Proxmox

In Proxmox, one can visually connect to an active virtual machine through one of two ways:

• noVNC - default mechanism - works with most default installations
• SPICE - enhanced mechanism - requires virtual machine support

With Windows based Virtual Machines, the SPICE client can be installed via the Redhat supplied VirtIO .iso.

If running Firefox from a Debian Linux machine, run 'sudo apt install virt-viewer' to install the viewer executable.

As a one time configuration in Firefox:

• go into about:config, and add the key 'network.protocol-handler.expose.virt-viewer' as boolean and set to true
• go into about:preferences, and set "What should Firefox do with other files" to "Ask whether to open or save files".
• in Proxmox, open a SPICE console for a virtual machine, which downloads a customized .vv file,
• Firefox will then request to open a Virt-Viewer file with Remove Viewer - at this point, you can set it as the default viewer, and it will show up in the application preferences

When installing a Microsoft Windows 11 Operating System in Proxmox, a few helpful hints here. This is with Proxmox v9.

Windows 11 can be downloaded from Microsoft Windows 11 Download. During the installation, you'll need a license key, so have that ready.

The RedHat Virtio drivers will be required during initial install.

When defining the configuration for the virtual machine in proxmox, attach the Win11 ISO, attach EUFI local, and provide a TPM area.

When starting from the ISO, hit a key to start. During the process of selecting and formatting the drive, you'll need to browse to the Virtio ISO, and browse into the \amd64\win11 sub-directory to load the initial storage sub-system drivers.

Later on in the process, the installation will request access to the network. Use shift-F10 to start a text console. In there, type:

oobe\bypassnro

The machine will reboot. This can be used to bypass making a Microsoft account and to create a local account instead.

Optionally:

• Once it returns, you need to disconnect networking. So you can do terminal again and ipconfig /release, or just set the NIC for disconnected.
• At some point it'll guilt you into creating an account but there will be an "I don't have internet" option, and that's your way out.

Inspiration from How to install Win11 in Proxmox | Quick guide | And fix problems of network search.

From Install Windows 11 22H2 , some other tricks:

• in the user box type "no@thankyou.com" and any password. It'll error out when trying to login and let you click next to create a local account. Dev bypass must be
• When connecting to the network, Press Win key + E to bring up an explorer window, install all the drivers needed off the driver ISO
• Windows 10 guest best practices
• Choose setup as work account + choose domain setup. The account it first creates is a local account. (I did this as of last week)
• oobe = out-of-box-experience

Lifted from Installing Virtio Drivers for Windows on Proxmox to Enable Paravirtualization / Fix Incorrect Memory Monitoring, there is a section at the end which discusses settings for disk caching modes in Proxmox. The terms relate to how frequently data is flushed to the underlying storage system. There are trade-offs for performance and durability.

• Direct sync - highest data security but has poor performance - ensures that every time data is written to memory, it is immediately synchronized to the disk. This means each write operation introduces disk latency because the system must wait for the disk to confirm the write is complete before continuing with other operations. Although this method provides the highest data security, frequent disk operations lead to lower performance.
• Write through - balance between data consistency and performance - writing data to memory and immediately writes it to disk without waiting for disk confirmation. It offers good data consistency and high performance by reducing the time spent waiting for disk confirmation. However, disk write operations still occur, leading to some performance overhead.
• Write back - improves performance but comes with certain data risks - first writes data to the memory cache and writes it back to the disk at an appropriate time. This reduces the number of disk accesses and improves system performance. However, because data is cached in memory, there is a risk of data loss if the system crashes or experiences a power outage before writing back to the disk.
• Write back (unsafe) - highest performance (fastest among all modes) but compromises data security and consistency - similar to the regular write back method, but it makes no guarantees about data consistency. This means that in the event of a system failure or power outage, data not yet written back to the disk could be permanently lost. While this method provides higher performance, it sacrifices data security and consistency. RamFS would be a use case here.

Perform your own testing given your own physical infrastructure and weigh the pro's and con's.

Starting with version VE 8.4, proxmox host directories can be shared into a windows or linux virtual machine. I have a version 9 running here as an example:

# pveversion
pve-manager/9.0.6/49c767b70aeb6648 (running kernel: 6.14.8-2-pve)

Check to see that the appropriate package is installed, it should be by default:

# dpkg -l | grep virtiofsd
ii  virtiofsd         1.13.2-1      amd64     Virtio-fs vhost-user device daemon

Create a directory for sharing, use something like /mnt or /var/local, depending upon your preference:

# mkdir /var/local/shared

In the proxmox management site, navigate Datacenter -> Directory Mappings, then add a mapping with the directory just created. The name supplied will be the name seen in the virtual machine.

Also in the proxmox management site, navigate to the virtual machine settings -> Hardware and add a Virtiofs Filesystem Passthrough. Select the directory id you just created. Select the 'Direct IO' box (may be optional). Then restart the machine if already started to have the setting take effect.

In a Windows virtual machine, be sure you've installed the Windows VirtIO Drivers.

Open the Services cmdlet (services.msc). There should be a 'VirtIO-FS Service". Startup type can be set to automatic. If only temporary use is required, simply start the service. A new device should become visible in This PC in file explorer.

For Windows based virtual machines, WinFSP is required. It is mentioned at How to install virtiofs drivers on Windows.

Once installed, open services.msc, and start the VirtIO-FS Service

In explorer, you should see the shared data folder in 'This PC'.