Hello everyone,
I’ve finally completed my project of turning the BPI-R4 into a Proxmox hypervisor and yes, it’s working!
At the moment, I have the following running smoothly:
- OpenWRT
- A Docker VM
- An OpenMediaVault (OMV) VM
While not everything is functional yet, I’ve managed to get most features working reliably.
Screenshots
How I Did It
- Based the system on frank-w’s Debian image
- Followed a Raspberry Pi Proxmox installation guide as reference
- Initially failed due to missing FUSE modules, recompiled the kernel from frank-w’s repo including FUSE
- Got Proxmox running, but VMs failed to launch due to missing KVM and virtualization modules - recompiled again
- Successfully ran OpenWRT, but ran into networking issues
- Since BPI-R4 uses DSA, passing through RJ45 ports to OpenWRT was challenging, required macvlan and macvtap, recompiled again with those modules
- Ran out of storage, added an SSD, but couldn’t use it via Proxmox GUI due to missing device mapper modules, recompiled again
- With more storage, set up a Docker VM for containers, had networking issues, but resolved them
- Installed Debian on another VM and converted it into an OMV instance, successfully enabled ZFS, and created a RAIDZ2 test volume using virtual disks
What’s Not Working (Yet)
- RJ45 passthrough to OpenWRT isn’t working yet
- PCI passthrough is not functional yet
What I Want to Achieve
- LAN passthrough to fully utilize OpenWRT, but my networking skills are limited and the current setup is already complex
- PCI passthrough, for 3 main goals:
- Attach an M.2 to SATA adapter and move SATA drives into the OMV VM
- Use an M.2 to PCIe adapter to test GPU passthrough if successful, I’d like to try GPU transcoding in Jellyfin or even run a local LLM
- Pass through a Wi-Fi card to OpenWRT to manage wireless directly
Untested Hardware
- All 3 Mini PCIe slots
- Both SFP ports
I’m open to suggestions, advice, and happy to help anyone trying to replicate this setup. Let me know if you have any questions, I can walk you through the process.