Installing Proxmox VE directly on Hetzner

[anauuli]

Hello Proxmox team and community,


I have a dedicated server at Hetzner and I’m planning to install Proxmox VE (I have an active Proxmox subscription). However, when using Hetzner’s installimage tool, Proxmox is marked as “unsupported” and not listed among the available OS images.


I understand that “unsupported” here likely refers to their automation and install templates, but I want to clarify this fully—especially since I want a clean ZFS root setup and ideally install Proxmox directly via ISO using their KVM Console.


My questions are:

1. If I install Proxmox VE manually via the official ISO (using KVM), is there any downside in terms of long-term stability or subscription validity?
2. Would you recommend installing Debian 12 via Hetzner’s installimage and adding Proxmox manually on top, or is using the Proxmox ISO the better method (especially for ZFS root)?
3. Any potential pitfalls when running Proxmox on Hetzner hardware directly?

Thanks in advance—just want to make sure I take the best path forward for a stable and supported setup.


Ana

 

[LnxBil]

If I install Proxmox VE manually via the official ISO (using KVM), is there any downside in terms of long-term stability or subscription validity?

No downside I know of.

Would you recommend installing Debian 12 via Hetzner’s installimage and adding Proxmox manually on top, or is using the Proxmox ISO the better method (especially for ZFS root)?

Debian does not come with native ZFS support, so you cannot install it directly. If you want to use the iso, use the hetzner KVM console to add the iso image to the machine.

Alternatively boot into a live linux / rescue linux via hetzner and spin up KVM from there to install PVE via iso.

Any potential pitfalls when running Proxmox on Hetzner hardware directly?

We've been running it for many years without any problems, yet that depends on the used hardware. We always used at least the entry level xeons with ECC RAM and enterprise HDD and later SSDs.