nacking up proxmox without VMs

Ovidiu

Renowned Member
Apr 27, 2014
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Since I haven't found much on this topic, I'll start describing my method here as well as asking a few questions. If my method is validated by others, I'll start a new page on the wiki for this (already applied for a user account on the wiki).

I selected duply + duplicity for my backups as this method offers plenty of storage back-ends. I personally, backup to Amazon S3
The basic method for setting up duply is described here, no reason to re-post all that: http://blog.phusion.nl/2013/11/11/d...automated-full-disk-backups-for-your-servers/

Now since I am trying to save bandwidth and unnecessary costs I'll try and exclude unnecessary files from the backup.

duply has a pre script that gets executed before the actual backup so I am planning to add this line to my pre script:

Code:
/usr/bin/dpkg --get-selections > /folder-of-your-choice/packages.txt
This dumps a list of all installed packages into packages.txt which can then be restored on the new system via something like:
Code:
apt-get  install $(< packages.txt)

My main duply config specifies / as the root of everything that is to be backed up, hence we now have to exclude whatever is not needed.
My exclude list:


Code:
- **/cache
- **/lost+found
- **/tmp
- **/backup
- **/backups
- **/empty
- **/spool
- **/lock
- /bin
- /dev
- /media
- /mnt
- /proc
- /run
- /sbin
- /selinux
- /sys
- /var/lib/apache2
- /var/lib/dcc
- /var/lib/mysql
- /var/lib/named/dev
- /var/lib/php4
- /var/lib/php5
- /var/lib/vz/
- /var/log
- /var/run
- /usr/share/man

According to the information I found this syntax "- **/lost+found" means exclude "lost+found" wherever it is found.

The idea is that we don't have to backup all the installed applications as we have already dumped a list of installed applications and we can simply install them again on the new system with:
Code:
apt-get  install $(< file.txt)

Questions:
a) Is there anything else that can be safely excluded?
b) Have I excluded anything needed?
c) According to the wiki and the forums, proxmox doesn't use any databases so no dumping of any DBs needed, right?

has anyone anythign else to add to this?
 
Questions:
a) Is there anything else that can be safely excluded?
b) Have I excluded anything needed?
c) According to the wiki and the forums, proxmox doesn't use any databases so no dumping of any DBs needed, right?

has anyone anything else to add to this?

Anyone backing up Proxmox and able to reply to this thread with any info please?
 
you can exclude
/etc/pve/*

from the backup.


but,be sure to backup
/var/lib/pve-cluster/

(this is were the vm configuration are located, in a sqlite database, which is use to generate /etc/pve/ ).