Proxmox VE is an open-source server virtualization management platform based on Debian, supporting KVM for virtual machines and LXC for containers.
Cluster Management (pvecm)
pvecm status # Show cluster status and node quorum
pvecm nodes # List nodes in the cluster
pvecm expected 1 # Force quorum (use carefully if nodes are down)Virtual Machine Management (qm)
qm is the tool to manage KVM virtual machines. Every VM has a unique numeric ID (e.g., 100).
qm list # List all VMs
qm start 100 # Start VM 100
qm stop 100 # Stop VM 100 (Hard stop)
qm shutdown 100 # Gracefully shutdown VM 100 (requires guest agent)
qm reset 100 # Reset VM 100
qm destroy 100 # Delete VM 100 and its disks
qm config 100 # Show configuration for VM 100
qm clone 100 101 --name new-vm # Clone VM 100 to VM 101LXC Container Management (pct)
pct manages LXC containers.
pct list # List all containers
pct start 200 # Start container 200
pct stop 200 # Stop container 200
pct enter 200 # Enter the container's shell (like SSH but direct)
pct destroy 200 # Delete container 200
pct config 200 # Show configuration for container 200Storage Management (pvesm)
pvesm status # List all configured storage pools and their usage
pvesm scan lvm # Scan for LVM volume groups
pvesm scan nfs <server_ip> # Scan for available NFS shares on a serverBackups (vzdump)
# Backup VM 100 to the default dump directory (/var/lib/vz/dump)
vzdump 100
# Backup VM 100 and compress with ZSTD
vzdump 100 --compress zstd
# Backup all VMs and send an email notification
vzdump --all --mailto [email protected]Updates
pveupgrade # Proxmox wrapper for apt update & apt dist-upgrade