[SOLVED] Headless - PVE won't boot without GFX card

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daxliniere

New Member
May 15, 2025
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Hi Proxmox devs,
I have a new server build and I've found PVE won't boot if there is no GFX card present. (Brand new installation using PVE 8.4.)

System is i5-12400f (no iGPU) and a GFX card was only installed during software installation for lowest possible power consumption. I have confirmed that this configuration does work with this motherboard as TrueNAS Scale 25.04.0 boots perfectly well. Sure, the motherboard beeps its warning about no GPU present, but it POSTs fine regardless.

How can I set PVE to not halt when no GFX card is found without disabling GFX altogether? It's possible troubleshooting may require me to pop that GFX card in for local control.


Thank you and all the best,
Dax.


SOLVED: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/solved-remove-gpu-after-installation.122780/#post-535250
 
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Does it not boot or is it only not reachable via the network? The PCI IDs change when you remove (or add, enable or disable) PCI(e) devices and that can cause a change in the name of the network controller and that makes the network configuration invalid. It also can cause problems with PCI(e) passthrough, obviously.
 
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Hey @leesteken, thanks for your reply. :)

Does it not boot or is it only not reachable via the network
Click to expand...
Good question! Though hard to determine unless I plug the GPU card in to check... :p Yes, you are correct that I'm unable to access it from the network. The DHCP server has been to set assign a fixed IP to the PC's NIC's MAC address, so it should always be available in the same place, but as you say, if the NIC hasn't fired up at all, that's another story. (NIC is onboard, by the way.)

It does seem very strange to me that PVE would be using arbitrary IDs (the system's PCI order), rather than the devices' own unique IDs. To the point that this almost seems like a bug.

Either way, I need to find a way around this issue. Any ideas on what I can try next, please?

All the best,
Dax.
 
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daxliniere said:
Either way, I need to find a way around this issue. Any ideas on what I can try next, please?
Click to expand...
After booting with that malfunction: turn off, reinsert the GPU, boot and look into the Journal of the previous (failed) boot: journalctl -b -1. See also man journalctl
 
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Hey @UdoB and @leesteken! I re-installed Proxmox, booted up and accessed from browser, shut down, removed GPU, rebooted, waited 5 mins, confirmed no web access, shutdown with power key, plugged in GPU, booted up, SSH'd in and ran journalctl -b -1. The output is attached (but is not small! )

Any ideas what I should be looking for here? Line 1192 seems likely ("error: vmbr0: bridge port enp3s0 does not exist"). Line 1196 points to 'full logs' (also attached).
 

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daxliniere said:
Any ideas what I should be looking for here?
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r8169 0000:02:00.0 enp2s0: renamed from eth0 My guess is that you have enp3s0 instead in your /etc/network/interfaces but it got changed to enp2s0 after the GPU was taken out.
PS: It looks like it boots fine, so it's probably the network device name changes. You can fix the network device name but I don't know the Proxmox Wiki link, sorry.
 
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daxliniere said:
Hey @leesteken, I think you were typing as I was editing my message. :) Thanks for replying so quickly!
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Try changing the contents of /etc/network/interfaces to use enp2s0 in both places where there is now enp3s0 (with the GPU installed using the host console and shutdown, remove GPU, start again). You should be able to reach the Proxmox host without the GPU (but not with the GPU but it that case you can access the host console).
daxliniere said:
Would you like to see the 'full logs'?
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No.
daxliniere said:
As in, I can make it fixed rather than dynamic?
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Yes. See 'Overriding network device names' in https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Network_Configuration#_naming_conventions
 
UdoB said:
Is this :
Code: 
May 16 19:10:26 pve pmxcfs[942]: [main] notice: resolved node name 'pve' to '192.168.2.205' for default node IP address
the expected address?
Click to expand...
Yes, but there is a line in the logs about bridging, so my guess is that's why I can't access it.
 
Okay, we're all solved! Thanks everyone for the information. Once I knew what was wrong and how to attack it, I was able to get it done.

Really appreciate the help, especially for a noob. :)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

-Dax.
 
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