Proxmox has recently announced the first official release of Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) with support for 64-bit Arm (arm64/aarch64). Until now, the popular virtualization solution was only available for x86-64 (amd64).
Proxmox VE 9.2 for arm64 is built on Debian 13.5 “Trixie” with Linux 7.0, and is otherwise based on the same code as the x86-64 version, and relies on the same configuration, tooling, and documentation, except for a few architecture-specific differences.
The developers note that Proxmox VE for Arm fully supports NVIDIA Grace Hopper and NVIDIA Vera platforms, and “best-effort” support is available on other UEFI-based Armv8-A/Armv9-A hardware. However, device-tree-only single-board computers, such as the Raspberry Pi, are not supported, since the host must boot through UEFI and describe its hardware through ACPI.
Having said that, we previously noted work on an UEFI+ACPI port for the Raspberry Pi 4, and users have already managed to have the release work on a Raspberry Pi 4 and a Raspberry Pi 5, as YouTube user _jonny_ explains:
I have it working on a Pi5, just did the manual install steps on a RPi Trixie install, just skipped the proxmox kernel step. I did have to disable NetworkManager and some of the cloud-init stuff, as it get getting in the way of how Proxmox wants things setup. I managed to spin up two AlmaLinux VMs, running DE and server, both worked just fine and seen no lag within a VM.
He didn’t seem to use any UEFI firmware, but for reference, there’s also an EDK2 firmware port for the Pi 5.
Proxmox VE for Arm is essentially the same as for x86, but there are some architecture-specific differences:
- Virtual machines always boot through UEFI, provided by the Arm build of OVMF (AAVMF). SeaBIOS is not available on arm64.
- AMD SEV memory encryption and Intel GVT-g mediated vGPUs are x86-only.
- There is no operating-system-level CPU microcode package, unlike intel-microcode and amd64-microcode on x86.
- Guests only run on nodes matching their architecture, and live migration is only possible between nodes of the same architecture.
The Arm port was apparently mainly sponsored by NVIDIA, as the company needed it for its “Mission Control” solution for AI factory management, which explains why NVIDIA hardware is fully supported.
I had no idea Proxmox VE was not available for Arm until I read Jeff Geerling’s blog post about the subject today. That’s because some Arm SBC vendors have been providing (what I now know are unofficial) Proxmox VE images for years, most notably FriendlyELEC, including for their latest NanoPi R28S SBC announced a few days ago.
But obviously getting official support is much better for stability and features. If you want to give it a try on your own 64-bit Arm platform, you can download the Proxmox VE 9.2 Arm ISO Installer.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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