Fast transfer of PBS via external Disk

T

TErxleben

Renowned Member
Oct 20, 2008
149
4
83
Hi,
I run a PBS VM on a removable disk. Now I would like to plug it into another PVE host and just start it there without having to go through backup/restore (4TB takes a little longer). Has anyone ever realized this?
 
TErxleben said:
datastore! no passthrough. mounted external per CLI/crontab.
Click to expand...
Hi,
please share the VM config qm config <VMID> for the PBS VM as well as the storage config cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg to get a better insight in your current setup.

Given that the datastore is managed by the VM, you should be able to simply shutdown the VM, remove the removable disk and attach it to the other PVE host using the same configuration. Then you will have to move the PBS VM (probably best by creating a regular vma backup and restore or use migration if part of a cluster) to the target PVE host.
 
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Chris said:
Hi,
please share the VM config qm config <VMID> for the PBS VM as well as the storage config cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg to get a better insight in your current setup.

Given that the datastore is managed by the VM, you should be able to simply shutdown the VM, remove the removable disk and attach it to the other PVE host using the same configuration. Then you will have to move the PBS VM (probably best by creating a regular vma backup and restore or use migration if part of a cluster) to the target PVE host.
Click to expand...
Hi,
There is an easily removable SATA SSD in the source host, which can be plugged into any target host using a USB housing.
How do I get the target host to display the VMs it contains in the WebUI and thus make them startable?
Please refer to: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/external-storage.143797/

#qm config 300:
Code: 
boot: order=virtio1
cores: 4
cpu: x86-64-v2-AES
memory: 4096
meta: creation-qemu=8.0.2,ctime=1689006476
name: pbs
net0: virtio=7A:F3:7B:E9:D1:A7,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 0
ostype: l26
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=f26953a9-bf86-4322-9856-484ca9c27310
sockets: 1
virtio0: local-backup:300/vm-300-disk-0.qcow2,iothread=1,size=2000G
virtio1: local-backup:300/vm-300-disk-1.qcow2,iothread=1,size=32G
vmgenid: b41137b2-e27b-4699-9da2-1398522d800e

cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg:
Code: 
dir: local
        path /var/lib/vz
        content iso,vztmpl
        shared 0

lvmthin: local-lvm
        thinpool data
        vgname pve
        content rootdir,images

dir: local-backup
        path /mnt/backup
        content vztmpl,iso,backup,images
        prune-backups keep-last=3
        shared 0

pbs: pbs
        datastore pbs
        server 192.168.5.84
        content backup
        fingerprint f2:66:a4:0c:6d:0e:98:e4:fc:3c:f0:fb:19:63:fd:36:24:51:d7:fc:fa:34:81:2a:bc:35:94:7e:76:c6:86:7d
        prune-backups keep-all=1
        username root@pam
 
Last edited:
TErxleben said:
Hi,
There is an easily removable SATA SSD in the source host, which can be plugged into any target host using a USB housing.
How do I get the target host to display the VMs it contains in the WebUI and thus make them startable?
Please refer to: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/external-storage.143797/

#qm config 300:
Code: 
boot: order=virtio1
cores: 4
cpu: x86-64-v2-AES
memory: 4096
meta: creation-qemu=8.0.2,ctime=1689006476
name: pbs
net0: virtio=7A:F3:7B:E9:D1:A7,bridge=vmbr0,firewall=1
numa: 0
ostype: l26
scsihw: virtio-scsi-single
smbios1: uuid=f26953a9-bf86-4322-9856-484ca9c27310
sockets: 1
virtio0: local-backup:300/vm-300-disk-0.qcow2,iothread=1,size=2000G
virtio1: local-backup:300/vm-300-disk-1.qcow2,iothread=1,size=32G
vmgenid: b41137b2-e27b-4699-9da2-1398522d800e

cat /etc/pve/storage.cfg:
Code: 
dir: local
        path /var/lib/vz
        content iso,vztmpl
        shared 0

lvmthin: local-lvm
        thinpool data
        vgname pve
        content rootdir,images

dir: local-backup
        path /mnt/backup
        content vztmpl,iso,backup,images
        prune-backups keep-last=3
        shared 0

pbs: pbs
        datastore pbs
        server 192.168.5.84
        content backup
        fingerprint f2:66:a4:0c:6d:0e:98:e4:fc:3c:f0:fb:19:63:fd:36:24:51:d7:fc:fa:34:81:2a:bc:35:94:7e:76:c6:86:7d
        prune-backups keep-all=1
        username root@pam
Click to expand...
Ah I see, you have this disk added as storage in PVE and created disks for the VM. Well in that case you first of all have to make sure that there are no other VMs on that host using this storage, only if that is the case you can move the disk without compromising other VMs. Is that the case?
 
Chris said:
Ah I see, you have this disk added as storage in PVE and created disks for the VM. Well in that case you first of all have to make sure that there are no other VMs on that host using this storage, only if that is the case you can move the disk without compromising other VMs. Is that the case?
Click to expand...
That's right. Removing local backup does not affect any other VMs. So I can remove the part without any problem. How do I get the “Live VM” contained on it started on another host without a time-consuming restore?
 
I'd say you need to transfer the local-backup datastore setting from /etc/pve/storage.cfg, the line for the vm from /etc/pve/.vmlist, and the vm config from /etc/pve/nodes/pve/qemu-server/.
 
Last edited:
TErxleben said:
That's right. Removing local backup does not affect any other VMs. So I can remove the part without any problem. How do I get the “Live VM” contained on it started on another host without a time-consuming restore?
Click to expand...

You need to transfer the datastore config for local-backup, so that the storage can be accessed by PVE (not recreating the storage, rather reconfigure it). For this to work, the disk has to be mounted to the exact same path via e.g. an fstab entry or a systemd mount unit file. Since also the VM root disk is located on that storage, it is further only neccessary to transfer the VM config located at /etc/pve/qemu-server/300.conf, make however sure that there is no duplicate VMID.

Edit: Fixed typo in VMID
 
Chris said:
You need to transfer the datastore config for local-backup, so that the storage can be accessed by PVE (not recreating the storage, rather reconfigure it). For this to work, the disk has to be mounted to the exact same path via e.g. an fstab entry or a systemd mount unit file. Since also the VM root disk is located on that storage, it is further only neccessary to transfer the VM config located at /etc/pve/qemu-server/300.conf, make however sure that there is no duplicate VMID.

Edit: Fixed typo in VMID
Click to expand...
I would like to clarify my question. I installed a VM on an external USB disk. I would like to unplug this and connect it to another PVE host without using the CLI. So the PVE host to which I plug the USB disk should automatically display the new "USB datastore" in the GUI in order to be able to start the VM there.
 
If the world were a dream concert, I would want a virtual PBS on several external USB media that I could use on other PVE hosts simply by plugging it in.
 
TErxleben said:
If the world were a dream concert, I would want a virtual PBS on several external USB media that I could use on other PVE hosts simply by plugging it in.
Click to expand...
There is ongoing work to support removable datastores in PBS, see https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pbs-devel/2024-April/009029.html
While this is not intended take care of moving a PBS instance together with the datastore, this might be what you wish for nevertheless. Using this removable datastores, you could detach the datastore, move the VM without the datastore by e.g. a VMA backup, storage replication or VM migration and spinning up the VM on another PVE host, attaching the removable datastore afterwards.

Unfortunately I cannot give you an ETA for this feature.
 
Last edited:
Chris said:
There is ongoing work to support removable datastores in PBS, see https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pbs-devel/2024-April/009029.html
While this is not intended take care of moving a PBS instance together with the datastore, this might be what you wish for nevertheless. Using this removable datastores, you could detach the datastore, move the VM without the datastore by e.g. a VMA backup, storage replication or VM migration and spinning up the VM on another PVE host, attaching the removable datastore afterwards.

Unfortunately I cannot give you an ETA for this feature.
Click to expand...
1. Thanks for the tip. Sounds pretty good and is heading in the right direction.
2. How about enabling portable data stores (on USB targets) on which you can also store dumps?
3. You then “learn” these on the desired target PVE hosts (UUID etc.) and then they are automatically displayed in the WebGUI so that you can quickly restore them.
4. In my opinion the most elegant way is via a PBS. So normal backup on the same. This then creates planned dump files on USB disks.
5. You already have tape management in PBS. Why not adapt these to USB devices?
 
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