{pve} is based on the famous Debian Linux distribution. That means that you have access to the whole world of Debian packages, and the base system is well documented. The Debian Administrator's Handbook is available online, and provide a comprehensive introduction to the Debian operating system (see [Hertzog13]).
A standard {pve} installation uses the default repositories from Debian, so you get bug fixes and security updates through that channel. In addition, we provide our own package repository to roll out all {pve} related packages. This includes updates to some Debian packages when necessary.
We also deliver a specially optimized Linux kernel, where we enable all required virtualization and container features. That kernel includes drivers for ZFS, and several hardware drivers. For example, we ship Intel network card drivers to support their newest hardware.
The following sections will concentrate on virtualization related topics. They either explains things which are different on {pve}, or tasks which are commonly used on {pve}. For other topics, please refer to the standard Debian documentation.
For production servers, high quality server equipment is needed. Keep in mind, if you run 10 Virtual Servers on one machine and you then experience a hardware failure, 10 services are lost. {pve} supports clustering, this means that multiple {pve} installations can be centrally managed thanks to the included cluster functionality.
{pve} can use local storage (DAS), SAN, NAS and also distributed storage (Ceph RBD). For details see chapter storage.
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CPU: 64bit (Intel EMT64 or AMD64)
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RAM: 1 GB RAM
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Hard drive
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One NIC
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CPU: 64bit (Intel EMT64 or AMD64), Multi core CPU recommended
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RAM: 8 GB is good, more is better
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Hardware RAID with batteries protected write cache (BBU) or flash based protection
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Fast hard drives, best results with 15k rpm SAS, Raid10
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At least two NIC´s, depending on the used storage technology you need more
