6 Proxmox LXCs That Run Themselves After Setup

A handful of lightweight virtual containers running on Proxmox can easily manage your entire home network’s needs — DNS blocking, media serving, file syncing, and more — with no need to open a terminal after the initial setup.

This idea comes from a popular guide by XDA Developers. It covers six LXC containers (think of them as mini virtual computers sharing the host machine’s operating system kernel, which makes them much lighter than full virtual machines) that run on autopilot once you configure them.

What Is Proxmox, and Why Should You Care?

Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment) is free, open-source software you can install on a spare PC or mini PC, transforming it into a home server that runs multiple isolated environments. If a full virtual machine is like renting an entire apartment, an LXC container is like renting a single room in a shared building — you get your own space, but you’re sharing the plumbing. This efficiency lets you run six, eight, or even a dozen of these containers on modest hardware without any hassle.

The benefit is clear for anyone who has tried managing a home server: instead of one huge setup where updating one app might break another, each service operates in its own container and stays out of the way of the others.

The Six “Set It and Forget It” Containers

1. Pi-hole or AdGuard Home

These are network-wide ad blockers that intercept DNS queries — the system that translates website names like “google.com” into numeric addresses — and block those linked to ads or trackers. Once you set them up in an LXC and configure them as your router’s DNS server, every device on your network automatically gets ad blocking, including your smart TV and phone, without needing to install anything on those devices.

2. Nginx Proxy Manager

A reverse proxy acts like a traffic cop for your home network. It takes incoming web requests and directs them to the right service. Nginx Proxy Manager adds a user-friendly web interface to this process, allowing you to access various home server apps by name (like “plex.home” instead of “192.168.1.100:32400”). It even manages SSL certificates (the padlock that indicates a secure connection) automatically through Let’s Encrypt.

3. Immich

Immich is a self-hosted alternative to Google Photos. It automatically backs up photos from your phone, organizes them by date, and uses AI to recognize faces and objects — all on your own hardware, not a third-party server. Once the LXC is running and the app is installed on your phone, your photos back up quietly in the background.

4. Nextcloud

Nextcloud serves as a self-hosted Dropbox replacement. Run it in an LXC, point your phone’s sync app to it, and your files, contacts, and calendar entries sync across all your devices without going through Google’s or Apple’s servers.

5. Uptime Kuma

This monitoring dashboard pings your other services every few minutes and alerts you — via email, Telegram, or push notification — if anything goes down. It’s the container that keeps an eye on all your other containers, running completely silently unless something actually fails.

6. Vaultwarden

Vaultwarden is an unofficial, lightweight server compatible with the Bitwarden password manager app. Running your own password vault ensures your login credentials never leave your home network. The official Bitwarden apps on your phone and browser connect to your local server instead of Bitwarden’s cloud, so everything stays in sync across devices while remaining private.

What This Means for You

If you’ve got a spare PC collecting dust — even an older model from 2015 or so — you could potentially replace several paid subscriptions with just one setup effort. Immich covers what Google Photos One costs around $3/month. Nextcloud substitutes Dropbox or iCloud storage tiers. Vaultwarden can take the place of a paid 1Password or LastPass subscription. The catch is, you’re responsible for your own hardware uptime and backups, which is something to consider if your server PC fails.

But the “set and forget” approach is real. These six containers, once up and running, don’t require regular maintenance. You can automate updates, and services like Uptime Kuma will notify you right away if something needs your attention. For anyone willing to spend a weekend on setup, the long-term hands-off nature is a fantastic benefit.

What the Community Is Saying

“Vaultwarden was the one that got me into self-hosting. I was already paying for a password manager and thought — why am I trusting a company with my most sensitive data when I can just run this myself on hardware I own?”

— u/homelabber_actual, r/selfhosted

“The Nginx Proxy Manager LXC genuinely changed how I use my home server. Before, I had to remember port numbers for everything. Now I just type the name and it works. Took maybe two hours to set up and I haven’t touched it in eight months.”

— YouTube comment on Wolfgang’s Channel Proxmox setup video

Further Reading

• 6 Proxmox LXCs I set up once and never think about again (XDA Developers)

What To Watch

• Proxmox VE 9.0 is in active development, with community discussion suggesting improved LXC management tools and better GPU passthrough support — possibly making media transcoding containers even easier to set up.
• Immich’s roadmap includes ongoing improvements to its AI recognition features, which currently operate locally on your hardware rather than in the cloud.
• As more people seek alternatives to subscription-based cloud storage after repeated price hikes from Google and Microsoft, the self-hosting community on Reddit’s r/selfhosted (currently over 300,000 members) continues to grow rapidly — expect more beginner-friendly guides and one-click install scripts to appear throughout 2026.