How to backup and restore the Proxmox host installed on a zfs mirror?

[bytesonend]

Hi

I hope this isn't too noob of a question but I coult really need your help...

I've just finished the initial setup and configuration of Proxmox on a zfs mirror on two 240GB SSDs and haven't yet initialized any VM's. So I figure that now is the perfect time to do a OS backup before I mess around and brake the system .

Preferably I would like to backup to a USB-HDD in some form that won't be way too involved to restore. By the way, I setup proxmox to boot via systemd (as opposed to grub) in case that mattest.

But how do I achieve this? While there's a plethora of 1st and 3rd party options for VM / CT backup/snapshots I'm yet to find a good source of information on how to backup the OS itself, though I've googled this for a good couple of hours...

Tools like clonezilla and zfs snapshot+send comes to mind but as I'm large unfamiliar with both methods, I have some concerns:
1) As I understand it, Clonezilla only support full-disk zfs backups and it seams quite involved and a bit risky to shrink the image to not take up the full 240 GB, or am I missing something?
2) How will zfs snapshot+send handle the /boot/ and the /boot/efi (or is it even relevant when booting from systemd?) and will I have to restore those partitions first, prior to restoring the root pool?

Maybe there is an even easier / simpler way I haven't thought of?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Dunuin]

1) As I understand it, Clonezilla only support full-disk zfs backups and it seams quite involved and a bit risky to shrink the image to not take up the full 240 GB, or am I missing something?

I would make a block level copy of the complete drive. 240GB isn't that bad and it is the easiest and idiot proof way to do it. And you can't automate clonezilla, so it might be a good idea to reguarily backup the contents of /etc/pve so you atleast got the latest version of proxmoxs config files.

2) How will zfs snapshot+send handle the /boot/ and the /boot/efi (or is it even relevant when booting from systemd?) and will I have to restore those partitions first, prior to restoring the root pool?

If you only backup the ZFS using zfs send you would need to partition and format a replacement drive by yourself. And you would need to install systemd or the boot sector first too.

 

[bytesonend]

Hi Dunuin.

Thanks for your reply.

If you only backup the ZFS using zfs send you would need to partition and format a replacement drive by yourself. And you would need to install systemd or the boot sector first too.

Do you by any change know of a guide that explain how to "initialize the disks" and restore using option #2?

I once installed debian with root on zfs following this quide from ZOL but I'm not sure how much of this process is still valid when I have a zfs snapshot to restore. Further more they use grub and not systemd.

One thing is for sure. Than process was what I would call involved - at least for my skill level.