Proxmox is a special operating system designed for server machines. Unlike the standard server operating system, Proxmox can spin up virtual servers inside it, each of which works in isolation like a regular server operating system. It has a nice web interface to easily manage those virtual machines, but spinning up new machines using that same interface is a very complicated task. The community around Proxmox creates and maintains free Proxmox scripts that automate all that work for you. Let me explain.
Deploy containers and virtual machines with a single command
Let’s say you want to start a Jellyfish container in your Proxmox machine.
Normally, you would start by creating a new Linux Container (LXC) inside the Proxmox Web UI. You will need to download a container template (CT template) or choose an existing one, set a username and password, assign disk size, RAM, CPU cores, and assign it a unique IP address. You may need to read the documentation to determine the minimum resource requirements.
Once your LXC is ready, it will access the console, sync the repositories, and install all the correct packages and dependencies. Assuming nothing goes wrong with them, you may need to set up a background service and manage firewall ports.
For Jellyfin in particular, you would have to edit some dot files to mount and connect the media drive as well. Only then will you be able to navigate the Jellyfin onboarding process.
You can see why it’s equal parts tedious and time-consuming. And Jellyfin isn’t even that hard to set up. You can imagine how much more annoying it would be to set up something complex like the OS Startup Wizard, FrigateTrueNAS or next cloud.
Instead, you can set up Jellyfin using its community script in about two seconds. One second to copy this. curl call and another to execute it within the Proxmox shell.
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVE/main/ct/jellyfin.sh)"
This Jellyfin installation script and over 600 others like it are available in the Proxmox VE Scripts repository. These scripts are developed and maintained by the community, covering over 25 categories.
There are quite a few scripts unique to Proxmox, such as the “Post Install” script that automatically optimizes a new Proxmox installation. Set up the correct repositories, remove the subscription reminder, and disable unnecessary features.
You’ll also find operating system scripts that automatically install popular distributions like Arch, Debian, Ubuntu, and Alpine, as well as beginner server distributions like CasaOS and UmbrelOS. There is also a script for Docker. And you can spin up virtual machines for networking software like OpenWRT, OPNSense, TrueNAS, and many, many others.
Virtually all self-hosting categories are covered in this repository: networking, file management, monitoring, backup, finance, automation, smart home, authentication, and artificial intelligence.
- Brand
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Zettlab
- UPC
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RK3588
- Memory
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16GB LPDDR4x
- Drive bays
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4x 3.5 inch, 1x M.2 NVMe
It’s simple and fast.
When you start one of these scripts, it will typically ask you to choose between four options:
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Default installation
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Advanced installation
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User Installation
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Settings
For most people, “Default Installation” is the correct option. The Advanced tab is for manually configuring the container or machine, and User Defaults allows you to import a point file with your custom settings.
If you click “Default Installation”, it will begin the automated setup process and do all the work for you. Upon successful execution, it will provide you with the IP address where you can access the container. For virtual machines, it simply returns an “installation successful” message.
You will need an Internet connection to find and run these scripts.
These scripts are actively maintained by the community.
Most of them just work.
These scripts pull stable tar files instead of git requests to download the software, so you’ll get more battle-tested setups. However, some of them are marked “experimental”, and are only intended for testing. If you need something to work without breaking, avoid those scripts. You can identify them at a glance with their purple “dev” label. There is a formal review and security policy for these newer scripts, so vulnerabilities are fixed as they are discovered.
When Proxmox releases new updates or a script’s target software updates the installation flow, contributors update scripts quickly.
All scripts are open source and available on GitHub. You’ll also find linked documentation on most pages, along with details like ports and configuration paths.
In any case, I recommend examining any bash script downloaded from the Internet before running it on your machine. These scripts run as root on your Proxmox and often connect to other scripts remotely, so it’s worth taking a quick look at them for peace of mind.
cJust get the scripts from the official repository at this link and check the source to avoid imitators.
Make Proxmox work for you
Proxmox is a wonderful server operating system, but I would hate to use it if I had to configure each container or VM by hand. That’s why these helper scripts are so special. They complete Proxmox.
