Proxmox Setup

Credit to @bban160 for helping with the filesystem setup.

Disable Secure Boot

We want Proxmox to install and configure everything with systemd-boot. If Secure Boot is enabled, it will use grub instead.

Use 4K sectors

• Boot into a live ISO.
• Install the nvme-cli package.
• Check if the NVME drives support 4096 sector size with:

nvme id-ns /path/to/drive -H

• If the drives support 4096 sector size, run

nvme format /path/to/drive -b 4096

Initial filesystem config

• Boot into the installation media. Select the 2 drives and use ZFS RAID 1.

  • ashift=12
  • compress=zstd
  • checksum=sha256
  • copies=1
  • ARC max size=16384 MiB
  • hdsize=32 GB

• Install Proxmox.

Setup bond

If the server has redundant networking, setup a bond (Active-Backup or LACP):

Then set vmbr0 bridge port to the bond.

Update DNS settings

• Make sure the search domain is appropriate
• Setup DNS servers (1.1.1.2, 1.0.0.2, 2606:4700:4700::1112)

Intial setup script

The intial setup script to be run after installation is maintained here.

Setup Firewalling

• Datacenter -> Firewall -> Add rules for PVE web panel, SSH, and Ping
• Datacenter -> Firewall -> Options -> Firewall -> Enable
• Node name -> Firewall -> Options -> Enable TCP flags filter

⚠️ Port forwarding for OPNsense does not work if nftables is used in conjunction with proxmox-firewall version 1.2.0 and above, so do not enable nftables for now.

Reformat the first drive

Format the first drive for the encrypted installation (different from the unencrypted drive the system currently runs on). For our purposes, lets call this first drive drive1.

drive1='/dev/disk/by-id/nvme-FIRSTDRIVESERIALNUMBER'

zpool detach rpool "${drive1}-part3"
blkdiscard --force "${drive1}" # Or secure erase
wipefs "${drive1}" --all
sgdisk -g "${drive1}"
sgdisk -I -n 1:0:+1G -t 0:ef00 -c 0:'ESP' "${drive1}"
mkfs.fat "${drive1}-part1" -F 32 -n 'ESP'
proxmox-boot-tool clean
proxmox-boot-tool init "${drive1}-part1"
sgdisk -I -n 2:0:+32G -t 0:8309 -c 0:'PVE' "${drive1}"
sgdisk -I -n 3:0:0 -t 0:bf01 -c 0:'PVE Data' "${drive1}"

Configure pve pool

apt install cryptsetup-initramfs
cryptsetup luksFormat "${drive1}-part2"
cryptsetup open --allow-discards --persistent "${drive1}-part2" cryptroot1

zpool create \
    -m none \
    -o ashift=12 \
    -o autoexpand=on \
    -o autotrim=on \
    -o comment='PVE' \
    -o failmode=wait \
    -O acltype=posix \
    -O atime=off \
    -O checksum=blake3 \
    -O compression=zstd-3 \
    -O dnodesize=auto \
    -O overlay=off \
    -O xattr=sa \
    -O normalization=formD \
    pve /dev/mapper/cryptroot1

Reconfigure the initramfs

echo "cryptroot1 ${drive1}-part2 pve initramfs,keyscript=decrypt_keyctl" >> /etc/crypttab
sed -i 's/rpool/pve/' /etc/kernel/cmdline
zfs set mountpoint=none rpool
zfs set mountpoint=none rpool/ROOT
zfs set mountpoint=none rpool/ROOT/pve-1
zfs set mountpoint=none rpool/data
zfs set mountpoint=none rpool/var-lib-vz
update-initramfs -u -k all

Migrate to pve pool

zfs snapshot -r rpool/ROOT@copy
zfs send -R rpool/ROOT@copy | zfs receive pve/ROOT

Clean up and partition the second drive

• Reboot into the new system
• Datacenter -> Storage -> Remove local-zfs.

Let's call the second drive drive2:

drive2='/dev/disk/by-id/nvme-SECONDDRIVESERIALNUMBER'

zpool export rpool
rm -rf /rpool
blkdiscard --force "${drive2}" # Or secure erase
wipefs "${drive2}" --all
sgdisk -g "${drive2}"
sgdisk -I -n 1:0:+1G -t 0:ef00 -c 0:'ESP' "${drive2}"
mkfs.fat "${drive2}-part1" -F 32 -n 'ESP'
proxmox-boot-tool clean
proxmox-boot-tool init "${drive2}-part1"
sgdisk -I -n 2:0:+32G -t 0:8309 -c 0:'PVE' "${drive2}"
sgdisk -I -n 3:0:0 -t 0:bf01 -c 0:'PVE Data' "${drive2}"

Add second drive to encrypted pool

cryptsetup luksFormat "${drive2}-part2" # Use the same password as the other partition
cryptsetup open --allow-discards --persistent "${drive2}-part2" cryptroot2
zpool attach pve /dev/mapper/cryptroot1 /dev/mapper/cryptroot2

Reconfigure the initramfs

echo "cryptroot2 ${drive2}-part2 pve initramfs,keyscript=decrypt_keyctl" >> /etc/crypttab
update-initramfs -u -k all

Change root password

passwd

Rotate Proxmox Secrets

rm -rf .ssh/*
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 16384 -C root@<NODE NAME> -N '' -f /root/.ssh/id_rsa # You must generate an RSA key. If you generate an ed25519 key and name it id_rsa, Proxmox will keep spamming the authorized_keys file every boot.
rm /etc/ssh/ssh_host_*
dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server
rm -rf /etc/pve/priv/*
reboot

Setup TLS certificate

• Datacenter -> ACME -> Add an account
• Setup CAA records
• Node Name -> Certificates -> ACME -> Add a challenge and order a certificate

WebAuthn

• Open Proxmox using its FQDN
• Datacenter -> Options -> WebAuthn Settings -> Autofill
• Datacenter -> Permissions -> Two Factor -> Register security key

Cleanup old snapshots

zfs destroy pve/ROOT/pve-1@copy
zfs destroy pve/ROOT@copy

Remove GRUB

GRUB is completely unused, and will never be used with this this style of Proxmox deployment.

apt purge grub* --allow-remove-essential
rm -rf /var/lib/grub
rm -rf /boot/grub

Setup PVE Data pool

Switch to umask 077, create a diceware passphrase, and save it to /.pve-data.key. Then, continue with:

# Remove all but ASCII characters 
perl -i -pe 's/[^ -~]//g' /.pve-data.key
chattr +i /.pve-data.key

drive1='/dev/disk/by-id/nvme-FIRSTDRIVESERIALNUMBER'
drive2='/dev/disk/by-id/nvme-SECONDDRIVESERIALNUMBER'

zpool create \
    -m none \
    -o ashift=12 \
    -o autoexpand=on \
    -o autotrim=on \
    -o comment='PVE Data' \
    -o failmode=wait \
    -O acltype=posix \
    -O atime=off \
    -O checksum=blake3 \
    -O compression=zstd-3 \
    -O dnodesize=auto \
    -O encryption=on \
    -O keyformat=passphrase \
    -O keylocation='file:///.pve-data.key' \
    -O overlay=off \
    -O volmode=dev \
    -O xattr=sa \
    -O normalization=formD \
    pve-data mirror "${drive1}-part3" "${drive2}-part3"

zfs create pve-data/data
zfs create -o mountpoint=/var/lib/vz pve-data/var-lib-vz

You may see an error saying "cannot mount '/var/lib/vz': directory is not empty, that is fine. Rectify it by quickly running these 2 commands:

rm -rf /var/lib/vz/*
zfs mount -a

Go to Datacenter -> Storage and add the pve-data/data dataset:

Setup automatic unlocking

• Change back to UMask 022
• Put the following inside /etc/systemd/system/zfs-load-key.service:

[Unit]
Description=Load encryption keys
DefaultDependencies=no
After=zfs-import.target
Before=zfs-mount.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
ExecStart=/usr/sbin/zfs load-key -a

[Install]
WantedBy=zfs-mount.service

• Enable the service:

systemctl enable zfs-load-key

iDRAC Integration

curl -fsSL https://linux.dell.com/repo/pgp_pubkeys/0x1285491434D8786F.asc | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/dell.gpg

echo 'Types: deb
URIs: https://linux.dell.com/repo/community/openmanage/11100/jammy/
Suites: jammy
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/dell.gpg

Types: deb
URIs: https://linux.dell.com/repo/community/openmanage/iSM/5400/noble
Suites: noble
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/dell.gpg' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dell.sources

apt update
apt install -y dcism srvadmin-idracadm8

Misc

• Datacenter -> Options -> Tag Style Override

  • Ordering: Configuration
  • Check Case-Sensitive: Apply to new edits
  • Color overrides (add these after the tags have been assigned to VMs):
    • Protected: 008080
    • SNAT: 684bf6
    • SSH: 47737a
    • OPNsense: d94f00
    • Fedora-CoreOS: 3c6eb4
    • TrueNAS: 4193d0
    • Proxmox-Backup-Server: d6762c

• Datacenter -> Users -> Remove root user's email address

• Datacenter -> Notifications -> Configure SMTP configuration target

Additional packages

• nload (very useful to check network usage in real time)

Secure Boot Setup

Will be implemented once systemd-ukify soon now that Proxmox 9 is released.