ProxMox Updates

As mentioned in my previous article, ProxMox uses a subscription model to pay for development, however they do support home/lab usage via nagware.

However, by default, the base install assumes your going to have a subscription and that makes for a recurring error each time you try and update the server with “apt-get”:

W: The repository 'https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/pve stretch Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore potentially dangerous to use.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
E: Failed to fetch https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/pve/dists/stretch/pve-enterprise/binary-amd64/Packages 401 Unauthorized
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

This is caused by the fact that without a subscription, the standard update repo for ProxMox is unavailable.

Fortunately they do have a public repo which they give instructions on this support page.

The basic steps are as follows:

1. Open a shell on your ProxMox Server.
2. Go in to “/etc/apt/sources.list.d”.
3. Copy “pve-enterprise.list” to “pve-enterprise-no-sub.list”
4. Edit “pve-enterprise-no-sub.list” and replace the contents with the lines from the support page.
5. Edit the “pve-enterprise.list” file and comment out the repo line (use a #), alternatively you can just delete this file if you want as well.

Then re-run “apt-get update && apt-get upgrade” and your off to the races.