Backup / Snapshot proxmox host installation

Phlogi

Active Member
Jul 21, 2015
36
4
28
Do you snapshot your root install (if on zfs) regularly for update-safety reasons for example?

Is it enough to just run zfs snapshot rpool/ROOT@im-scared-of-dist-upgrade ? So that in case of a failed update I could boot with another live linux (with zfs support) and simply roll back the install?
 
Hi, with 5.0 beta released the question for ProxMox host backup has become even more relevant :). I saw some topics in the forum discussing the backup of particular files, but my question is why bother if you use ZFS anyway. I have customized scripts here and there (I know its a bad practise, but...) so I am not sure I will be able to restore everything correctly.
I am also wondering if snapshoting the root folder will be enough to restore the system? I am not sure if the bootloader will be part of the backup as well?
Any suggestions or experience to share?
 
You're right. It's enough backing up /rpool (mounts to /:
rpool on /rpool type zfs (rw,noatime,xattr,noacl) on my system), however just make sure you have a USB stick with ZFS support to be able to restore a snapshot, etc. in case you can't boot anymore. The arch linux one works very well for me, or a proxmox install disk.

The bootloader is not insde /rpoo, its seperate. I'm running a mirror /rpool so I used the following dd command to copy the bootloader from one drive to another (e.g. before a replacement if one drive fails):
Code:
dd if=/dev/sdd1 of=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-SanDisk_.....-part1 bs=2M conv=noerror,sync

For snapshotting, etc. I use the excellent znapzend from https://github.com/oetiker/znapzend.

I hope that helps.
 

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