Introduction

This document addresses common issues encountered on the process of installing FnOS in a PVE environment, such as a locked system and an unresponsive PVE web console. By following these steps, you will achieve a fully accessible, secure, and optimized FnOS virtual machine.

If you have already completed the installation and want to see more optimization tips, please see this article.

Pre-Installation

FnOS ISO: Visit https://www.fnnas.com/ and obtain it via “Direct Download”.

It is recommended that the FnOS VM has at least 3GB of RAM and 2 cores.

Follow the official guide to install the system.

Post-Installation Configuration

On the first boot, two primary issues prevent access to the new FnOS instance:

1. Login Disabled: The system console does not accept any credentials (including root) until the web-based initial setup is complete. This is problematic for remote machines that may only have IPv6 access.
2. Unresponsive PVE Console: The Xterm.js serial console in the PVE web UI does not work by default.

The following sections provide solutions to these problems.

1. Gaining Initial Root Access

First, we must bypass the standard boot sequence to set a root password.

1. In the PVE console, restart the VM. At the GRUB boot menu, press e to edit the boot parameters.
2. Find the line that begins with linux. It will look similar to this:

   linux /boot/vmlinuz-6.12.18-trim root=UUID=... ro quiet
   

3. At the end of this line, add single init=/bin/bash. This parameter boots the system directly into a root shell.
4. Press Ctrl+X or F10 to boot.
5. In the root shell, execute the passwd command to set a new password for the root user.
6. Once done, reboot the VM. The boot parameter change is temporary and will not persist.

2. Enabling Permanent Console Access and Functionality

With root access established, permanently modify the GRUB configuration to enable the PVE serial console and other features.

1. Log in as root with the newly set password.

2. Edit the GRUB configuration file: nano /etc/default/grub.

3. Modify the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line to include serial console and optional nested virtualization IOMMU support.

   For Intel CPUs:

   - GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
   + GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 intel_iommu=on iommu=pt"
   

   For AMD CPUs:

   - GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"
   + GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet console=tty0 console=ttyS0,115200 amd_iommu=on iommu=pt"
   

   Note: console=ttyS0,115200 is the key parameter for PVE Xterm.js functionality.

4. Save the changes and exit the editor.

5. Apply the new configuration by executing:

   update-grub
   

6. Reboot the VM. The PVE web console should now be fully functional.

3. Installing the QEMU Guest Agent

For better integration with PVE, such as displaying network information in the VM summary, we need to install the qemu-guest-agent.

```shell
apt update && apt -y install qemu-guest-agent
systemctl enable --now qemu-guest-agent
```

Conclusion

You have successfully configured an FnOS instance on Proxmox VE. The system is now fully accessible and properly integrated with the PVE host. Further configurations and optimizations will be presented in a new article.