To me it seems like:

• you want to do a lot of stuff yourself on arch
• but there’s quite some complicated stuff to learn and try

I’d try Proxmox VE and, if you’re also searching for a Backup Server, Proxmox Backup Server.

I recommend these because:

• Proxmox VE is a Hypervisor, you can just spin up Arch Linux VMs for every task you need
• Proxmox VE, as well as Proxmox BS are open source
• you can buy a license for “stable updates” (you get the same updates, but delayed, to fix problems before they get to you)
• includes snapshots, re-rolls, full-backups, a firewall (which you can turn on or off for every VM), …

I personally run a Proxmox VE + Proxmox BS setup in 3 companies + my own homelab.

It’s not magic, Proxmox VE is literally Debian 13 + qemu + kvm with a nice webui. So you know the tech is proven, it’s just now you also get an easy to use interface instead of virsh console commands or virt-manager.

I personally like a stable infrastructure to test and run my important and experimental tuff upon. That’s why I’m going with this instead of managing even the hypervisor myself with Arch.

It seems nobody really tested 11 to 13, or maybe any kind of major-version-skipping and you won’t find direct experiences here.

Your best bet is to follow the official procedure, so 11 -> 12 -> 13. I’ll leave you with the official upgrade guide for 11 to 12 and 12 to 13.

It seems longer than it is, as not every step is actually required for every system. When upgrading VMs, a snapshot pre-upgrade can also help you skip backup-steps in the guides.

Proxmox Virtual Environment (PVE, Hypervisor), my beloved. Especially in combination with Proxmox Backup Server (PBS).

My homelab would not exist without Proxmox VE, as I’m definitely not going to use Nutanix or VMWare. I love working with linux and Proxmox VE is literally debian with a modified kernel and a Management Webinterface on top.

I first learned about Proxmox VE in my company, while we still had VMWare for us and all of our customers. We gradually switched everyone over to Proxmox VE and now I’m using it at home too. Proxmox is an Austrian (my country) company, so I was double hyped about this software.

A few things I like most about Proxmox VE

• Ease of access to the correct part of the documentation you currently need (*)
• Open Source
• Company resides in my country (no US big tech walled garden)
• Linux / Debian based, so no learning new OS’s and toolchains
• Free version available
• Forum available and actually used

(*) What I mean by ease of access to the correct part of the documentation is: Whenever you’re in the WebUI and need to decide on some settings, there’s a button somewhere on the same page which is going to lead you directly to the portion of the documentation you need right now. I don’t know why this seems like such a great luxury, every software should have something like this.

Next steps

My “server” (some mini PC with spare parts I already had) is getting too weak for the workload I put it through, so I’m going to migrate to a better “server”. I already have a PC and most of the necessary parts, I just need some SSDs and an AMD CPU.

Even migrating from PVE (old) -> PVE (new) couldn’t be easier:

• PVE (old): create last backup to PBS, shut down PVE (old)
• PVE (new): add PBS, restore Backups
• ???
• profit

I think it’s great to have a series posting about personal achievements and troubles with selfhosting. There’s so much software out there, you always get to see someone doing something you didn’t even know could be done or using a software you didn’t realize even existed. Sharing is caring.