[SOLVED] Network Settings Support Request

[z0rg0n]

I'm just starting to dive into using a hypervisor but have some tinkering experience on my home network. But I'm still having trouble predicting how Proxmox is interacting with my network.

During the install of Proxmox I set the following;
Hostname: Proxmox.box.local
IP Address: 192.168.1.0 / 24
Gateway: 192.168.1.223
DNS Server: 127.0.0.1


During setup I choose them based on these understandings:
Hostname - Picked an arbitrary name which will be used for my computer on the network
IP Address - The Native VLAN/Network setting on my Unify router for the port I plugged my Proxmox machine into is set to the default value of 192.168.1.0/24. I figure the IP address I set for my Proxmox machine should be the same so the router knows to listen on the correct range.
Gateway - I thought this would be the local IP address of the Proxmox server. I picked the last three digits randomly.
DNS Server - Someone else in a guide used this value. I guess so Proxmox can use this to lookup that google.com is actually 8.8.8.8


Once this was saved and plugged into the port on my router I thought I would just go to 192.168.1.223:8006 and be able to access the Proxmox GUI. Turns out it's on 192.168.1.0:8006 instead. Fine, whatever. I don't get it but it doesn't matter to me as long as it works. The problem is when I try to access the GUI on my phone both 192.168.1.0:8006 and 192.168.1.223:8006 time out even though my phone is connected to the WiFi and can see my router.

Also, on my Unify router there's no client shown for Proxmox but there are clients for both the Debian VMs I spun up (at 192.168.1.56 and 192.168.1.140)

**Questions:**

• Why can I not connect to Proxmox on my phone but it works fine on my Laptop?
• Why is Proxmox not showing as a client on my Unify router?

 

[z0rg0n]

It seems like the OP in this reddit post had the same issue but I can't figure out what the replies are trying to say. Like aren't all my computers on my network using my router as a DHCP server? Otherwise how is it possible that any of the traffic knows where to go in my home network.

But if that were true I guess Proxmox would show up as a client in the router page but it doesn't. But then why can my lapop connect to Proxmox?

 

[z0rg0n]

I just tried changing the nework settings to:
IP Address: 192.168.56.0 / 24
Gateway: 192.168.56.223

I was thinking it's because Proxmox needs to have an IP address set to a different range than the DHCP server based off of this section of this video. That killed all access to Proxmox so I'm going to have to start over from scratch and try some new numbers.

 

[bbgeek17]

I'd recommend reading a few more articles on the basics of networking, or viewing a video or two.
i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNwEVYkx2Kk

While .0 could be a valid IP, its not in your case.
The Gateway is not a "local ip of proxmox server".
The DNS is not 127.0.0.1 unless you run your own DNS local, which you are not.

---

Blockbridge : Ultra low latency all-NVME shared storage for Proxmox - https://www.blockbridge.com/proxmox

 

[BobhWasatch]

IP Address - The Native VLAN/Network setting on my Unify router for the port I plugged my Proxmox machine into is set to the default value of 192.168.1.0/24. I figure the IP address I set for my Proxmox machine should be the same so the router knows to listen on the correct range.

This is not correct. You apparently don't understand what the /24 does.

It specifies the division between the network and host parts of the address. IP routing is based on prefixes, where the prefix represents the network and the rest represents the particular host on that network. The /24 means the network prefix is 24 bits, so the left-most 3 bytes. That prefix must be the same for all hosts on a given network, but the right-most byte must be different for each one. Each number between the dots represents a byte and can be between 0 and 255 decimal (00 to ff hex).

If you work through that, the address for your PVE must be in the range 192.168.1.0 - 192.168.1.255. You should not use the first or last address in a network because the first address represents the network and the last is the broadcast, so .0 and .255 are not allowed. Therefore you must assign an address in the range 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.254.

In addition, as I said, the address you pick must be unique on that network. You can't use the same address twice. Usually your router will either be .1 or .254 so those shouldn't be used either.

Gateway - I thought this would be the local IP address of the Proxmox server. I picked the last three digits randomly.
DNS Server - Someone else in a guide used this value. I guess so Proxmox can use this to lookup that google.com is actually 8.8.8.8

This is not correct either. The gateway is where packets will be sent that aren't for the local network and don't match any other route you may have set. It will normally be the address of your router.

Using Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS is fine, but down the road you might want to set up local DNS on your router and use that instead. That way you can assign names to devices on your network.

• Why can I not connect to Proxmox on my phone but it works fine on my Laptop?
• Why is Proxmox not showing as a client on my Unify router?

Is your phone an iPhone and your laptop a PC? Operating systems derived from BSD Unix use the first address of the block as an optional method of doing broadcast along with the last one, while other operating systems allow it as an address. Apple's operating systems derive very indirectly from BSD.

I don't have a Unify router but on my OpenWRT one there are two places where systems show up. One is on the DHCP page, where my PVE does not show up because it does not use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, a way of assigning addresses on-demand), but my laptop and phone do show there. The other place is on the Routes page where OpenWRT shows the ARP and NDP (IPv6 version of ARP) caches. My PVE does show up there, along with every other active device on my network.

ETA: ARP = Address Resolution Protocol, NDP = Neighbor Discovery Protocol. I should also note that the reason you avoid the DHCP range of your router is because of the requirement that addresses be unique. You don't want to accidentally pick an address that is in use.

 

[z0rg0n]

Solved Stuff:

These were good videos @bbgeek17 and your explanation makes sense now @BobhWasatch thank you! I watched a few of them and have a better idea of what I'm looking at.

I reinstalled Proxmox from scratch and set the CIDR notation for the IPv4 address to 192.168.1.223/24
Meaning 192.168.1 are all locked and need to be for Proxmox to communicate with other devices on my network. 223 is the host IP which is used by Proxmox. Makes sense and matches what I'm seeing in my router!

Now I can access it from my phone while on LAN (yay!).



Further Question:
DNS

So I set the DNS to my router at 192.168.1.1 this time around mainly because I was just throwing things at the wall to see what stuck.

From reading both of your explanations I'm seeing this is wrong. I should have set it as Cloudflares 1.1.1.1 or google's 8.8.8.8 until I get my own DNS server up.

But what's odd is that in the shell of Proxmox I can still ping google.com and any other web address and it resolves correctly. If my DNS server is set wrong (currently points to my router) how is this possible? I'm guessing my router forwards this DNS request to one of the big servers?

But I'm thinking my understanding of this is wrong because when I try to run Proxmox VE helper scripts the shell stops responding. My thought is that it's trying to resolve the web address and isn't getting any info?



Backburner stuff:
Regarding DHCP;
I can see why someone would want their PVEs on a different network than the rest of the things in their home. But I think for me for now I'm going to keep everything on 192.168.1.0/24
It's just easier for me to understand and for now I don't have a reason to isolate them. I'll dive into this more when I start separating stuff out.

 

[BobhWasatch]

Most routers do DNS proxy/forwarding out of the box. They will typically forward to the one your ISP assigns via DHCP. That is likely why it works when you point PVE to your router for DNS.

I don't know what the "helper scripts" do, I have never used them. They aren't officially sanctioned AFAIK.

Glad to hear you got it going!

 

[z0rg0n]

Most routers do DNS proxy/forwarding out of the box. They will typically forward to the one your ISP assigns via DHCP. That is likely why it works when you point PVE to your router's DNS.

I don't know what the "helper scripts" do, I have never used them. They aren't officially sanctioned AFAIK.

Glad to hear you got it going!

Thank you very much! It helped a lot just getting a little guidance so I knew what I was looking for.

I marked the thread as solved!