is replication between two servers possible?

[mason64]

Hi

Am looking for a solution where i could replicate 1 proxmox server vms to another that sits there and if the main server goes down i can get the other server going with in a few hours?

I am basically looking for the best option for redunence if my main server goes down.

Thanks for any help and reading this.

Thanks

 

[ness1602]

In that case best you can do is use zfs on both nodes, and pve-zsync.

 

[mason64]

In that case best you can do is use zfs on both nodes, and pve-zsync.

Ok thanks not something i have used before i will look in to that. is another option to run a proxmox backup server and if my main server dies i can restore from the backup server to another one of my servers? or is it better to do what you suggested?

 

[leesteken]

You can indeed easily do (live) restores from a PBS (and you need regular backups anyway).

 

[Johannes S]

Ok thanks not something i have used before i will look in to that. is another option to run a proxmox backup server and if my main server dies i can restore from the backup server to another one of my servers? or is it better to do what you suggested?

This depends on your usecase. PBS allows having several snapshots of your vns/lxcs in a space-efficient way and also allows the restore of single files.

With pve-zsync you can start the vm/lxc on the other PVE faster and since the replication schedule is usually smaller ( default 15 minutes, can be reduced to obe minute) than the backup you will have less dataloss.

Imho for your scenario it's best to have both

 

[mason64]

This depends on your usecase. PBS allows having several snapshots of your vns/lxcs in a space-efficient way and also allows the restore of single files.

With pve-zsync you can start the vm/lxc on the other PVE faster and since the replication schedule is usually smaller ( default 15 minutes, can be reduced to obe minute) than the backup you will have less dataloss.

Imho for your scenario it's best to have both

I will look at setting up the PBS first then look at pve zsync once the pbs is set up.

 

[PwrBank]

We use the ZFS replication across our small clusters in production, works beautifully. 1GbE connections with low traffic VMs though, so take that into account. Since the ZFS replications only transfer deltas, it's super fast. I haven't tested it on a larger more used VM though, and I wouldn't even dare with 1GbE in that case.

 

[mason64]

@PwrBank when you say low traffic vms, roughly how much traffic, was it easy to setup?

 

[PwrBank]

@PwrBank when you say low traffic vms, roughly how much traffic, was it easy to setup?

Oh yeah, stupid simple.

The VMs are domain controllers and a pretty static file server at one of our sites. Replication happens 10 to 15 minutes. But it also works perfectly fine set to 1 minute replications.

To set it up you click on a VM that's on the ZFS storage, click Replication and pick the replication target.


I have them staggered to reduce network load.

You can then set the VM to HA since it's storage is already on the other nodes, and it behaves like you'd expect. If a node goes down that's running the VM, it will eventually boot up on another node that it's replicated to.