A Proxmox VM server on a Laptop!? Yes. But as crazy as it seems, it actually has some benefits in it's favour. Come, let me show you...
Am I crazy? Yeah...maybe... But that's not the point here.
Is this idea crazy? On the surface of it, using a laptop as a VM server, yeah, it might seem so.
But we're not surface level here... we're deep. So let's dig in a bit more and see how and why this can actually be a good solution.
Built-In KVM
I mean, it's a laptop, that's obvious. But think of it from the VM Server perspective. You have this server with a Keyboard, Video, and Mouse/Touchpad, and a familiar enough form factor that working on it will be very comfortable. You won't need haul over a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, or some othjer kind of KVM solution just to troubeshoot the device, it's all right there ready to go. Booting from an external USB and performing diagnostics and hardware troubleshooting is a piece of cake.
Battery Backup
Again, obviously the laptop has a battery. But as a VM Server and a budget, it's a God send. No need to worry about some kind of external battery backup if it's beyond your means, you have some built-in protect from brownouts, short outages, AND you have the built-in KVM to get to it to manually shut it down if needed.
Power Consumption
Compared to "Full Sized" servers, a laptop requires a fraction of the power to run. Granted, you (arguably) might not get the same kind of processing power and resources as a Full Sized server of a similar age, but some laptops aren't anything to turn your nose up to. And if you're only running a couple of light-work VMs (like a homelab web server), you might not even need the full power of the laptop anyways.
Physical Form Factor
The smaller footprint of a laptop is a HUGE benefit for the Home lab. In a big dedicated server room with racks and equipement and space, it's not such a big deal. But at home and with limited space, the smaller form factor is a MASSIVE space saver, and with much quiter operation (ie, fan), the options for physical placement are significantly greater.
Pseudo-Lights Out Management
Hear me out here... If your VM is the "purpose" or use for the laptop resources, then the Proxmox environment becomes the management interface for that VM and "hardware", just like your server's Lights Out Management system (iLO, ILOM, iDRAC, etc... depending on server vendor).
I have recently run in to some work where I found myself repeatedly re-imaging a laptop I was using. I would image an OS, try a few things for a few days, and then do it again. It quickly becamse tedious to be digging it out every time I needed to re-image, and then doing the re-image, and then making it remotely accessible, and then putting it back, only to do it all over again a few days later. Once I set it up with Proxmox, I was able to perform all that re-imaging remotely, just as you would with a server LOM. It's been a huge sanity (and time) saver.
Availability and Cost
Server hardware with reasonable "life left in it" can be difficult to find and can be cost prohibitive to the Home Lab. Decommissioned laptops, on the pther hand, can be much more plentiful and at far more reasonable cost. It can make that old laptop sitting off in the corner have life and use again. It can provide a starting point from whch to launch a whole new learning and career path and opportunities.
Networking Caveat
Up until now, you're probably thinking this is a solution that is almost too good to be true. While this does seem like a perfect solution, there's 1 major consideration to keep in mind when selecting a laptop to set up as a Proxmox VM Server... and that is networking.You can't use WiFi, it NEEDS to be a LAN connection. Not to say it is impossible to use WiFi, it seemingly may be according to my Google-fu, but I tried, it was super painful and time consuming, and didn't actually work the way I needed it to anyways. So it you are comfortable taking a deep dive in to the workings of Proxmox, have at it, but for the newcomer or amateur to Proxmox or Linux, do yourself a favour and just use a laptop with a built-in LAN port available.
If you want to dedicate a laptop to a single purpose or a couple of lightweight VMs, an old laptop with as little as 2 CPU cores and 4GB RAM can make a reasonable target for a Proxmox installation.
Post-Install Notes and Tasks
Before you run off to set up Proxmox on your own laptop, there's a couple of things you will *NEED* to do after the initial Proxmox install.
I'm not going to walk you through installing Proxmox. It's a rather "typical" Linux install, and there's better documentation that cover the ins and outs of that.
What we WILL discuss is some of the Post-Install steps you'll need to do to make the laptop work.
The Lid
If you finish the install as-is, and decide to store the laptop, the first thing you'll notice is that the laptop goes in to standby when you close the lid. And you wind up with this:
Fear not! For there is a solution to this (somewhat comical) problem! And a rather simple one to boot. Edit a file, change a line, and (eventually) reboot, and we're done!
sudo nano /etc/systemd/logind.conf
Find, uncomment and change the following line from:
#HandleLidSwitch=suspend
to:
HandleLidSwitch=ignore
Once you save and exit, go ahead and reboot and set your laptop/server aside, with the lid closed. The rest can be done remotely.
Nag Buster
I had debated including this one. On one hand, I am all up for making a living from your efforts, and TBH, their paid-for-support option is a really great way to do so. I'm not entirely opposed to their subscription Enterprise level OS and package updates either.
Where I draw the line, however, is the inability to get any updates at all (by default) and the popup EVERY TIME you log in to the WebUI.
I get why they're doing it. We all need to make a living from our time and efforts. I get it. But NO updates and the constant nagging...? No no no no... no thank you. So in respect of their time and efforts, I won't walk you through the steps here. But, in the spirit of honest transparency (and my own personal documentation), I'm just going to leave these here:
https://github.com/foundObjects/pve-nag-buster
https://github.com/Jamesits/pve-fake-subscription
Additional Apps
While you're still at the CLI, install a few additional needfuls through apt:
apt install p7zip-full
DONE!
Yeah, that's it. You are done the Post-Installs needed to make your laptop an effective Proxmox VM Server! Go ahead and start setting up your new VM with the rest of the available resources on the laptop.
