Enable Free (No-Subscription) Repositories in Proxmox VE

By default, the Proxmox VE hypervisor uses commercial (enterprise) repositories to obtain updates. These updates are only available with a paid subscription. If you try to get an APT update from a commercial repo without a subscription, you will get a package source error. You must switch to pve-no-subscription repositories to receive updates without a Proxmox VE subscription.

Switching to the free Proxmox repository requires editing several source repository files. Comment out the enterprise repository and add a non-subscription repo. The configuration should look like this:

For Proxmox 8+:

$ sudo nano /apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise

#deb https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm enterprise
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm pve-no-subscription
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib

$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ceph.list

#For Ceph Quincy
#deb https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-quincy bookworm enterprise
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-quincy bookworm no-subscription
#For Ceph Reef
#deb https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-reef bookworm enterprise
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/ceph-reef bookworm no-subscription

For Proxmox 7:

$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

#deb https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/pve bullseye enterprise
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bullseye pve-no-subscription
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib

You can also change the repository list using the Proxmox VE web interface. Go to Updates -> Repositories. Select enterprise repositories and click Disable.

Then click the Add button and add no-subscription repo.

Now you can update the packages from the free repositories

$ sudo apt update && apt upgrade -y

Once this is done, Proxmox VE will continue to display a notification in the web interface that a valid subscription is missing:

You do not have a valid subscription for this server. Please visit www.proxmox.com to get a list of available options

To disable this annoying notification, run the following command in the console (for Proxmox versions from 6.2.15 to 8.1.10 and higher):

$sudo sed -i.backup -z "s/res === null || res === undefined || \!res || res\n\t\t\t.data.status.toLowerCase() \!== 'active'/false/g" /usr/share/javascript/proxmox-widget-toolkit/proxmoxlib.js && systemctl restart pveproxy.service

Please restart your browser or clear its cache.

$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall proxmox-widget-toolkit