Export Virtual Machine in qcow2 format.

I don't understand, someone linked to this guide for explaining how to export a VM, it doesn't say anywhere where the VM files are stored
 
I don't understand, someone linked to this guide for explaining how to export a VM, it doesn't say anywhere where the VM files are stored
Export it via vzdump or the GUI and "it depends" on your configuration where your VMs are stored.
 
Is there currently a way to export a VM via the Proxmox GUI and use that export on a desktop machine?

The idea behind this is to have a quick way to start a few VMs on another machine in case the Proxmox server fails. I know about clusters and similar setups, but I don’t want to go to that extent.

So: is it possible to export a VM directly from the Proxmox GUI and then boot that export using a standard tool like virt-manager on a Debian desktop?
 
I'm using Proxmox as an on-top installation on an existing Debian 12 system (netinstall), because I prefer working with a full OS that—at least without a GUI—is identical to my desktop setup. However, when installing Proxmox VE, the default Debian kernel is replaced by a Proxmox kernel.


Unfortunately, the Proxmox kernel repeatedly causes issues when compiling various system tools—such as the Nvidia driver (run installer) or sometimes even with the Arduino IDE. That's why, as a workaround, I’d like to be able to copy VMs from the Proxmox host to my desktop machine and run them there—without relying on the Proxmox kernel.


In the past, I did this using VirtualBox, which worked fine, although Proxmox is much more comfortable, stable, and saves a lot of administrative effort (especially backups, routines, etc.).


So my question is: How can I export a VM from my Proxmox host and run it on my desktop machine? Ideally via the GUI (alternatively by copying qcow images via shell/SSH).
 
you can export/copy the disk(s), but the PVE config and those of other hypervisors (even QEMU managers) are different, so you'd need to create a matching one yourself. if you are using QEMU on the other host as well, you could try to run it manually with slight adaptations by basing the invocation off of the output of "qm showcmd XXX --pretty".