Backup / Snapshot proxmox host installation

[Phlogi]

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?

 

[Ivan Dimitrov]

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?

 

[Phlogi]

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):

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.