Although I have a soft spot for the polished interfaces of Reaper and ESXiProxmox’s web user interface is as convenient as its counterparts. Most of the basic features of the home server and virtualization services are easy to access once you read their documentation, and if you like playing with computer projects as much as I do, you’ll find dozens of cool and, dare I say, innovative tools hidden within PVE’s administration user interface.
With Proxmox 9.0 improving the mobile version of its web interface, it is also possible to access the virtualization platform from smartphones and tablets. But with several self-hosted tools including dedicated mobile apps, I always wanted something similar from Proxmox. But it turns out that the geniuses at Proxmox have finally released an Android app that allows me to control my PVE nodes. Now that I’ve been using it for a while, I’d say it’s almost perfect, if it weren’t for one little quirk…
And it can be combined with multiple PVE instances.
What I love about Proxmox The mobile app is that it is not just a scaled down version of the PVE desktop web UI that fits on small smartphone screens. Heck, it even has some differences from the mobile version of the Proxmox interface, which is also quite useful to use on smartphones.
The Dashboard tab presents CPU and memory consumption statistics, followed by the nodes in the cluster and the number of active (and total) virtual guests deployed to them. Instead of clogging up the interface with detailed statistics, the dashboard provides a brief overview of my cluster systems, while the rest of the settings remain hidden behind other tabs. For example, the Resources tab includes a list of my Linux containers and virtual machines, and tapping them opens a short collection of tools to manage them (and I’ll get to that in a moment). I also appreciate that there are dedicated filters for sorting VMs and LXCs, and I can narrow down the list of resources further by choosing their operational status.
The best part? The Proxmox app also allows me to control standalone nodes that are not part of another cluster, and I can switch between them without problems. Combine that with a Tailscale subnet router running on my home router and I’ll be able to perform simple troubleshooting tasks from this elegant app even when I’m away from my tinkering cave.
LXC and VM configurations are also quite detailed
The noVNC interface works surprisingly well on a touchscreen device
When I first heard about the Proxmox app, I thought it would just have simple start/stop functionality for my collection of virtual guests. But it turns out that the app has a decent collection of tools for my LXC and VM management needs. For one, I can create backups for my self-hosted applications and development virtual machines directly from the application, and access previously created backup files, including those stored on my local Proxmox backup server. There’s even a dedicated log section for each virtual inhabitant of my server, so I can quickly examine them if (or rather, when) something goes wrong.
Likewise, I can use the noVNC and SPICE protocols to access my virtual machines, and they are not as discordant as I thought. Even Linux distributions with GUIs are easy to control using touch inputs, and I can always bring up the on-screen keyboard (or use a spare Bluetooth one if I’m on my Android tablet) when I need to execute quick terminal commands.
Unfortunately, it lacks some advanced features of Proxmox.
Not being able to edit hardware settings for my virtual guests is a pain
Let me make this clear: I have nothing but respect for the people who created the Proxmox app and I really appreciate how convenient it is to use on a smartphone. That being said, I do have a few features I wish were included in it. While I could play with KVM hardware virtualization, ACPI support, autostart, and other options, I don’t like the fact that I can’t modify the CPU, memory, and storage allocation settings of my virtual guests.
Likewise, everything from the SDN stack to important data warehouse settings remains inaccessible in the client application, which is especially strange considering that it is possible to modify firewall settings in the mobile web UI. Heck, the host machine also shows pending updates, although there is no way to install them. Personally, I would have loved to have the option to modify all resource allocation settings, along with a little more freedom in the host network configuration, since most of my troubleshooting tasks revolve around fixing the latter when a failed experiment breaks the SDN stack.
That said, the fact that you can still access essential virtual machine management settings and access full GUI environments from one uncluttered interface makes the Proxmox mobile app a must-have for my fellow Android users.
