Skilllibrary proxmox-shell-scripting

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/merceralex397-collab/skilllibrary

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/merceralex397-collab/skilllibrary "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/10-cli-systems-and-ops/proxmox-shell-scripting" ~/.claude/skills/merceralex397-collab-skilllibrary-proxmox-shell-scripting && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: 10-cli-systems-and-ops/proxmox-shell-scripting/SKILL.md

source content

Purpose

Automate Proxmox VE operations using

pvesh

qm

pct

, and

vzdump

shell commands.

When to use this skill

scripting VM creation/cloning with
```
qm
```
managing LXC containers with
```
pct
```
automating backups and restores with
```
vzdump
```
/
```
qmrestore
```
querying cluster status and storage via
```
pvesh
```

Do not use this skill when

performing generic Ubuntu/Debian admin — prefer
```
linux-ubuntu-ops
```
writing systemd units for services — prefer
```
systemd-services
```
managing Docker containers — different tooling

Procedure

Query cluster —

pvesh get /cluster/status --output-format json

to check node health.

Create VM —

qm create <vmid> --name <n> --memory 2048 --cores 2 --net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0 --scsi0 local-lvm:32

Create LXC —

pct create <ctid> local:vztmpl/<tpl>.tar.zst --hostname <n> --memory 512 --rootfs local-lvm:8

Cloud-init —

qm set <vmid> --cicustom "user=local:snippets/user-data.yml" --ipconfig0 ip=dhcp

Backup —

vzdump <vmid> --storage backup-store --mode snapshot --compress zstd

Restore —

qmrestore /var/lib/vz/dump/vzdump-qemu-<vmid>-*.vma.zst <new-vmid> --storage local-lvm

Manage storage —

pvesm status

to list pools;

pvesm alloc local-lvm <vmid> vm-<vmid>-data 50G

Bulk ops — loop over

pvesh get /cluster/resources --type vm --output-format json | jq -r '.[].vmid'

Key patterns

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -euo pipefail

clone_vm() {
  local template_id="$1" new_id="$2" name="$3"
  qm clone "$template_id" "$new_id" --name "$name" --full
  qm set "$new_id" --memory 4096 --cores 4
  qm start "$new_id"
}

backup_all_running() {
  local vmids
  vmids=$(qm list | awk 'NR>1 && $3=="running" {print $1}')
  for vmid in $vmids; do
    vzdump "$vmid" --storage backup --mode snapshot --compress zstd
  done
}

Decision rules

Always use
```
--output-format json
```
with
```
pvesh
```
— parse with
```
jq
```
.
Use snapshot mode for backups of running VMs — stop mode causes downtime.
Prefer
```
qm clone --full
```
over manual disk copy for reproducibility.
Store cloud-init snippets in
```
/var/lib/vz/snippets/
```
.
Test destructive operations on a non-production node first.

References

Related skills

```
linux-ubuntu-ops
```
— underlying OS administration
```
bash
```
— shell scripting fundamentals
```
ssh-tmux-remote-workflow
```
— remote Proxmox management