In the first Free Upskill Challenge (UC) on Home Labs, we discussed some of the popular technologies that have made homelabbing become accessible to so many people recently. In this 2nd UC in our Home Lab Series, we’re going to learn about a core piece of technology, the Proxmox Virtual Environment (also called Proxmox VE, PVE, or simply Proxmox), a free and open-source operating system that lets you easily host apps and virtual machines at home. You’ll learn the basics of virtualization, why Proxmox, the full installation process and more. Along the way, Joram Stith will share tips, tricks and use cases from his time experimenting in the lab.
Price = FREE!
Goals for UC – Home Lab: Proxmox VE
Throughout this UC, you will learn:
- Hypervisors and Proxmox VE – A solid overview of what they are, importance of them in our home labs, and why we’re using Proxmox.
- Installation – Step-by-step details with screenshots, warnings and recommendations.
- Virtual Machines, Containers, and LXCs – Describe the subtle but very important differences and recommendations on what to use when.
- Creating VMs and LXCs – Let’s get to work!
At the end, you will have a working Proxmox bare-metal system and the foundational knowledge required to start playing in your own home lab!
What’s an Upskill Challenge (UC)?
A UC is a CTF-style, bite-sized lesson from the JHT Team, our courseware developers as well as “friends” of JHT. They are meant to be short and to the point. UCs focus on a single tool or concept and are helpful in quickly providing useful skills that might be prerequisites for other types of educational content on the platform.
A UC should be 10 – 30 minutes of student time and have no VMs. There are quizzes to make sure that the content is understood.
Prerequisites for Home Lab: Proxmox VE
UCs assume no knowledge at all! They’re meant to be completely self-contained, so all of the answers are in the lesson. No outside research is required.
