Proxmox VE 8.1: SDN, Secure Boot and Ceph Reef
Proxmox Server Solutions released Proxmox VE 8.1 on 23 November 2023. This post summarises the main changes based on the official release notes.
Software-defined networking
The core SDN stack moved from experimental to supported status. You can define zones, virtual networks (VNets) and subnets in the web interface and use them across all cluster nodes. An automatic DHCP IP address management plugin for Simple zones was added as a technology preview.
Secure Boot
Proxmox VE now ships a signed shim bootloader. The installer runs on systems with Secure Boot enabled. Existing installations can switch to Secure Boot with manual steps described in the documentation.
Notification system
A new notification system sends messages through the local Postfix MTA, an authenticated SMTP server or a Gotify server. Matcher rules decide which event goes to which target, based on severity, time or metadata such as the event type.
Note for upgrades: backup jobs without an email address now send notifications to root through the new system. If you do not want that, set the job’s notification mode to legacy-sendmail or adjust the matchers.
Ceph Reef
Ceph Reef 18.2.0 became the default for new installations. Ceph Quincy 17.2.7 remained supported.
Component versions
- Base
- Debian 12.2 “Bookworm”
- Kernel
- Linux 6.5 (default)
- QEMU
- 8.1.2
- LXC
- 5.0.2
- ZFS
- 2.2.0 with backported fixes
- Ceph
- Reef 18.2.0, Quincy 17.2.7
Proxmox also received its own MAC address prefix (BC:24:11), which new virtual network cards use by default.
Status today
This post describes the state of November 2023. As of October 2026, the current version is Proxmox VE 9.2, released on 21 May 2026 and based on Debian 13 “Trixie” with Linux kernel 7.0. Proxmox VE 8 reached end of life in August 2026 according to the Proxmox VE FAQ. If you still run version 8, plan the upgrade to version 9.
Read more on our Proxmox VE page.