Proxmox Backup Server 2.4 available

[martin]

we're exited to announce the release of Proxmox Backup Server 2.4. It's based on Debian 11.6 "Bullseye", but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 6.2, and includes ZFS 2.1.9.

Proxmox Backup Server 2.4 comes with dark mode, LDAP authentication, and support for WORM tapes.

Here are the highlights

• Debian 11.6, but using a newer Linux kernel 5.15 or 6.2
• ZFS 2.1.9
• Dark mode
• Added LDAP authentication realm and user synchronization
• Initial support for WORM tapes
• Download task logs in the web interface

We have included countless bugfixes and improvements on many places; see the release notes for all details.

Release notes
https://pbs.proxmox.com/wiki/index.php/Roadmap#Proxmox_Backup_Server_2.4

Press release
https://www.proxmox.com/en/news/press-releases/proxmox-backup-server-2-4

Download
https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads
Alternate ISO download:
https://enterprise.proxmox.com/iso

Documentation
https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs

Community Forum
https://forum.proxmox.com

Bugtracker
https://bugzilla.proxmox.com

Source code
https://git.proxmox.com


FAQ
Q: Can I upgrade Proxmox Backup Server 2.x to 2.4 with GUI (or apt)?
A: Yes

Q: How does this integrate into Proxmox Virtual Environment?
A: Just add a Proxmox Backup Server datastore as a new storage target in your Proxmox VE. Make sure that you run the latest Proxmox VE 7.x.

Q: How do I install the proxmox-backup-client on my Debian or Ubuntu server?
A: We provide a "Proxmox Backup Client-only Repository", see https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/installation.html#client-installation

Q: What will happen with the existing backup tool (vzdump) in Proxmox Virtual Environment?
A: You can still use vzdump. The new backup is an additional, but very powerful way to backup and restore your VMs and containers.

Q: Is there any recommended server hardware for the Proxmox Backup Server?
A: We recommend enterprise-grade server hardware components, with fast local SSD/NVMe storage. Access and response times from rotating drives will slow down all backup server operations. See https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/installation.html#recommended-server-system-requirements

Q: Can I install Proxmox Backup Server on Debian, in a VM, as LXC or alongside with Proxmox VE?
A: Yes, but all this is not the recommended setup (expert use only).

Q: Where can I get more information about upcoming features?
A: Follow the announcement forum and pbs-devel mailing list https://lists.proxmox.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pbs-devel, and subscribe to our newsletter https://www.proxmox.com/news and see https://pbs.proxmox.com/wiki/index.php/Roadmap

__________________
Best regards,

Martin Maurer
Proxmox Backup Server project leader

 

[Ivan Dimitrov]

Any hints when is the S3 support coming?

 

[Zerstoiber]

Hi Team, thanks for delivering PBS 2.4!
For me, there are some smaller welcome changes, feels like a solid maintenance release without huge changes.

Disclaimer ;-> We're not yet customers but have several huge projects coming up where Proxmox would be absolutely nice (getting rid of VMware+Veeam, because we really don't need most of the features).

But there is one thing i love about Veeam - system-enforced immutability through hardened Linux Repositories or S3 Object Lock, not just "please don't delete me flags" in the Backup software itself.


So i am also eagerly waiting for the S3 Object based backup storage, as you have it on the roadmap since end of last year.
Support (tape-like) syncing to S3/Object storage types
That's not yet sounding like you will push it out with immutability in mind, but:

Combined with Ceph Object Storage and Object-Lock feature for Immutability, Proxmox could build a very powerful ransomware protected solution/ecosystem! (Much like the competition - Veeam for example - offers.)
That would be a killer feature... "here's PVE, here's PBS with a hugely scalable, isolated/hardened Ceph-Cluster... fire and forget"

 

[t.lamprecht]

just "please don't delete me flags" in the Backup software itself

What do you think S3 or other such immutability protection do here (more than PBS does already)?

Note that the content addressable storage already gives you strong protection, and more important the possible to safely detect any wrong doing; which then allows you to restore from syncs and/or tapes - see our chapter in the docs for how to protect against ransomware or other data mutation in PBS.

Combined with Ceph Object Storage and Object-Lock feature for Immutability, Proxmox could build a very powerful ransomware protected solution/ecosystem! (Much like the competition - Veeam for example - offers.)

Ceph, S3 and their lock features are just software with a "please don't delete me" on a bit of steroids and on a separate instances (i.e., decoupled from the backup server host), certainly nice and can bring some protection, but I don't see how they "magically" protect more than our content integrity verification combined with syncs or tape backup do.

Please also note that with Proxmox Backup Server 2.4 we got support for WORM tapes (pro-tip: not the best terms to google without some additional terms like LTO to avoid getting a nice view of some parasites ) - Write Once Read Many tapes.
Those (and naturally normal tapes too) you can lock in a safe or otherwise secure location, giving one of the safest and most secure "if all else fails" protections there is.

That said, we still plan to implement S3, but due to its architecture it will need some special handling over standard syncs – that's why we also hinted that it will work more like tape does now. But I don't think it will have the huge safety benefits from some immutable flag on the (S3) storage over our existing architecture; but sure, I can understand wanting it, especially if one already depends on that already (i.e., has it evaluated and heavily tested to meet their requirements) and/or has it on the (often not so mutable) "must have" checklist from higher ups. When exactly I cannot say, that would just create wrong expectations (our devs normally don't work by hard deadlines, but rather ship stuff when it is ready, to avoid half-baked things getting pushed through), but we started working on some prerequisites in the sync framework (local-to-local and push based sync) which should both make it a bit easier to implement a s3 target then.

 

[fabian]

it is mentioned in the linked documentation, but might be worth a separate callout: you can configure both PVE->PBS and PBS->PBS sync using privileges that only allow adding, but not pruning backups. the corresponding privileges are intentionally split to support such setups. this gives you the same semantics like locked S3 and similar tooling (with the source of data not being able to remove or overwrite anything on the target, even if exploited and hijacked).

 

[Ivan Dimitrov]

At least for me the biggest benefit of S3 will be achieve the 1 in 3/2/1 backup strategy. If I can plug an S3 bucket to an PBS i can have automatic remote replication without bothering of hosting remote PBS.

 

[tom]

At least for me the biggest benefit of S3 will be achieve the 1 in 3/2/1 backup strategy. If I can plug an S3 bucket to an PBS i can have automatic remote replication without bothering of hosting remote PBS.

So setting up S3 storage is easier than installing PBS?

I assume you talk about a hosted S3 storage (running in a remote third party datacenter). So just do the same with PBS, use a hosted PBS storage, there are quite some companies offering this as a service. - e.g. if you are in EU, check https://www.tuxis.nl/en/proxmox-backup-server/

 

[ness1602]

I was also hoping for a bigger changelog, but i guess this is more of quality-of-life release. And of course, PBS works as great as ever.

 

[Neobin]

but we started working on some prerequisites in the sync framework (local-to-local and push based sync)

<3

 

[ubu]

First, thank you all for the grate software you produce, proxmox ist the best virtualisation solution, PERIOD.

unfortunatly file restore still produces defekt zip files for me:

zipinfo Downloads/backup.zip
Archive: Downloads/backup.zip
[Downloads/backup.zip]
End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
the last disk(s) of this archive.
zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of Downloads/backup.zip or
Downloads/backup.zip.zip, and cannot find Downloads/backup.zip.ZIP, period.

Luckily fixing with zip -FF defekt.zip --out repaired.zip works, but this is still a major problem.

 

[dcsapak]

First, thank you all for the grate software you produce, proxmox ist the best virtualisation solution, PERIOD.

unfortunatly file restore still produces defekt zip files for me:

zipinfo Downloads/backup.zip
Archive: Downloads/backup.zip
[Downloads/backup.zip]
End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
the last disk(s) of this archive.
zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of Downloads/backup.zip or
Downloads/backup.zip.zip, and cannot find Downloads/backup.zip.ZIP, period.

Luckily fixing with zip -FF defekt.zip --out repaired.zip works, but this is still a major problem.

is there anything interesting in the pbs log?

 

[ubu]

No, the Backup is working fine, Full-Restore works, after fixing with zip -FF the File-Restore zip file works.

 

[dcsapak]

no i meant is there anything interesting in the log during the zip download? maybe there is some error and the zip creation aborts, this should normally be visible in the log
if you do it from the pbs ui, if you download it from the pve ui, then i'd look into the pve syslog for containers and into /var/log/proxmox-backup/file-restore/qemu.log for vms

 

[ubu]

Mar 31 14:07:45 pve1 pvedaemon[878269]: <root@pam> starting task UPIDve1:001E2FA6:08ABCA8C:6426CD11bs-download::root@pam:
Mar 31 14:08:09 pve1 pvedaemon[878269]: <root@pam> end task UPIDve1:001E2FA6:08ABCA8C:6426CD11bs-download::root@pam: OK

zipinfo Downloads/asipot.zip
Archive: Downloads/asipot.zip
[Downloads/asipot.zip]
End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
the last disk(s) of this archive.
zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of Downloads/asipot.zip or
Downloads/asipot.zip.zip, and cannot find Downloads/asipot.zip.ZIP, period.

 

[ubu]

Just made some tests, It works for small directories, but not for larger ones ????
restore /var/backups 1,3MB zip works
restore /var 478M works

the defekt one were all dovecot mailfolders, but i cannot see how this might be the problem

 

[ubu]

copied mailfolder from mountpoint to root filesysstem, made proxmox backup.
restore of copied folder on rootfs is ok, restore of orig folder on mountpoint is
corrupt.

cp -a /imap01/var/vmail/barndt/ /root/

du -hs /root/barndt/ /imap01/var/vmail/barndt/
1,6G /root/barndt/
1,6G /imap01/var/vmail/barndt/

proxmox backup

restore /root/barndt : 1165709199 Mär 31 15:36 'barndt(1).zip'
restore /imap01/var/vmail/barndt/: 61576359 Mär 31 15:36 'barndt(2).zip'

file barndt*
file barndt*
barndt(1).zip: Zip archive data, at least v4.5 to extract, compression method=deflate
barndt(2).zip: Zip archive data, at least v4.5 to extract, compression method=deflate

zipinfo barndt(1).zip is OK, all files are included

zipinfo barndt\(2\).zip
Archive: barndt(2).zip
[barndt(2).zip]
End-of-central-directory signature not found. Either this file is not
a zipfile, or it constitutes one disk of a multi-part archive. In the
latter case the central directory and zipfile comment will be found on
the last disk(s) of this archive.
zipinfo: cannot find zipfile directory in one of barndt(2).zip or
barndt(2).zip.zip, and cannot find barndt(2).zip.ZIP, period.

HELP

i will do a complete restore of the mailserver and try to get the mailfolder from there,
but this is a serious bug, doe you need any more info

cat /etc/pve/lxc/10000102.conf
#Bullseye 11.5
arch: amd64
cmode: shell
cores: 18
features: nesting=1
hostname: imap01.ad.wilhelmshilfe.de
memory: 12288
mp0: ceph_ssd:vm-10000102-disk-1,mp=/var,backup=1,size=8G
mp1: ceph_ssd:vm-10000102-disk-2,mp=/imap01,backup=1,size=350G
net0: name=eth0,bridge=vmbr0,gw=10.0.0.1,hwaddr=5A:03:E5:6A:E1:77,ip=10.0.0.102/24,type=veth
onboot: 1
ostype: debian
parent: stretch
rootfs: ceph_ssd:vm-10000102-disk-0,size=8G
startup: order=5
swap: 12288
unprivileged: 1
lxc.idmap: u 0 100000 2147483647
lxc.idmap: g 0 100000 2147483647


PS
i renamed the mountpoint /zp_imap to /imap here in order to not cause confusion , it is ext4 on ceph

 

[ubu]

Mar 31 15:32:56 pve1 pvedaemon[2262340]: <root@pam> starting task UPIDve1:0023A6A3:08B396F3:6426E108bs-download::root@pam:
Mar 31 15:36:07 pve1 pvedaemon[2262340]: <root@pam> end task UPIDve1:0023A6A3:08B396F3:6426E108bs-download::root@pam: OK
Mar 31 15:36:35 pve1 pvedaemon[2175468]: <root@pam> starting task UPIDve1:0023E501:08B3EC7C:6426E1E3bs-download::root@pam:
Mar 31 15:36:45 pve1 pvedaemon[2175468]: <root@pam> end task UPIDve1:0023E501:08B3EC7C:6426E1E3bs-download::root@pam: OK

 

[ubu]

pvereport

 

[hvisage]

So setting up S3 storage is easier than installing PBS?

min.io isn't that difficult... perhaps the redundancy stuff (YEs, ceph + objectstorage is a different kettle of whales)

I assume you talk about a hosted S3 storage (running in a remote third party datacenter).

In my case: Some no -- regulatory requirements makes it easier to have it in environments directly controlled by us.

The "WORM" case I'd like to use is the cloud archive / cold storage that OVH is providing for the bulk of my clients' big backups.

 

[dcsapak]

@ubu how many files are in that folder? which mode did you do the backup in (stop/suspend/snapshot) ?