The open source virtualization software Proxmox Virtual Environment is based on Debian and manages virtual machines and containers on an x86 basis. In the new version 7.3, which uses either the Linux kernel 5.15 LTS or 5.19, a cluster resource scheduler is offered for the first time as a “Technology Preview”.
Updates for QEMU, LXC, ZFS and Linux
The Viennese company Proxmox Server Solutions has released the latest version of its open source virtualization platform Proxmox Virtual Environment (“Proxmox VE”), which now also has QEMU 7.1, LXC 5.0.0 and ZFS 2.1.6 on board and will be the basis from now on uses a Debian 11.5 (“Bullseye”) with an updated kernel.
In addition to support for the Cluster Resource Scheduler (CRS), which is still classified as “Technology Preview”, Proxmox VE 7.3 according to the official release notes the following highlights:
- Proxmox Offline Mirror: The Proxmox Offline Mirror tool allows to keep Proxmox VE nodes – with restricted or without access to the public internet – up -to-date and running.
- With the 'proxmox-offline-mirror' utility it's possible to manage a local apt mirror for all package updates for Proxmox and Debian projects.
- From that mirror, users can create an external medium (USB flash drive or a local network share), and can then update their policy-restricted or air-gapped systems.
- For subscribers with a Premium and Standard subscription level, Proxmox offers an offline subscription key for its product portfolio.
- Support for Ceph Quincy and Ceph Pacific: Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.3 supports Ceph Quincy 17.2.5 as default and Ceph Pacific 16.2.10. The preferred Ceph version can be selected during the installation process.
- The Proxmox developers have added heuristic checks to see if it is safe to stop or remove a service instance (MON, MDS, OSD). If removing or stopping a service would affect the cluster operation, the web interface will now alert users with a warning.
- Overall, the usability for creating new clusters, including selecting the network and checking duplicate IP, has been improved.
Proxmox VE 7.3 – Highlights
Containers for Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE
In addition, numerous new templates for containers of various Linux distributions, such as AlmaLinux 9, Rocky Linux 9 and Ubuntu 22.10 (“Kinetic Kudu”) as well as Fedora 37 and Fedora 36, have been added added to the open source virtualization platform.
In addition, openSUSE Leap 15.4, Alpine 3.16 and CentOS 9 are also officially supported for the first time with their own container template, while Arch Linux and Gentoo each receive a refreshed “template”.
Since the release of Proxmox VE 7.1, all available container templates can be compressed with the lossless data compression algorithm Zstandard (Zstd). The official press release (PDF) mentions further improvements and details of the latest version of Proxmox VE.
Update and Download
An update to version 7.3 is easily possible from existing installations using GUI and Shell as well as SSH. The Proxmox Virtual Environment 7.3 is now available for download in various versions for new installations.
A video presents all the new features, which can also be found on the roadmap, in detail.
Note: Comes from the ComputerBase forums a reader's article on the subject of Proxmox, which the ComputerBase reader “xCtrl” brought to life and which is particularly worth reading for beginners in the field but also for experienced users.
- [Reader's article] Proxmox VE: all-rounder with virtual gaming ambitions?
The editors would like to thank community member “Poulton” who informed the editors about the release of Proxmox VE 7.3.