Install PBS on PVE Host?

[anaxagoras]

This is for a home lab situation.

I have 2 locations, each with a single PVE host and 1 gig fiber.

I'd like to install PBS on each PVE host and backup both locally, and over the wan.

I'm sure this isn't a recommended solution, but it would satisfy my needs for the time being as I don't want to buy and power up extra hardware right now. But this will help satisfy having onsite and offsite backups.

What would be the best method of installing PBS on each PVE system?

• Install PBS on the same host as PVE
  • pro: better access to storage with less complication
  • con: how do you limit resources in terms of memory/cpu if it's on bare metal? Probably not supported since i'm manually doing an apt install
• install PBS in an LXC container
  • pro: lighter overhead than a VM, but i am able to limit resources
  • con: i don't really know how to give an LXC direct control over disk access? which i imagine would be important for PBS. Probably not supported since i'm manually doing an apt install
• install PBS in a VM
  • pro: easiest installation and maintenance and can just use the official installation iso.
  • neutral: could pass through an array controller to the VM for direct disk access - i have spares and this is doable on both hosts.
  • con: most overhead, vm needs to be running, more complication with passing through an array controller.

I'm sure there are various pros/cons I'm not considering, these are just what come to mind. Just looking to see what the least worst option is.

 

[Dunuin]

• install PBS in an LXC container
  • pro: lighter overhead than a VM, but i am able to limit resources
  • con: i don't really know how to give an LXC direct control over disk access? which i imagine would be important for PBS. Probably not supported since i'm manually doing an apt install

You can use bind-mounts. So a filesystem mounted on the host can be used in the LXC to store your datastore.

 

[anaxagoras]

You can use bind-mounts. So a filesystem mounted on the host can be used in the LXC to store your datastore.

with a bind mount i assume that pbs would recognize that there is an underlying zfs file system? since it' can't directly control the disks, i assume garbage collection can't trim the file system directly?

 

[RolandK]

>I'd like to install PBS on each PVE host and backup both locally, and over the wan.

you can't/shouldn't backup one host from 2 pbs concurrently. that would confuse changed block tracking for incremental backup

 

[Dunuin]

you can't/shouldn't backup one host from 2 pbs concurrently. that would confuse changed block tracking for incremental backup

Only Backup to local PBSs and then sync to remote PBSs should work. And faster because you don't need to backup your guests twice.

 

[anaxagoras]

that makes sense, i just installed pbs in a vm to get an idea of how it works. So it looks like data in the ".chunk" dir is the actual backup, and data in the vm-id folders are manifests? i'm working on setting it up in an LXC with bind mounts to test it.

I should just be able to cronjob an rsync script to copy the data over, or zfs snapshots and zfs-send?

EDIT: could i just use the sync-job feature instead? to sync the backup from local site to remote?

 

[Neobin]

I should just be able to cronjob an rsync script to copy the data over, or zfs snapshots and zfs-send?

Better use the integrated feature :
https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/managing-remotes.html

 

[anaxagoras]

Ok, i used an unpriviliged lxc container, set up bind mounts on both hosts, and using the job sync function, this all works perfectly.

Thank you all.

 

[jensie]

Ok, i used an unpriviliged lxc container, set up bind mounts on both hosts, and using the job sync function, this all works perfectly.

Thank you all.

Were you in the end able to pass a few disk through to the pbs ? If so, can you please explain in a few words what you did ?

 

[Dunuin]

unprivileged LXC and bind-mounts: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Unprivileged_LXC_containers
But again...not recommended to run PBS in an LXC as no developer actually develops it in a way that it will run in an LXC. This is working right now but could break with each upgrade. If you want to rely on your backups use a VM or bare metal thats officially supported and part of internal testing.