Use Free, No-Subscription, Repositories on Proxmox VE 6.0

Proxmox VE 6.0 is an incredible virtualization platform that works great on everything from low-power computers like the Intel NUC to Threadripper PRO workstations and massive AMD EPYC-based servers with up to 128 cores, 256 threads, and 4TB RAM. And Proxmox VE is free, too!

However, it uses enterprise subscription-only repositories by default and won’t allow you to install upgrade packages without a subscription. Instead, this article will show you how to use free, no-subscription repositories. The no-subscription repositories are provided by the Proxmox VE team, but the packages are supposedly not as stable and as thoroughly tested as the packages in the enterprise repositories. The Proxmox VE team doesn’t recommend using the no-subscription repositories for production use and offers no support for using them.

Enable No-Subscription Repository #

First, we’ll disable the default enterprise repository:

$ sudo mv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list.disabled

Then enable the no-subscription repository:

$ sudo echo "deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve buster pve-no-subscription" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-no-subscription.list

Finally, update the package cache:

$ sudo apt update

And optionally, upgrade the system:

$ sudo pveupgrade

Make the Changes Persist #

In the next article, we’ll make these and other changes persistent across upgrades.

Revision #

2023-08-31 Revised language

2019-10-19 Replaced the command to upgrade the system, thanks to itzxtoast.