Confusion around restoring backups to a new server

[medicineman25]

It seems obvious enough when the backup was created from an active server. Simply go into the backup and hit restore.

However what about a system where I have created a backup, backed up all my VMs, de-commissioned and replaced the active server, then wish to restore to the new server from the old backup?

There are methods like dumping the restore locally, then use WinSCP to transfer the vzdump from the old to new live server but that requires both the servers be active. This is not possible in my situation.

 

[Dunuin]

I don't see the problem. You use Vzdump on your old server to backup all VMs. Then you copy all the Vzdump files to a SMB/NFS share, another host or a USB HDD. On the new server you create a storage with content type Vzdump. Then you copy all Vzdump files over there, select the VZdump storage, select the backup you want to restore and restore it on the new server.

 

[medicineman25]

@Dunuin ah I see, so manual method it is... would be good to see more of this kind of migration tooling brought into the web gui eventually, and have it done more automagically.. but that's alright no complaints from me.

 

[Dunuin]

Best would be to have a dedicated PBS server for backups instead of using Vzdump backups. Also saves alot of storage because of deduplication.

 

[medicineman25]

Best would be to have a dedicated PBS server for backups instead of using Vzdump backups. Also saves alot of storage because of deduplication.

Yeh that's the thing (sorry forgot to mention), I already have a PBS running and that's where the images are... my confusions is about how to setup a restore when the backup hasn't come from the current running machine. That seems to be the only obvious and easy way to just PULL a restore, but there doesn't seem to be a way to PUSH a restore without it having already been setup prior.

My system:

- Proxmox Server: fresh and without any config
- Proxmox Server: decommissioned
- Proxmox Backup Server: with backups stored from the decommissioned system

 

[Dunuin]

Yeh that's the thing (sorry forgot to mention), I already have a PBS running and that's where the images are... my confusions is about how to setup a restore when the backup hasn't come from the current running machine. That seems to be the only obvious and easy way to just PULL a restore, but there doesn't seem to be a way to PUSH a restore without it having already been setup prior.

My system:

- Proxmox Server: fresh and without any config
- Proxmox Server: decommissioned
- Proxmox Backup Server: with backups stored from the decommissioned system

In that case you add your PBS server as a PBS storage (Datacenter -> Storage -> Add -> Proxmox Backup Server), then browse your backups and click restore (Storage View -> Your PBS storage -> Backups -> select a backup -> Restore).

 

[Gilles]

I have exactly the same question... moreover the archives are crypted. I would like to avoid having to decrypt, then restore, then move the archive to the new pb server, then backup/encrypt each of them... is there a way to do that without writing long shell scripts ? or at least simplifiy the process by simply moving the archives to the new pbs and load some key/rights ?

 

[Dunuin]

If your PBS is virtualized on the same server you want to backup you can copy the contents of the complete datastore to a fresh PBS and then manually add it as a datastore by editing the config files. There are alot of threads in this forum how to do that. There is no buildin import option yet.

 

[Gilles]

thanks for your reply, but no, my pbs is on a dedicated server (as recommended by PM) that i need to migrate/update

 

[medicineman25]

I don't see the problem. You use Vzdump on your old server to backup all VMs. Then you copy all the Vzdump files to a SMB/NFS share, another host or a USB HDD. On the new server you create a storage with content type Vzdump. Then you copy all Vzdump files over there, select the VZdump storage, select the backup you want to restore and restore it on the new server.

I am trying this now but I cannot scp data to the ZFS pool. How is this supposed to be achieved?

EDIT: silly me, the volume is mounted at /<zfs name>, which confused me coz I looked in there before expecting to seem something after having created some VMs but nothing was there. Will try to scp there now.

 

[Dunuin]

I am trying this now but I cannot scp data to the ZFS pool. How is this supposed to be achieved?

EDIT: silly me, the volume is mounted at /<zfs name>, which confused me coz I looked in there before expecting to seem something after having created some VMs but nothing was there. Will try to scp there now.

I was talking about Vzdump Backups. PBS backups are a completely other thing.

For PBS you should try:

In that case you add your PBS server as a PBS storage (Datacenter -> Storage -> Add -> Proxmox Backup Server), then browse your backups and click restore (Storage View -> Your PBS storage -> Backups -> select a backup -> Restore).

In case you got no running PBS you need to migrate your PBS to a new server first and then do the above:

If your PBS is virtualized on the same server you want to backup you can copy the contents of the complete datastore to a fresh PBS and then manually add it as a datastore by editing the config files. There are alot of threads in this forum how to do that. There is no buildin import option yet.

 

[medicineman25]

Awesome. Thanks a bunch!

@Dunuin is this documented anywhere? I could only find instructions for traditional backup + restore, or where the restore is coming from an existing backup as mentioned in OP.

 

[Dunuin]

The PVE and PBS documentations are more CLI focused. Didn't see any examples on how do that using the GUI.

With PBS you don't got individual archived images. Everything will be splitted into millions of small chunks files and these get deduplicated so you got a big pile of mixed data that contains the chunks of all combined guests. So you need a running PBS because only PBS can make sense of this pile of data. But as long as you got a runing PBS it shouldn't be a problem to restore any backup to any host. You just need to connect your PVE node to the PBS first.

 

[medicineman25]

With PBS you don't got individual archived images. Everything will be splitted into millions of small chunks files and these get deduplicated so you got a big mixed pile of data that contains the chunks of all combined guests. So you need a running PBS because only PBS can make use of this pile of data. But as long as you got a runing PBS it shouldn't be a problem to restore any backup to any host. You just need to connect your PVE node to the PBS first.

Ah yes of course, that's pretty cool.

 

[FarVision]

In that case you add your PBS server as a PBS storage (Datacenter -> Storage -> Add -> Proxmox Backup Server), then browse your backups and click restore (Storage View -> Your PBS storage -> Backups -> select a backup -> Restore).

Thank you for that! I needed to decom a node with a failing drive (no migrate, broken storage list) and it never occurred to me that the repositories were browsable directly from a separate node