Proxmox Backup on VM and use secondary HDD

[carminefox]

Hello everyone, I'm new to the world of Proxmox.
I recently bought a workstation server and installed Proxmox for some virtual machines that I need locally. It works perfectly, although yesterday I had some corrupted file system issues and had to reinstall Proxmox. Because of this, I lost all my VMs as I didn't have any backups.

Currently, in the server, I have a 1TB hard disk where Proxmox is installed and where I install the VMs, and an empty 160GB HDD that I want to use for Proxmox Backup Server.

I wanted to install Proxmox Backup Server in a VM on Proxmox itself, but I wanted it to use the secondary 160GB hard disk to store the backups, so that if Proxmox dies or has issues and I need to reinstall it, I can do so without worry, and once I boot up the freshly reinstalled clean Proxmox, I can restore my VMs from the backups that Proxmox Backup Server created on the secondary HDD. I also want the Proxmox Backup Server VM to be backed up.

Is there a way to do this? I searched a bit on Google but couldn't find anything.

 

[Azunai333]

I can do so without worry, and once I boot up the freshly reinstalled clean Proxmox, I can restore my VMs from the backups that Proxmox Backup Server created on the secondary HDD. I also want the Proxmox Backup Server VM to be backed up.

PBS cannot backup itself.

You need a running PBS to read the backup and restore VMs.
In case of DR: If your PBS VM dies, how will you restore the VMs? With your current setup you won't have access to your backups, because your PBS is not running.
It is recommended to have PBS on a separate Server for that reason.

How will you restore the host config? The VMs (configs and disks) are in the backup, but the host configs (for example: datacenter (with defined storages) and network interfaces) are not in the backup.

 

[_gabriel]

imo, for home lab, install PBS alongside PVE is easier. then put PBS datastore, the most important thing, to your 160GB HDD.
When you loose your PVE and its VMs + PBS, re install, then edit manually /etc/proxmox-backup/datastore.cfg to "attach" your previous PBS datastore.
PBS team works on the "attach" within GUI.

 

[Azunai333]

Just though about it some more, couldn't one manually backup those two files:
/etc/pve/storage.cfg
/etc/pve/qemu-server/{{VMID}}.conf

If those two are restored, wouldn't it work?

 

[UdoB]

Just though about it some more, couldn't one manually backup those two files:
/etc/pve/storage.cfg
/etc/pve/qemu-server/{{VMID}}.conf

As usual: it depends.

Please understand that "/etc/pve" is NOT a normal filesystem but a fuse-mounted database. It can only be used if Quorum is reached. Without Quorum you can not write any files there, so you cannot restore those backup-ed files easily.

Please see https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Proxmox_Cluster_File_System_(pmxcfs)