Questions about backup in Proxmox VE (without PBS)

[Joril234]

Hello,

I've just installed Proxmox VE on my Intel NUC, and installed a first VM (Ubuntu server).

Additionally, I've created a backup job in Proxmox VE (on the top level, "Datacenter") which runs every night and backs up "everything" to a shared folder on a QNAP NAS.

I've got two questions about the backup feature:

• As far as I can see from the backup files, the job backs up the one VM. How can I backup the Proxmox VE installation and configuration itself? I didn't find any option in the backup job, where it seems I can only include or exclude VMs.
• It seems the backup job performs a full backup every night. Is it possible to do an incremental or differential backup? I'm aware that there is the Proxmox Backup Server - I'm not sure if the server part could run on my QNAP NAS though. Is that possible, or is there an incremental/differential backup feature in Proxmox VE, without PBS?

Any suggestions, or links to existing threads or webpages would be appreciated.

 

[Dunuin]

How can I backup the Proxmox VE installation and configuration itself? I didn't find any option in the backup job, where it seems I can only include or exclude VMs.

That is not a feature the webUI supports yet. There is no backup/restore of the PVE host. What ou can do is to backup your "/etc" folder with the tool of your choice. For example rsync via crontab to your QNAP.

It seems the backup job performs a full backup every night. Is it possible to do an incremental or differential backup? I'm aware that there is the Proxmox Backup Server - I'm not sure if the server part could run on my QNAP NAS though. Is that possible, or is there an incremental/differential backup feature in Proxmox VE, without PBS?

There are no incremental backups without PBS. Does your QNAP allow you to create VMs? In that case you could run a PBS VM on it.

 

[Joril234]

Thank you for the helpful reply.

rsync via crontab sounds good, I will do that.

I've just checked and my QNAP has an ARM CPU so I don't think PBS could be installed. In any case, it might be overkill for my requirements. I guess I'll stick with the full daily backup and set the retention time accordingly so I don't run out of space.

 

[Dunuin]

Another option would be to run the PBS as a privileged LXC or VM on your PVE server and use a NFS share from your QNAP as the datastore. Won't be fast, but at least it will work. You could then backup all guests except for the PBS VM/LXC to that PBS VM/LXC and use vzdump to backup the PBS VM/LXC to your QNAP. Restore would then be:
1.) install new PVE
2.) restore PVE host configs from QNAP
3.) restore PBS VM/LXC from QNAP
4.) restore all other guests from PBS