In this tutorial we’ll change the theme of Proxmox VE 6.0. There are six themes you can choose from (in the image below from top left to bottom right):

  • theme-aria
  • theme-classic
  • theme-crisp (default theme)
  • theme-gray
  • theme-neptune
  • theme-triton

Proxmox VE 6.0 Themes

Prepare

Make sure you have a server running Proxmox VE 6.0. Then, make sure you have followed the steps in our previous article on how to make customizations to Proxmox VE 6.0 persistent across upgrades.

Note: If you are logged in as root on your Proxmox VE host, omit the sudo part of the commands below.

Note: These are not supported features of Proxmox VE, so don’t attempt to contact the developers with questions about this. If you find Proxmox VE useful, consider subscribing for more stable packages and support.

Install Git

We’ll need git to get the themes from git.proxmox.com:

$ sudo apt install -y git

If you are having trouble with Git or wish to learn more, I can recommend this book, or this free Kindle eBook!

Get Themes

Now, go to the directory of customizations (created in a previous article), and clone the extjs repository on git.proxmox.com:

$ cd /usr/share/custom/
$ sudo git clone git://git.proxmox.com/git/extjs.git

Add Customizations

Add the required customizations to our customization script. On the second line, you select the theme, replace theme-triton with the theme you want from above:

$ sudo echo "cp -vrf /usr/share/custom/extjs/extjs/build/classic/{theme-aria,theme-classic-sandbox,theme-classic,theme-gray,theme-neptune-touch,theme-neptune,theme-neutral,theme-triton} /usr/share/javascript/extjs/" >> /usr/share/custom/apply.sh

# "theme-triton" below is the name of the theme you are changing _to_, replace it with the name of your desired theme! "theme-crisp" is the theme you are changing _from_, if you change from another team, replace "theme-crisp"
$ sudo echo "sed -i.bak \"s/theme-crisp/theme-triton/g\" /usr/share/pve-manager/index.html.tpl" >> /usr/share/custom/apply.sh

Finally, apply the customizations:

$ sudo /usr/share/custom/apply.sh

Custom Dark Theme

While the themes in this tutorial are default to Sencha Ext JS, Weilbyte has created a fantastic custom dark theme called PVEDiscordDark that covers almost all of the interface. With the jsmod it even changes the color of the charts. Instructions for installation (and uninstallation) are in the GitHub repository. Great work! 😊

Design a Theme Yourself

The web interface in Proxmox VE 6.0 is based on Sencha Ext JS (using their “Classic” themes), and they have some resources on their site on how to create themes for it (and by extension Proxmox VE). Amazon has many great books on web design, web development and UX.

Last Words

I hope you found this tutorial interesting and the new look of your Proxmox VE web interface refreshing! If you design or create your own theme, please send us an email and we’ll feature your theme on this site! 😊

Revision

2019-10-24 Added a section on Weilbyte’s dark theme.