⚙️ Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE)

Proxmox VE is an open‑source virtualization platform that combines KVM (Kernel‑based Virtual Machine) and LXC (Linux Containers) into a single management interface. It provides clustering, high availability, storage integration, and a powerful web‑based UI—making it ideal for both enterprise and homelab deployments.

🖥️ Proxmox Cluster

The lab runs a three‑node Proxmox cluster, providing redundancy and high availability:

The cluster can be managed from any of these URLs, with quorum maintained across all three nodes.
Installation follows the official Proxmox instructions.

🖥️ Host Details

Each node uses the same hardware platform: ACEMAGIC S1 Mini PC.

Hostname	IP Address	Memory	OS Drive	Secondary Drive
pve‑0	192.168.2.200	16GB	512GB	512GB
pve‑1	192.168.2.201	16GB	512GB	512GB
pve‑2	192.168.2.202	16GB	512GB	512GB

The secondary drive is a Western Digital Red SA500 NAS SSD. These SSDs are dedicated to the Ceph distributed storage cluster, providing resilient, high‑performance storage for VMs and containers.

📦 Ceph Storage

Ceph is tightly integrated with Proxmox and provides the cluster’s primary shared storage backend.

Why Ceph?

High Availability: VM disks are replicated across nodes, eliminating single points of failure.
Scalability: Storage pools can grow seamlessly by adding more disks or nodes.
Unified Storage: Supports block storage (RBD), object storage, and filesystem storage.
Self‑Healing: Automatically rebalances and recovers data when nodes or drives fail.

Lab Setup

Each Proxmox node contributes its secondary SSD as a Ceph OSD (Object Storage Daemon).
Ceph monitors (MONs) run on all three nodes to maintain cluster state.
A replicated Ceph pool is used for VM disks, ensuring redundancy (e.g., 3‑way replication).
VM disks stored on Ceph can be live‑migrated between nodes without downtime.

Storage Flow (Text Diagram)

[ VM Disk ] → stored in → [ Ceph Pool ]
                 ↑
   replicated across → [ OSDs on pve-0, pve-1, pve-2 ]
                 ↑
   managed by → [ Ceph MONs on all nodes ]

This mirrors enterprise‑grade storage practices while remaining lightweight enough for homelab hardware.

💡 Proxmox Tips & Hints

ISO Images

Store ISO images in the following directory on each node:

/var/lib/vz/template/iso/

CT Templates

Container templates are stored here:

/var/lib/vz/template/cache/

Handy Notes

Keep ISOs and templates synchronized across nodes for consistency.
Use Proxmox Backup Server alongside Ceph for snapshotting and deduplication.
Monitor Ceph health with ceph -s to ensure replication and recovery are functioning correctly.

👉 A list of Proxmox Command-Line Snippets is also available. This provides a cheat sheet of commonly used Proxmox commands.

🚀 Why This Matters

By combining Proxmox clustering with Ceph distributed storage, the lab achieves:

High availability for workloads
Seamless VM migration across nodes
Enterprise‑style storage resiliency
Hands‑on experience with production‑grade virtualization and storage technologies

This makes the homelab not just a sandbox, but a true mirror of modern infrastructure practices.