I am a complete newbie to home labs and this advice is really just for anyone who is/might be in my recent position.
I like to consider myself a technologically able person. I am a Comp Sci student, have done networking IT stuff in the past. I thought to myself "How hard could it be to really install a proxmox VE server on my old gaming PC?" Little did I know, I would spend 8 hours banging my head against the wall trying to get my Proxmox Server started, much less get it to reboot reliably.
After browsing this forum and reddit for hours trying to figure out why my computer wasn't connecting to my home network, I discovered (painfully) why my server wasn't working.
1) Check your ethernet cable. I know this sounds so stupid, but a good half hour of my life was wasted due to a bad cable. An easy way to check is to make sure the lights on your router and PC show a green connection, which signifies a solid connection. I feel so dumb for this, but figured I'd put it in here.
2) If you are trying to do a headless install (no monitor) and you notice that the server only is connected to your network when a monitor is plugged in, it is likely that your machine is just simply not booting into proxmox when headless. This is sooooo easily confused as a networking issue because the server will not be internally pingable and, as someone who doesn't fully understand the boot process of a machine, this problem haunted me for HOURS. My solution was to simply remove the old GPU from the server as I don't plan on using it in any containers/VMs. I do think that there may be some BIOS firmware stuff you could do, and if the GPU is needed you may also be able to get a dummy HDMI plug. Though, don't rely on me for that information as I haven't tested it as a solution.
The only reason I am posting this on here is because this community has already been so helpful to me and I thought I would return the favor to any newbies who are struggling with the same issues. Best of luck to all those new proxmox users out there
I like to consider myself a technologically able person. I am a Comp Sci student, have done networking IT stuff in the past. I thought to myself "How hard could it be to really install a proxmox VE server on my old gaming PC?" Little did I know, I would spend 8 hours banging my head against the wall trying to get my Proxmox Server started, much less get it to reboot reliably.
After browsing this forum and reddit for hours trying to figure out why my computer wasn't connecting to my home network, I discovered (painfully) why my server wasn't working.
1) Check your ethernet cable. I know this sounds so stupid, but a good half hour of my life was wasted due to a bad cable. An easy way to check is to make sure the lights on your router and PC show a green connection, which signifies a solid connection. I feel so dumb for this, but figured I'd put it in here.
2) If you are trying to do a headless install (no monitor) and you notice that the server only is connected to your network when a monitor is plugged in, it is likely that your machine is just simply not booting into proxmox when headless. This is sooooo easily confused as a networking issue because the server will not be internally pingable and, as someone who doesn't fully understand the boot process of a machine, this problem haunted me for HOURS. My solution was to simply remove the old GPU from the server as I don't plan on using it in any containers/VMs. I do think that there may be some BIOS firmware stuff you could do, and if the GPU is needed you may also be able to get a dummy HDMI plug. Though, don't rely on me for that information as I haven't tested it as a solution.
The only reason I am posting this on here is because this community has already been so helpful to me and I thought I would return the favor to any newbies who are struggling with the same issues. Best of luck to all those new proxmox users out there
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