Proper way to install Proxmox in UEFI mode.

[IsThisThingOn]

I think Proxmox should be able to work with secure boot enabled.

I think this mainly just controls the time the logo screen displays for, based on the Help Message? Or not?

Fast boot and ultra fast boot sometimes does quirky things. Like MSI messing it up. Or like Ultra fast boot not working on older GPUs and USB not being initialized before boot.

Retry again, with
- boot mode UEFI only
- Quick boot disabled
- GPU OpROM UEFI

also did you find out what GPU you are using?

 

[M_D]

I think Proxmox should be able to work with secure boot enabled.

I would expect so - however, Secure Boot seems to default to off, and I am happy to leave it at that for now.

Retry again, with
- boot mode UEFI only
- Quick boot disabled
- GPU OpROM UEFI

I reset the CMOS again to regain access to the BIOS. Then, the first thing I did was attempt to setup Intel AMT, thinking this would be helpful in this whole process. Firstly, I ran into a "setup data integrity check failure" failure after pressing Ctrl+P in the boot menu to access AMT config. Entering F1 BIOS setup and selecting "Load optimized defaults" (factory settings basically) solved this - I gained access to AMT config. I am now working on setting this up (got very close then ran into some password issues) as having Out of Band access to the system could be very helpful.

Hopefully I can get AMT happy, then will try to boot Proxmox again.

also did you find out what GPU you are using?

NVIDIA Quadro 4000

 

[IsThisThingOn]

That is a 15y old card, so there might be dragons.

 

[M_D]

I have managed to configure Intel AMT and gain access over the network, however, due the the absence of an iGPU, there is no framebuffer for AMT to capture, so no remote video console... I was hoping I would be able to interact with the BIOS over the network even if GPU video output was not working, but not so...

Question now is, why on earth is Proxmox installer USB not being detected when:
- Boot mode UEFI.
- Video OpROM: Legacy
- CSM: Enabled, so the video can be set to Legacy.

 

[M_D]

Think I am finally making some progress

I first found there was a BIOS update available for my server - went from a 2015 version to a 2021 version - thought it couldn't be a bad thing.

I loaded the BIOS update onto a USB as per Lenovo instructions. When I went to boot this, the system recognised it as a UEFI bootable disk - it booted fine and ran the update.

I then tried to boot Proxmox installer again with the updated firmware, however, it still only recognised my USB as Legacy bootable. At this point I figured there MUST be something wrong with my Proxmox USB, created with Rufus. So I tried with Ventoy instead, and was able to boot the installer in UEFI. After install, I rebooted to the BIOS, double checked the boot mode was set to UEFI Only (no possibility of booting Legacy), and sure enough, PVE started right up.

I then got a bit confused double checking if it was certainly using EFI and systemd-boot. I read this thread (https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/h...x-is-booting-with-grub-or-systemd-boot.67020/), and checked for the existence of "/etc/kernel/pve-efiboot-uuids" - it is not there.

However, the system must be booting in UEFI, as the firmware is set to UEFI only. Also, the bootloader visually appears to be the systemd one, not Grub (it is very plain and black).

Additionally this looks to confirm UEFI is being used:

root@pve2:/sys/firmware/efi# proxmox-boot-tool status
Re-executing '/usr/sbin/proxmox-boot-tool' in new private mount namespace..
System currently booted with uefi
0323-2B2A is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.17.2-1-pve)
0324-3625 is configured with: uefi (versions: 6.17.2-1-pve)

So I think all is good. Thanks for everyone's help.

Now I just need to make 100% sure the boot partitions are automatically sync'ed to both boot disks (so it can still boot if one fails), I think it does, and also sort out this message which I get on the console:

kvm_intel: L1TF CPU bug present and SMT on, data leak possible.