Move/Copy VM from PBS to external USB

Aug 2, 2020
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I'd like to copy a template VM from a PBS backup location (my NAS) to on USB for import on another PVE system.
If anyone could point me to a guide or instruction, I would be very grateful. It's PVE 8.2 and the latest PBS.

The directory on the NAS have this content

root@pbs:~# ls -lash /NASBACKUP/vm/108/2024-10-22T16\:17\:55Z/

4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 792 Oct 22 18:18 client.log.blob
132K -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 132K Oct 22 18:18 drive-virtio1.img.fidx
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 417 Oct 22 18:18 index.json.blob
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 378 Oct 22 18:17 qemu-server.conf.blob

I guess that the actual data is stored on the ".chunks" folders here. So much to learn :)

root@pbs:~# ls -lash /NASBACKUP/

1.1M drwxr-x--- 1 backup backup 1.1M Oct 20 20:39 .chunks
4.0K drwxr-xr-x 3 backup backup 4.0K Oct 20 21:09 ct
4.0K -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 297 Oct 22 00:04 .gc-status
0 -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 0 Oct 20 20:38 .lock
4.0K drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4.0K Oct 20 20:24 @Recycle
4.0K drwxr-xr-x 8 backup backup 4.0K Oct 22 18:17 vm

Edit: I might have found a solution. Please let me know if that would be a correct way of doing it

PVE console:
Select the VM and click on Restore
Choose to restore to local (was originally local-zfs)
Navigate to /var/lib/vz/images/
Copy the resulting disk image to USB

On the new PVE's console:
Create a new VM without any attached disk
Note the number of the new VM
Copy the disk image from the USB to /var/lib/vz/images/<number>
Attach the disk image to the VM and boot it
 
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