How to sync "host" backups

[marianh]

Hi,

I'm playing with PBS and I sync backups from my main VE to "cold spare" one.
Containers get synced well but backups of directories (e.g. /etc) which are part of "host/<server name> group are ignored by syncing job.
Why is it so and how can I make the sync job to copy over all backup groups?

Also I did not find the way how to automate these backups.
I can start them from command line using "proxmox-backup-client backup" but there's no "password" parameter and password has to be typed and I did not find any "key" parameter either and therefore it does not work from cron.

 

[fabian]

Hi,

I'm playing with PBS and I sync backups from my main VE to "cold spare" one.
Containers get synced well but backups of directories (e.g. /etc) which are part of "host/<server name> group are ignored by syncing job.
Why is it so and how can I make the sync job to copy over all backup groups?

maybe your remote user cannot see/read those backup groups? a sync takes all remote groups that it can, if the local group has the correct owner.

Also I did not find the way how to automate these backups.
I can start them from command line using "proxmox-backup-client backup" but there's no "password" parameter and password has to be typed and I did not find any "key" parameter either and therefore it does not work from cron.

you can pass the password via the environment, and the key either via an open file descriptor without password or as regular file + password via the environment, see https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/backup-client.html#environment-variables

 

[marianh]

Thank you.
First question was indeed user error - I did not notice/realize that those backups are created under different user.

Another question:
Is it possible to have originally unencrypted backups encrypted during sync operation?
I'm devising offsite backup approach, trying sync from local backup to offsite one and I'd prefer to have backups encrypted in offsite backup.

 

[fabian]

Another question:
Is it possible to have originally unencrypted backups encrypted during sync operation?
I'm devising offsite backup approach, trying sync from local backup to offsite one and I'd prefer to have backups encrypted in offsite backup.

no. changing the encryption mode or key would change the chunk identifier which would invalidate all indices/archives.

 

[marianh]

Ok, thnks.

In any case I like the new PBS a lot.
I had backups solved by my scripts before and with PBS it's of course just much better and easier

 

[marianh]

One more question:

Will pruning be also done when clicking "Garbage Collection" button?
If not, can it be started manually?

Why I ask: I configured sync job to offsite backup HDD, which is connected only manually/occasionally so scheduled prune is problematic.

 

[fabian]

no, pruning and GC are not automatically done together. you can manually prune groups (with the GUI or proxmox-backup-client prune), pruning the whole datastore is not exposed yet except via scheduled prune jobs and the API. that could be changed of course, maybe you could file an enhancement request at https://bugzilla.proxmox.com ?