Backup of windows client.
- Thread starter panot4u
- Start date
Hi,
for now, there is no windows client for pbs available. what might work though is to share a drive under windows with smb and mount it on a linux machine and backup it from there with proxmox-backup-client.
for now, there is no windows client for pbs available. what might work though is to share a drive under windows with smb and mount it on a linux machine and backup it from there with proxmox-backup-client.
Do you know how SMB would handle open files in that case? Will SMB make use of VSS so the linux machine with the proxmox-backup-client could still backup files that are in use? I always got the problem with failing backups because files couldn't be opened when using backup clients that don't make use of VSS snapshots.
i guess that depends on how the smb server and client is configured.. proxmox-backup-client does not do anything special aside from opening & reading files
AFAIK it is not possible to backup open files via CIFS 
From client side:
Starting backup protocol: Thu Apr 28 11:09:05 2022
No previous manifest available.
Upload directory '/mnt/winserver/dir' to '...' as archive.pxar.didx
catalog upload error - channel closed
Error: error at "somefile.xxx": EBUSY: Device or resource busy
Server side:
2022-04-28T11:09:05+02:00: created new dynamic index 2 ("host/pbs/2022-04-28T09:09:05Z/archive.pxar.didx")
2022-04-28T11:10:12+02:00: backup failed: connection error: Transport endpoint is not connected (os error 107)
2022-04-28T11:10:12+02:00: removing failed backup
2022-04-28T11:10:12+02:00: TASK ERROR: connection error: Transport endpoint is not connected (os error 107)
Do you have some idea / workaround?
From client side:
Starting backup protocol: Thu Apr 28 11:09:05 2022
No previous manifest available.
Upload directory '/mnt/winserver/dir' to '...' as archive.pxar.didx
catalog upload error - channel closed
Error: error at "somefile.xxx": EBUSY: Device or resource busy
Server side:
2022-04-28T11:09:05+02:00: created new dynamic index 2 ("host/pbs/2022-04-28T09:09:05Z/archive.pxar.didx")
2022-04-28T11:10:12+02:00: backup failed: connection error: Transport endpoint is not connected (os error 107)
2022-04-28T11:10:12+02:00: removing failed backup
2022-04-28T11:10:12+02:00: TASK ERROR: connection error: Transport endpoint is not connected (os error 107)
Do you have some idea / workaround?
Andres.Urzagasti
Renowned Member
If you need only backup files or folders from windows, and you does not have a virtualized Windows, you can try Deltacopy ( http://www.aboutmyip.com/AboutMyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp ) or Cobian Backup.
These software are native from non-virtualized Windows (and also works in virtualized Windows)
These software are native from non-virtualized Windows (and also works in virtualized Windows)
Or FreeFileSync (VSS support) to CIFS share @ linux server with PBS client.
Ok, but all these backup processes requires another data copy and good timing (sync before backup).
https://freefilesync.org/
Ok, but all these backup processes requires another data copy and good timing (sync before backup).
https://freefilesync.org/
I'm also planning for this scenario. I'm in a home environment. The sole Windows system is Windows 10. I plan to make a Windows recovery image on an external USB drive. That way I can recover the entire system from bare metal. Then I can carry the USB drive to the PBS machine and upload it for a second archival copy. This would work for file-level backups also, like with any of the programs mentioned above.
Of course, this wouldn't work in a remote client situation.
I haven't actually implemented this yet -- still researching. I'd appreciate any thoughts.
I do believe that the Windows recovery image has to be on NTFS. So, I'm hoping that PBS can read NTFS.
Of course, this wouldn't work in a remote client situation.
I haven't actually implemented this yet -- still researching. I'd appreciate any thoughts.
I do believe that the Windows recovery image has to be on NTFS. So, I'm hoping that PBS can read NTFS.
As free users we have nothing to complain but looking at the pretty steep pricing for the paid versions it would be a quick dismissal of pbs as a backup solution if there was no windows backup client available. I guess Windows being the most used OS platform within a business, having no option there well.. is just unacceptabel..
Using SMB share as the source is totally fine, we have been doing that for a long time here.
To simplify things a bit I have created a docker image that can backup SMB shares or a few other sources of data and uses proxmox-backup-client to send it to the backup server.
https://github.com/OvrAp3x/ProxmoxBackupClientDocker
Feel free to use that,
or at least, the command I use in my image to map the SMB share is the following;
(replace the $ENV: with your actual values)
To simplify things a bit I have created a docker image that can backup SMB shares or a few other sources of data and uses proxmox-backup-client to send it to the backup server.
https://github.com/OvrAp3x/ProxmoxBackupClientDocker
Feel free to use that,
or at least, the command I use in my image to map the SMB share is the following;
Bash:
mount -t cifs $ENV:CIFS_UNC /mnt/cifs -o username=$ENV:CIFS_USER,password=$ENV:CIFS_PASSWORD,domain=$ENV:CIFS_DOMAIN,roRight now my docker image does not handle this, so open files will simply be skipped with a warning in the logs.
What you could do is use the "VSS for SMB shares" feature https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pr...ows-server-2012-r2-and-2012/jj612865(v=ws.11)
Basically, make script that uses DISKSHADOW command line to create a snapshot of the disk and then send the GUID of that to the linux machine.
Then you can use the UNC path \\server\share@(GUID) to access the snapshot
Set this up to happen like 10 minutes before the backup jobs start, oooooor make a job on the windows box that does this, then uses something like posh-ssh to have the linux box complete the rest of the work.
My plan when I have time is to set it up so that the docker image will use PSRemoting to control the machine and issue the neccessary commands to create and remove the snapshots.
Just as an addition here:
Has anyone considered the OS native "linux subsystem for windows"?
It should be possible to add the proxmox sources to that and then install the client within the subsystem. Then use a planned task to start the bash with a backup script.
*EDIT: I just tried and it's possible to install it within the subsystem for linux. Backups also run flawlessly. I also opened some Word documents within that folder and all files were still readable. But maybe there's also another case where "opened files" fail, I don't know enough about word to know if it really keeps the file handle open.
Has anyone considered the OS native "linux subsystem for windows"?
It should be possible to add the proxmox sources to that and then install the client within the subsystem. Then use a planned task to start the bash with a backup script.
*EDIT: I just tried and it's possible to install it within the subsystem for linux. Backups also run flawlessly. I also opened some Word documents within that folder and all files were still readable. But maybe there's also another case where "opened files" fail, I don't know enough about word to know if it really keeps the file handle open.
Last edited:
There's a open source solution that at my home is backing up several Windows PC's. Its called urBackup.org