Implementing Proxmox VE on Oracle Cloud OCI: A Comprehensive Guide

With an increasing demand for secure offsite Disaster Recovery (DR) and the flexibility of cloud-based testing environments, I recently explored setting up Proxmox VE on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This article walks you through the detailed steps and my hands-on experience deploying Proxmox VE on OCI, using both nested virtualization on VMs and bare metal instances, leveraging Oracle’s free trial capabilities.

The Move from On-Prem to Cloud

Historically, I’ve set up Proxmox VE on physical servers with IPMI/KVM/BMC access, whether on-premises or via dedicated server rentals in various data centers. This approach has allowed us to create highly available (HA) Proxmox VE nodes and Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) setups that offer complete control. However, a recent trend towards remote DR setups led me to investigate cloud options for running Proxmox VE.

Discovering Oracle Cloud’s Free Trial for Nested Virtualization

After assessing several cloud providers, I found Oracle Cloud’s free trial stood out. Oracle offers VMs with nested virtualization and bare metal options, allowing for the setup of Proxmox VE nodes without needing extensive configurations. The trial was straightforward to activate…