Backup of PVE servers apart from VMs and containers

[SoporteIB]

Hello,
I already have the entire installation done with PBS and backing up the virtual machines and containers, but I have a question: Is it possible to back up the PVE servers themselves in PBS or separately? By GUI or Terminal ?
Best regards.

 

[fschauer]

The PVE hosts can be backed up using the proxmox-backup-client

proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ --repository backup-server:store1

For more info see the backup client documentation:
https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/backup-client.html#creating-backups

 

[EllyMae]

If the PVE you're backing up is being backed up by a PBS running under that same PVE, you might want to think that through again. You didn't mention whether you are doing this, so I thought I'd bring it up, just in case. I am doing this. I don't use the GUI. Instead, I use rsync in the server shell to back up all the root directories that I'm interested in (especially /etc and /var).

 

[SoporteIB]

Si el PVE del que está realizando una copia de seguridad está respaldado por un PBS que se ejecuta bajo ese mismo PVE, es posible que desee pensarlo de nuevo. No mencionaste si estás haciendo esto, así que pensé en mencionarlo, por si acaso. Yo estoy haciendo esto. No uso la GUI. En su lugar, uso rsync en el shell del servidor para hacer una copia de seguridad de todos los directorios raíz que me interesan (especialmente /etc y /var).

No, PBS is on a separate physical server.

The PVE hosts can be backed up using the proxmox-backup-client

proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ --repository backup-server:store1

For more info see the backup client documentation:
https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/backup-client.html#creating-backups

Done thank you.

 

[Dunuin]

It's also possible to install Debian to a USB stick, boot that and then use the proxmox-backup-client on that Debian to backup the whole system disk on block level. That way you could just restore the whole working disk. I documented this here: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/pbs-client-grub-and-just-backing-up-partitions.105990/post-568579

But would be really nice if PBS could come with a bootable image you could write to a USB stick that would offer a UI for backing up and restoring hosts/disks/partitions. Great that there is a backup-client that allows you to write your own scripts to do this but my guess would be that not many people besides me would actually put so much work into it to backup a PVE host.

 

[SoporteIB]

The PVE hosts can be backed up using the proxmox-backup-client

proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ --repository backup-server:store1

For more info see the backup client documentation:
https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/backup-client.html#creating-backups

Is there a way to not ask for the PBS server key so I can add it to the Crontab so I can do it scheduled?
As with the shared key to access a Linux device via SSH.

 

[Dunuin]

You could for example store the password in an environment variable like export PBS_PASSWORD="YourPass" && proxmox-backup-client ... >/dev/null 2>&1

But not that great if you want to keep your password private.