I haven’t followed the official Proxmox VE site for a while.

Until a few days ago, when I recommended PVE to a colleague, I suddenly realized there was another major version upgrade.

As an upgrade obsessive, of course I chose to upgrade to the latest version immediately.

I had already gone through the process of upgrading from PVE 5.x to 6.0 long ago, and now it was time for PVE 6.4 to 7.0.

In short, just follow the official tutorial honestly.

Official tutorials for each major PVE upgrade:

Upgrade from Proxmox VE 6.x to 7.0

Upgrade from Proxmox VE 5.x to 6.0

Upgrade from Proxmox VE 4.x to 5.0

Upgrade from Proxmox VE 3.x to 4.0

Command Summary for This Upgrade

Upgrade to the latest 6.4 release first

apt update -y && apt dist-upgrade -y

Run pve6to7 to check for issues that may affect the upgrade

pve6to7

I checked and there were no FAILURES, only a few WARNINGS. Nothing major, so I continued.

Check Linux Network Bridge MAC

The official guide mentions this check, but I looked into it for a long time and never used the feature. My home PVE uses a static IP, so it had no impact. I skipped it.

Start setting up the upgrade repository

It is recommended to back up the configuration files first.

cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list_bak
cp /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-install-repo.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-install-repo.list_bak 
sed -i 's/buster\/updates/bullseye-security/g;s/buster/bullseye/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sed -i -e 's/buster/bullseye/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-install-repo.list 

Start the upgrade for real

apt update
apt dist-upgrade

Don’t just run the command and walk away. There are several places during the upgrade that require manual interaction.

If you don’t understand the prompts, just keep pressing Enter. That’s what I did.

If there are no errors, congratulations. Reboot and you’re done.

If there are errors, fix them and continue running apt dist-upgrade. It will resume from where it stopped.

If the following error appears during installation:

W: (pve-apt-hook) You are attempting to remove the meta-package 'proxmox-ve'!

1. Restore the original PVE 6.x apt configuration files.
2. Open my previous tutorial, Proxmox VE 6.3 daily maintenance, remove the no-subscription notice, and set domestic mirrors.
3. Look for the section titled If the update produces the error You are attempting to remove the meta-package 'proxmox-ve' and fix it.
4. Start this tutorial again. The official docs are more detailed than my notes.