diff --git a/proxmox/perf/bench/Dockerfile b/proxmox/perf/bench/Dockerfile
index 1f14244..23c37e3 100644
--- a/proxmox/perf/bench/Dockerfile
+++ b/proxmox/perf/bench/Dockerfile
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 FROM debian:12-slim
 
 RUN apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y -qq --no-install-recommends \
-        fio iperf3 jq ca-certificates \
+        fio iperf3 jq libaio1 ca-certificates \
     && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
 
 COPY bench-run.sh /usr/local/bin/bench-run.sh
diff --git a/proxmox/perf/bench/bench-run.sh b/proxmox/perf/bench/bench-run.sh
index 185f8fb..b00b7e3 100644
--- a/proxmox/perf/bench/bench-run.sh
+++ b/proxmox/perf/bench/bench-run.sh
@@ -30,33 +30,31 @@ b meta path "$BENCH_DIR"
 b meta runtime "$RUNTIME"
 b meta size "$SIZE"
 
-run_fio() { # $1=testname $2=fio-args...
-    local name="$1"; shift
+# fio may print human notes (e.g. sync-engine warnings) before the JSON on
+# stdout; strip everything before the opening brace so jq always gets JSON.
+parse_fio() { # $1=json-file $2=testname $3=read|write
+    sed -n '/^{/,$p' "$1" | jq -r --arg n "$2" --arg d "$3" '
+        .jobs[0] as $j |
+        ($n) + "|iops=" + ($j[$d].iops | tostring) + "|" +
+        "bw_kbps=" + ($j[$d].bw | tostring) + "|" +
+        "p99_ms=" + (($j[$d].clat_ns.percentile["99.000000"] // 0) / 1000000 | tostring)' | while IFS='|' read -r n rest; do
+        printf 'BENCH|%s|%s|%s\n' "$HOSTID" "$n" "$rest"
+    done
+}
+
+run_fio() { # $1=testname $2=read|write $3+=fio-args
+    local name="$1"; local dir="$2"; shift 2
     fio --name="$name" --output-format=json --timeout=120 "$@" \
         > "$BENCH_DIR/.fio-out.json" 2>"$BENCH_DIR/.fio-err" || {
         b "fio_${name}" ERROR; return; }
-    if command -v jq >/dev/null 2>&1; then
-        while IFS='|' read -r n rest; do
-            printf 'BENCH|%s|%s|%s\n' "$HOSTID" "$n" "$rest"
-        done < <(jq -r --arg n "$name" '
-            .jobs[0] as $j |
-            ($n) + "|iops=" + ($j.read.iops // $j.write.iops | tostring) + "|" +
-            "bw_kbps=" + (($j.read.bw // $j.write.bw) | tostring) + "|" +
-            "p99_ms=" + (($j.read.clat_ns.percentile["99.000000"] // $j.write.clat_ns.percentile["99.000000"] // 0) / 1000000 | tostring)' \
-            "$BENCH_DIR/.fio-out.json")
-    else
-        # no jq: minimal grep fallback
-        grep -oE '"(iops|bw)":[0-9.]+' "$BENCH_DIR/.fio-out.json" | head -2 | while IFS=: read -r k v; do
-            b "fio_${name}_${k}" "$v"
-        done
-    fi
+    parse_fio "$BENCH_DIR/.fio-out.json" "$name" "$dir"
 }
 
 # 4k random read/write (IOPS), 1M sequential read/write (MB/s); direct to skip cache
-run_fio randread4k  --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=randread  --bs=4k --direct=1 --iodepth=16 --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
-run_fio randwrite4k --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=randwrite --bs=4k --direct=1 --iodepth=16 --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
-run_fio seqread1m   --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=read     --bs=1M --direct=1 --iodepth=8  --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
-run_fio seqwrite1m  --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=write    --bs=1M --direct=1 --iodepth=8  --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
+run_fio randread4k  read  --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=randread  --bs=4k --direct=1 --iodepth=16 --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
+run_fio randwrite4k write --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=randwrite --bs=4k --direct=1 --iodepth=16 --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
+run_fio seqread1m   read  --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=read     --bs=1M --direct=1 --iodepth=8  --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
+run_fio seqwrite1m  write --filename="$BENCH_DIR/perf-test-file" --rw=write    --bs=1M --direct=1 --iodepth=8  --time_based --runtime="$RUNTIME" --size="$SIZE"
 
 rm -f "$BENCH_DIR/.fio-out.json" "$BENCH_DIR/.fio-err"
 
diff --git a/proxmox/perf/bench/install-bench.sh b/proxmox/perf/bench/install-bench.sh
index c6899fe..957014b 100644
--- a/proxmox/perf/bench/install-bench.sh
+++ b/proxmox/perf/bench/install-bench.sh
@@ -5,5 +5,5 @@
 set -eu
 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive
 apt-get update -qq
-apt-get install -y -qq fio iperf3 jq >/dev/null
+apt-get install -y -qq fio iperf3 jq libaio1 >/dev/null
 echo "bench toolset installed: fio=$(fio --version 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $3}') iperf3=$(iperf3 --version 2>/dev/null | awk 'NR==1{print $2}')"
diff --git a/proxmox/perf/bench/lxc-bench-setup.sh b/proxmox/perf/bench/lxc-bench-setup.sh
index 12242a5..38683eb 100644
--- a/proxmox/perf/bench/lxc-bench-setup.sh
+++ b/proxmox/perf/bench/lxc-bench-setup.sh
@@ -33,8 +33,10 @@ trap cleanup EXIT
 TPL=$(pveam list local 2>/dev/null | grep -oE 'local:vztmpl/[a-z0-9-]*debian-12-standard[^ ]*\.tar\.zst' | head -1 || true)
 if [ -z "$TPL" ]; then
     pveam update >/dev/null
-    pveam download local debian-12-standard_12.7-1_amd64.tar.zst >/dev/null
-    TPL=$(pveam list local | grep -oE 'local:vztmpl/[a-z0-9-]*debian-12-standard[^ ]*\.tar\.zst' | head -1)
+    DL=$(pveam available --section system 2>/dev/null | grep -oE 'debian-12-standard[^ ]*\.tar\.zst' | sort -V | tail -1)
+    [ -n "$DL" ] || { echo "[bench-lxc] ERROR: no debian-12 LXC template in pveam" >&2; exit 1; }
+    pveam download local "$DL" >/dev/null
+    TPL=$(pveam list local | grep -oE "local:vztmpl/$DL" | head -1)
 fi
 echo "[bench-lxc] template: $TPL"
 
@@ -50,7 +52,7 @@ pct start "$CTID"
 sleep 5
 
 # toolset in (same installer the guests use; piped in, nothing fetched from outside)
-pct exec "$CTID" -- bash -c "export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive; apt-get update -qq >/dev/null; apt-get install -y -qq fio iperf3 jq >/dev/null"
+pct exec "$CTID" -- bash -c "export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive; apt-get update -qq >/dev/null; apt-get install -y -qq fio iperf3 jq libaio1 >/dev/null"
 
 BDIR="/mnt/bench"
 [ -z "$STORE" ] && BDIR="/var/tmp"