Pool based back-up?

[pocok]

Hello,

I have tried PBS the other day (thank you @tuxis ), and I was able to back up the snapshots of my LXCs and VMs, from my own Proxmox VE (6.2-11), based on the inetgration feature already available. Which is nice!

However, I have other ZFS pools on the machine (apart from the ones that are storing the LXCs and VMs), let's say these pools contain personal data, which is out of scope of Proxmox's file system. I would like to back them up to a PBS as well. Is this possible currently? Since when addig a new backup job on the VE host, and selecting "Pool based", it does not list any of the ZFS pools added as "Storage" on "cluster" level. How does this type of backup work in this case, what is the proper way of backing up "other" volumes mounted on a Proxmox host?



Thank You,

 

[UdoB]

Well, naming interference: this is regarding a group of VMs, not a ZFS Pool.

You can create theses pools via Datacenter --> Permissions --> Pools.

There are endless ways of structuring groups. I do have groups like "linux-prod", "linux-test", "windows". Based on theses groups a schedule different backups.

Best regards

 

[pocok]

Oh, I understand now. Thank you!

However the other question remains: what is the best solution to backup a different (other) storage - that is present and used on a Proxmox VE host, which does not have container or VM images - to a remote PBS? I guess drop to CLI then?

 

[UdoB]

Other ZFS data might be "zfs send" to another non-proxmox host. This approach would keep the integrity of the data and would use the incremental feature of snapshot based backups.

I do not use this approach with Proxmox, so I am not sure if there are pitfalls.

Best regards

 

[pocok]

I know, I am using "zfs send" and "zfs recv" feature currently as well, as I am sure that pretty much everyone else managing and backing up ZFS clusters...

I thought the whole point of such a quasi-separate product as PBS would allow such options, with or without integration to the main product, Proxmox VE. As it relies around the same protcol as zfs send/rev, of course dedup, snapshoting, etc.

I guess there is one way to test it: install PBS on bare-metal, or any other separate host, with full admin privileges and see what it can do.

 

[devilkin]

I'm wondering if you could use the proxmox-backup-client CLI and add them this way? It's supported to add host directories this way, so it *should* work.

 

[pocok]

I'm wondering if you could use the proxmox-backup-client CLI and add them this way? It's supported to add host directories this way, so it *should* work.

Yes, that's what I would like to achieve as well, however the documentation is kind of sparse on this... hold on, it just got updated: https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/command-syntax.html#proxmox-backup-client

I may need to lick through them.