{"id":446,"date":"2025-10-21T21:30:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/?p=446"},"modified":"2025-12-22T14:30:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T12:30:29","slug":"proxmox-usb-install","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/?p=446","title":{"rendered":"Proxmox USB install"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you want to install Proxmox on a USB, for example 16gb stick that “should” be possible<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mainly this is for if you want to use shared storage between multiple nodes and node’s dont store VM data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things to do and watch for<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Things you need to be careful with. Filling up your root drive. using local storage for example ISO images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For ISO images use a NFS server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example Lab-enviroment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Install<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For this im using proxmox 9, installer can be grabbed from https:\/\/proxmox.com\/en\/downloads<\/a>, In a test vm in proxmox 9 (inception :3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Install can be done with Proxmox defaults, Just enter a password, usbstick, and IP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

disk space reclamation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

After install you see that your original disk is split in to multiple lvm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

swap can be also remove since the usb is probably (incredibly slow).
A: use no swap
B: zram swap
can be used instead of normal swap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DATA: This is the VM data portion normally configured on proxmox. We arent going to use this since our vmdata is going to be on shared storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# lsblk\nNAME               MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS\nsda                  8:0    0   16G  0 disk \n\u251c\u2500sda1               8:1    0 1007K  0 part \n\u251c\u2500sda2               8:2    0  512M  0 part \n\u2514\u2500sda3               8:3    0 15.5G  0 part \n  \u251c\u2500pve-swap       252:0    0    1G  0 lvm  [SWAP]\n  \u251c\u2500pve-root       252:1    0  7.2G  0 lvm  \/\n  \u251c\u2500pve-data_tmeta 252:2    0    1G  0 lvm  \n  \u2502 \u2514\u2500pve-data     252:4    0  5.2G  0 lvm  \n  \u2514\u2500pve-data_tdata 252:3    0  5.2G  0 lvm  \n    \u2514\u2500pve-data     252:4    0  5.2G  0 lvm  \nroot@pve-test:~# lvs\n  LV   VG  Attr       LSize  Pool Origin Data%  Meta%  Move Log Cpy%Sync Convert\n  data pve twi-a-tz--  5.24g             0.00   1.57                            \n  root pve -wi-ao---- <7.25g                                                    \n  swap pve -wi-ao----  1.00g     <\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Lets first go to Datacenter > Storage 
    We are going to remove the local-lvm from all nodes (If a node needs local-lvm we can leave it to that node if necessary)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Got to Node > Disks > LVM-Thin
    Delete the data lvm-thin pool, we arent going to use this.
    The remove command will give an error (volume group ‘pve’ still in use) but will still remove it, so we can ignore the error.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. using command vgdisplay<\/code> we can see that now there is free space to expand.
    Then with lvextend we can increase the size of the logical volume.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    root@pve-test:~# lvextend -l +100%FREE \/dev\/pve\/root\n  Size of logical volume pve\/root changed from <7.25 GiB (1855 extents) to <14.50 GiB (3711 extents).\n  Logical volume pve\/root successfully resized.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    4. Then we can use good old resize2fs to increase the filesystem size<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    root@pve-test:~# resize2fs \/dev\/mapper\/pve-root\nresize2fs 1.47.2 (1-Jan-2025)\nFilesystem at \/dev\/mapper\/pve-root is mounted on \/; on-line resizing required\nold_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 2\nThe filesystem on \/dev\/mapper\/pve-root is now 3800064 (4k) blocks long.\n\nroot@pve-test:~# df -h \/\nFilesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on\n\/dev\/mapper\/pve-root   15G  3.4G   11G  25% \/<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    If you want to install Proxmox on a USB, for example 16gb stick that “should” be possible Mainly this is for if you want to use shared storage between multiple nodes and node’s dont store VM data. Things to do and watch for Things you need to be careful with. Filling up your root drive. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pauli.work\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}