Graphical User Interface

Proxmox VE is simple. There is no need to install a separate management tool, and everything can be done through your web browser (Latest Firefox or Google Chrome is preferred). A built-in HTML5 console is used to access the guest console. As an alternative, SPICE can be used.

Because we use the Proxmox cluster file system (pmxcfs), you can connect to any node to manage the entire cluster. Each node can manage the entire cluster. There is no need for a dedicated manager node.

You can use the web-based administration interface with any modern browser. When Proxmox VE detects that you are connecting from a mobile device, you are redirected to a simpler, touch-based user interface.

The web interface can be reached via https://youripaddress:8006 (default login is: root, and the password is specified during the installation process).

Features

Seamless integration and management of Proxmox VE clusters
AJAX technologies for dynamic updates of resources
Secure access to all Virtual Machines and Containers via SSL encryption (https)
Fast search-driven interface, capable of handling hundreds and probably thousands of VMs
Secure HTML5 console or SPICE
Role based permission management for all objects (VMs, storages, nodes, etc.)
Support for multiple authentication sources (e.g. local, MS ADS, LDAP, …)
Two-Factor Authentication (OATH, Yubikey)
Based on ExtJS 6.x JavaScript framework

Login

When you connect to the server, you will first see the login window. Proxmox VE supports various authentication backends (Realm), and you can select the language here. The GUI is translated to more than 20 languages.

You can save the user name on the client side by selecting the checkbox at the bottom. This saves some typing when you login next time.

GUI Overview

The Proxmox VE user interface consists of four regions.

Header	On top. Shows status information and contains buttons for most important actions.
Resource Tree	At the left side. A navigation tree where you can select specific objects.
Content Panel	Center region. Selected objects display configuration options and status here.
Log Panel	At the bottom. Displays log entries for recent tasks. You can double-click on those log entries to get more details, or to abort a running task.

You can shrink and expand the size of the resource tree and log panel, or completely hide the log panel. This can be helpful when you work on small displays and want more space to view other content.

Header

On the top left side, the first thing you see is the Proxmox logo. Next to it is the current running version of Proxmox VE. In the search bar nearside you can search for specific objects (VMs, containers, nodes, …). This is sometimes faster than selecting an object in the resource tree.

To the right of the search bar we see the identity (login name). The gear symbol is a button opening the My Settings dialog. There you can customize some client side user interface setting (reset the saved login name, reset saved layout).

The rightmost part of the header contains four buttons:

Help	Opens a new browser window showing the reference documentation.
Create VM	Opens the virtual machine creation wizard.
Create CT	Open the container creation wizard.
Logout	Logout, and show the login dialog again.

My Settings

The My Settings window allows you to set locally stored settings. These include the Dashboard Storages which allow you to enable or disable specific storages to be counted towards the total amount visible in the datacenter summary. If no storage is checked the total is the sum of all storages, same as enabling every single one.

Below the dashboard settings you find the stored user name and a button to clear it as well as a button to reset every layout in the GUI to its default.

On the right side there are xterm.js Settings. These contain the following options:

Font-Family	The font to be used in xterm.js (e.g. Arial).
Font-Size	The preferred font size to be used.
Letter Spacing	Increases or decreases spacing between letters in text.
Line Height	Specify the absolute height of a line.

Resource Tree

This is the main navigation tree. On top of the tree you can select some predefined views, which change the structure of the tree below. The default view is the Server View, and it shows the following object types:

Datacenter	Contains cluster-wide settings (relevant for all nodes).
Node	Represents the hosts inside a cluster, where the guests run.
Guest	VMs, containers and templates.
Storage	Data Storage.
Pool	It is possible to group guests using a pool to simplify management.

The following view types are available:

Server View	Shows all kinds of objects, grouped by nodes.
Folder View	Shows all kinds of objects, grouped by object type.
Storage View	Only shows storage objects, grouped by nodes.
Pool View	Show VMs and containers, grouped by pool.

Log Panel

The main purpose of the log panel is to show you what is currently going on in your cluster. Actions like creating an new VM are executed in the background, and we call such a background job a task.

Any output from such a task is saved into a separate log file. You can view that log by simply double-click a task log entry. It is also possible to abort a running task there.

Please note that we display the most recent tasks from all cluster nodes here. So you can see when somebody else is working on another cluster node in real-time.

We remove older and finished task from the log panel to keep that list short. But you can still find those tasks within the node panel in the Task History.

Some short-running actions simply send logs to all cluster members. You can see those messages in the Cluster log panel.

Content Panels

When you select an item from the resource tree, the corresponding object displays configuration and status information in the content panel. The following sections provide a brief overview of this functionality. Please refer to the corresponding chapters in the reference documentation to get more detailed information.

Datacenter

On the datacenter level, you can access cluster-wide settings and information.

Search: perform a cluster-wide search for nodes, VMs, containers, storage devices, and pools.
Summary: gives a brief overview of the cluster’s health and resource usage.
Cluster: provides the functionality and information necessary to create or join a cluster.
Options: view and manage cluster-wide default settings.
Storage: provides an interface for managing cluster storage.
Backup: schedule backup jobs. This operates cluster wide, so it doesn’t matter where the VMs/containers are on your cluster when scheduling.
Replication: view and manage replication jobs.
Permissions: manage user, group, and API token permissions, and LDAP, MS-AD and Two-Factor authentication.
HA: manage Proxmox VE High Availability.
ACME: set up ACME (Let’s Encrypt) certificates for server nodes.
Firewall: configure and make templates for the Proxmox Firewall cluster wide.
Metric Server: define external metric servers for Proxmox VE.
Support: display information about your support subscription.

Nodes

Nodes in your cluster can be managed individually at this level.

The top header has useful buttons such as Reboot, Shutdown, Shell, Bulk Actions and Help. Shell has the options noVNC, SPICE and xterm.js. Bulk Actions has the options Bulk Start, Bulk Stop and Bulk Migrate.

Search: search a node for VMs, containers, storage devices, and pools.
Summary: display a brief overview of the node’s resource usage.
Notes: write custom notes about a node.
Shell: access to a shell interface for the node.
System: configure network, DNS and time settings, and access the syslog.
Updates: upgrade the system and see the available new packages.
Firewall: manage the Proxmox Firewall for a specific node.
Disks: get an overview of the attached disks, and manage how they are used.
Ceph: is only used if you have installed a Ceph server on your host. In this case, you can manage your Ceph cluster and see the status of it here.
Replication: view and manage replication jobs.
Task History: see a list of past tasks.
Subscription: upload a subscription key, and generate a system report for use in support cases.

Guests

There are two different kinds of guests and both can be converted to a template. One of them is a Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and the other is a Linux Container (LXC). Navigation for these are mostly the same; only some options are different.

To access the various guest management interfaces, select a VM or container from the menu on the left.

The header contains commands for items such as power management, migration, console access and type, cloning, HA, and help. Some of these buttons contain drop-down menus, for example, Shutdown also contains other power options, and Console contains the different console types: SPICE, noVNC and xterm.js.

The panel on the right contains an interface for whatever item is selected from the menu on the left.

The available interfaces are as follows.

Summary: provides a brief overview of the VM’s activity.
Console: access to an interactive console for the VM/container.
(KVM)Hardware: define the hardware available to the KVM VM.
(LXC)Resources: define the system resources available to the LXC.
(LXC)Network: configure a container’s network settings.
(LXC)DNS: configure a container’s DNS settings.
Options: manage guest options.
Task History: view all previous tasks related to the selected guest.
(KVM) Monitor: an interactive communication interface to the KVM process.
Backup: create and restore system backups.
Replication: view and manage the replication jobs for the selected guest.
Snapshots: create and restore VM snapshots.
Firewall: configure the firewall on the VM level.
Permissions: manage permissions for the selected guest.

Storage

As with the guest interface, the interface for storage consists of a menu on the left for certain storage elements and an interface on the right to manage these elements.

In this view we have a two partition split-view. On the left side we have the storage options and on the right side the content of the selected option will be shown.

Summary: shows important information about the storage, such as the type, usage, and content which it stores.
Content: a menu item for each content type which the storage stores, for example, Backups, ISO Images, CT Templates.
Permissions: manage permissions for the storage.

Pools

Again, the pools view comprises two partitions: a menu on the left, and the corresponding interfaces for each menu item on the right.

Summary: shows a description of the pool.
Members: display and manage pool members (guests and storage).
Permissions: manage the permissions for the pool.