Fast transfer of PBS via external Disk

[TErxleben]

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?

 

[_gabriel]

PBS VM on a removable disk

is removable disk used as datastore or as passthrough ?

 

[TErxleben]

is removable disk used as datastore or as passthrough ?

datastore! no passthrough. mounted external per CLI/crontab.

 

[Chris]

datastore! no passthrough. mounted external per CLI/crontab.

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.

 

[TErxleben]

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.

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:

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:

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

 

[Chris]

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:

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:

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

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?

 

[TErxleben]

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?

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?

 

[mow]

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/.

 

[Chris]

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?

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