AWS at Home

A Hacker’s Guide to Proxmox on an Intel NUC

🧪 Spin up, detonate, and destroy virtual machines like a cloud-native mad scientist — all from the comfort of your basement.

If you’re a security researcher, penetration tester, or malware analyst, you’ve likely dreamt of having your own self-hosted cloud to spin up VMs with surgical precision. The good news? You can — and all you need is a modest Intel NUC and a Proxmox ISO.

Welcome to AWS at home, where you build your own hypervisor, private cloud, and malware lab — for free.

🧠 Why Proxmox?

Proxmox VE is a free, open-source, enterprise-grade virtualization platform that runs on bare metal and gives you:

  • KVM for full virtualization (perfect for Windows malware labs)

  • LXC containers (for lightweight Linux workloads)

  • Powerful snapshot, rollback, and cloning tools

  • A clean web UI, CLI, and API

  • Advanced networking with VLANs and virtual bridges

  • Cluster, ZFS, and Ceph support — if you want to scale

It’s like running your own datacenter — without the AWS bill.

🧰 What You Need

💾 Hardware

  • Intel NUC (any model with VT-x and VT-d support)

  • Minimum: 8 GB RAM (16+ GB ideal)

  • SSD (faster disks = better ZFS performance)

  • USB flash drive (4 GB+)

🔧 Software

🛠️ Step 1: Prep the BIOS

  1. Boot into the BIOS (F2/DEL on boot)

  2. Enable:

    • VT-x (Intel Virtualization Technology)

    • VT-d (for PCI passthrough)

    • UEFI boot

  3. Disable:

    • Secure Boot

  4. Save and exit

🔥 Step 2: Create a Proxmox Bootable USB

  1. Download the Proxmox ISO from here

  2. Flash it to a USB stick using Etcher or Rufus

  3. Plug into your NUC and boot from the USB (usually F10 or F12 to select boot device)

💻 Step 3: Install Proxmox VE

  1. Select "Install Proxmox VE"

  2. Choose your SSD as the install target (⚠️ this wipes the disk)

  3. Choose a filesystem:

    • ZFS if you want snapshots + redundancy (requires more RAM)

    • ext4 if you want simplicity

  4. Set:

    • Hostname (e.g., proxmox-nuc)

    • Root password + email

    • Static IP (recommended)

Once done, Proxmox will install and reboot.

🌐 Step 4: Access the Web Interface

From another machine on the same LAN:

cppCopyEdithttps://<proxmox-ip>:8006

Login with:

  • Username: root

  • Password: what you just set

Ignore the certificate warning — it’s self-signed.

🔄 Step 5: Update Proxmox + Remove Nag

Update the system:

bashCopyEditapt update && apt full-upgrade

Enable no-subscription repository:

bashCopyEditnano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list

Comment out the enterprise repo and add:

nginxCopyEditdeb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm pve-no-subscription

Then:

bashCopyEditapt update && apt dist-upgrade

(Optional) Remove subscription nag:

Edit:

bashCopyEditnano /usr/share/javascript/proxmox-widget-toolkit/proxmoxlib.js

Find:

jsCopyEditif (data.status !== 'Active') {

Replace with:

jsCopyEditif (false) {

Clear browser cache, refresh.

🧪 Step 6: Begin Malware Lab Magic

From the Proxmox dashboard, you can now:

  • Upload Windows 10 ISOs

  • Create and clone malware VMs

  • Configure isolated networks (vmbr1) to keep samples contained

  • Snapshots before detonations, rollback when done

  • Monitor with Wireshark, Procmon, tcpdump, Suricata, ELK — your call

🔐 Bonus: VPN Into Your Lab

Want remote access? Run WireGuard or Tailscale on your home network:

  • SSH into Proxmox from anywhere

  • Access web UI securely

  • RDP into isolated malware VMs

You can even route C2 domains back into your lab for dynamic analysis.

🚀 Final Thoughts

Proxmox gives you:

  • Full control over your malware testing lab

  • A better understanding of hypervisors, networking, and cloud infrastructure

  • A clean, powerful interface with snapshots, templates, and automation

And the best part? It’s free. You just built your own private AWS.

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