Getting started with Proxmox Backup Server

[microlinux]

Hi,

I have a working Proxmox VE on a public server (sd-155842.dedibox.fr) with a handful of VMs installed. Nothing fancy, just a low-cost root server with a single SSD and 4 GB RAM, but everything works nicely.

I just installed Proxmox Backup Server on a different public server (sd-111887.dedibox.fr) also for testing purposes. This is also a low-cost machine with a single 1 TB SATA disk and 4 GB RAM. I can connect to the web interface https://sd-111887.dedibox.fr:8007 and things seem OK.

What I badly miss here is some sort of Quick Start Guide. I read through the Proxmox Backup documentation but it's somewhere between overwhelming and confusing.

Here's what I'd simply like to do:

• Perform a manual backup of a VM on the PVE machine to the PBS machine for testing purposes
• Configure automatic daily backups of all the VMs on the PVE to the remote PBS
• Have incremental backups if possible so only the delta is sent to the remote machine

By the way, all my VMs are currently running Oracle Linux 7.9, which is a RHEL 7.9 clone similar to CentOS 7.9.

I bluntly admit I don't know where to start. Any suggestions ?

Niki

 

[fabian]

configure the PBS datastore as storage on the PVE side (add new storage with type PBS, fill in the required info). select that storage for doing backups. it will automatically read and upload as little as possible, there is no full vs incremental mode with PBS.

 

[microlinux]

Thanks very much. I spent the best part of a cloudy afternoon experimenting with PVE and PBS, and I've made quite some progress.

I can't seem to configure a maximum number of backups. On my "classic" backup server (running Rsnapshot) I'm keeping a maximum of 7 daily snapshots. As soon as a backup is added, the oldest backup gets automatically deleted.

How could I do this with PBS ?

Besides my question, I'd like to say this: thank you very much for PVE & PBS, two great pieces of software.

 

[ph0x]

Either when you add the datastore go to the second tab (yes, there is one ) or after creation choose the third tab "Prune & GC" and change the retain setting there.

 

[microlinux]

Got it ! Works like a charm ! Thanks !

 

[toomanylogins]

Did you manage to get this working where pbs server has a single disk (1TB). I am testing on spare machine and cannot add datastore as dont have unused disk to create a directory. I just did defualt install ?
Thanks

 

[oversite]

Did you manage to get this working where pbs server has a single disk (1TB). I am testing on spare machine and cannot add datastore as dont have unused disk to create a directory. I just did defualt install ?
Thanks

You don't need an unused disk to add a datastore. You add an absolute path to create the datastore, like a directory on an existing disk.