API and simple tools, it lets Linux users easily create and manage system containers. LXC, as well as the former OpenVZ, aims at system virtualization, i.e. allows you to run a complete OS inside a container, where you log in as ssh, add users, run apache, etc…

    LXD is building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It’s basically an alternative to LXC’s tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.

    Proxmox Containers also aims at system virtualization, and thus uses LXC as the basis of its own container offer. The Proxmox Container Toolkit is called pct, and is tightly coupled with PVE. That means that it is aware of the cluster setup, and it can use the same network and storage resources as fully virtualized VMs. You can even use the PVE firewall, create and restore backups, or manage containers using the HA framework. Everything can be controlled over the network using the PVE API.

    Docker aims at running a single application running in a contained environment. Hence you’re managing a docker instance from the host with the docker toolkit. It is not recommended to run docker directly on your PVE host.

    Note You can however perfectly install and use docker inside a Proxmox Qemu VM, and thus getting the benefit of software containerization with the very strong isolation that VMs provide.