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Prerequisites

Everything you need before deploying the aipostex lab.

Proxmox VE

A working Proxmox VE 8.x installation with root access (or an account with full VM/storage/network permissions).

Version requirement

The lab scripts use qm and pvesh features available in Proxmox VE 8.0+. Earlier versions may not support all cloud-init options used by proxmox-setup.sh.

Hardware Resources

Minimum

Resource Requirement Notes
RAM 16 GB Shared across 5 VMs (10 GB allocated to VMs in minimum config, rest for Proxmox)
Storage 75 GB Templates plus 5 VM disks, logs, model pulls, and snapshots
vCPU 6 cores Enough for four targets, one attack box, and light concurrent validation

Comfortable

Resource Recommendation
RAM 32 GB
Storage 120 GB
vCPU 8+ cores

Running on a home lab?

A used Dell OptiPlex or HP EliteDesk with 32 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD handles this lab easily. Any x86_64 system running Proxmox works.

Network

Internet Access

Required during initial setup for:

  • Downloading Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian 12 cloud images
  • apt install packages on all VMs
  • pip install for Python-based services (ChromaDB, MLflow, LiteLLM, JupyterLab, Gradio)
  • Ollama model pull (~220 MB for smollm2:135m)
  • Weaviate and Qdrant binary downloads from GitHub releases

Note

After deployment, the lab runs fully offline. All services and data are local to the VMs.

Isolated Bridge

The setup script creates vmbr100 with subnet 172.16.50.0/24. This bridge is not connected to your LAN by default — it's an isolated segment for the lab VMs.

IP conflicts

If 172.16.50.0/24 conflicts with an existing network on your host, edit the subnet variables in proxmox-setup.sh before running it.

SSH Key

An SSH public key must exist on the Proxmox host. The setup script injects it into all VMs via cloud-init.

# Check for an existing key:
ls ~/.ssh/id_*.pub

# Generate one if needed:
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "aipostex-lab"

Info

The default key path used by proxmox-setup.sh is ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub. If your key is at a different path, pass it as an argument or edit the script.

Storage

The setup script needs a Proxmox storage target for VM disks and cloud-init images. Check available storage:

pvesm status
Example output 
Name         Type     Status  Total       Used       Available  %
local        dir      active  97283072    10240000   82043072   10.53%
local-lvm    lvmthin  active  97283072    0          97283072   0.00%

The default storage target is local-lvm. If your storage has a different name, set it when running the setup:

STORAGE=your-storage-name bash proxmox-setup.sh

Storage type matters

local (directory) storage works but is slower. local-lvm (LVM-thin) or ZFS storage is recommended for snapshot performance.

Optional: Tailscale

A Tailscale account enables SSH access to the attack box from your development workstation without exposing the lab network.

# On the attack box (after deployment):
sudo tailscale up        # authenticate via the provided URL
tailscale ip -4          # note the Tailscale IP

# From your workstation:
ssh labadmin@<tailscale-ip>

Tip

Tailscale is installed automatically on the attack box by attack-box/setup.sh. You just need to authenticate after first boot.

Checklist

  • Proxmox VE 8.x with root access
  • 16+ GB RAM, 60+ GB storage, 5+ vCPU
  • Internet access (initial setup only)
  • SSH public key on Proxmox host
  • Storage name confirmed via pvesm status
  • (Optional) Tailscale account for remote access