Title: Optimized Proxmox Setup Guide

This guide provides a streamlined process for setting up Proxmox, including customization and useful utilities. Follow these steps to get started:

Download Proxmox from the official website and create a bootable USB drive using Rufus with the DD option. Avoid creating software RAID on physical RAID.

After installation, resize the disk to suit your needs and allow full disk utilization:

bash

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lvremove /dev/pve/data

lvresize -l +100%FREE /dev/pve/root

resize2fs /dev/mapper/pve-root

Update and upgrade the system, and perform cleanup:

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mv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list.bak

echo deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve buster pve-no-subscription > /etc/apt/sources.list

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade -y

apt-get dist-upgrade -y

apt-get autoclean

apt-get autoremove -y

Install useful utilities:

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apt-get install htop tmux fail2ban samba speedtest-cli net-tools ntfs-3g ifupdown2 hdparm

Change the SSH port to 2299 and enable root login:

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sed -i 's/#Port 22/Port 2299/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

sed -i 's/#PermitRootLogin prohibit-password/PermitRootLogin yes/' /etc/ssh/sshd_config

systemctl restart ssh

Configure Fail2Ban for SSH:

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cp /etc/fail2ban/fail2ban.conf /etc/fail2ban/fail2ban.local

cat << EOF > /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

[DEFAULT]

ignoreip = 127.0.0.1/8

bantime = 600

findtime = 600

maxretry = 3

[sshd]

enabled = true

port = 2299

EOF

systemctl restart fail2ban

Set up Samba:

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# Add your configuration to /etc/samba/smb.conf

systemctl restart smbd

Update Proxmox templates:

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pveam update

Backup GRUB:

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rsync -avh --progress /boot/grub /path/to/backup

Configure GPU passthrough (follow the detailed steps in the original guide).

Set up NIC bonding (follow the detailed steps in the original guide).

Install MegaCLI for RAID management:

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# Follow the detailed steps in the original guide

Test I/O speed with hdparm:

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hdparm -tT --direct /dev/sda

The original guide also includes a list of useful VMs, MegaCLI cheats, and Observium cheats.