return of experience

[spirit]

Hi,

I was testing pbs with a customer this week, so far, works very fine.


I just have question about proxmox storage "max backups" vs pbs retention.

Currently, we have setting up max backups to 0, as we only use pbs retention "keep-daily/monthly/.."
I don't understand why we are able to setting "max backup"..it's confusing...



Also, about pbs gui, we needed to really read the doc to see how to test to prune old backups based on retention.

On the "Prune && GC" tabs, we can configure retention. but don't have a button to test pruning (only garbage collection, and the first time we thinked that garbate collection was to prune).
So, we need to go on the vm backups, and use the small scisor icon to prune.

Maybe a button like "Prune all backups" in "Prune && GC" could be great ?



Also, I don't known if it's could be possible technically to add saving of the qemu bitmap on vm clean shutdown/poweroff ? (to avoid to run a new full backup after vm stop)

 

[Stefan_R]

Pretty much all of these features are on the roadmap or have already been worked on In more detail:

Currently, we have setting up max backups to 0, as we only use pbs retention "keep-daily/monthly/.."
I don't understand why we are able to setting "max backup"..it's confusing...

We plan to replace the "max backup" setting with a "prune settings" dialog the same as in PBS in the coming versions. This will align the configuration to make it easier to find a working setup.

See: https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pve-devel/2020-November/045979.html

Also, about pbs gui, we needed to really read the doc to see how to test to prune old backups based on retention.

We plan to ship a "Prune simulator" where you can experiment with different settings along PBS in the future. This should help design your pruning schedules.

See: https://lists.proxmox.com/pipermail/pbs-devel/2020-November/001289.html

On the "Prune && GC" tabs, we can configure retention. but don't have a button to test pruning (only garbage collection, and the first time we thinked that garbate collection was to prune).
So, we need to go on the vm backups, and use the small scisor icon to prune.

Maybe a button like "Prune all backups" in "Prune && GC" could be great ?

You can already configure pruning jobs that will run regularly according to the settings you configure in the "Prune & GC" tab of your datastore. It's true that it's missing a "Prune now" button like for GC, this might be something to consider adding on our end.

Also, I don't known if it's could be possible technically to add saving of the qemu bitmap on vm clean shutdown/poweroff ? (to avoid to run a new full backup after vm stop)

Possible technically: yes. Easy to do correctly: no. Since PVE is designed around the idea that the user gets to manage and configure whatever storage backend they want, and also give the user access to all the underlying data at will, it is almost impossible to ensure bitmap consistency for a stopped VM (i.e. the user could at any point mount and change the VM image, then the bitmap is wrong and all future backups will be broken). We are still thinking about how to implement this best, but again, it is definitely on our roadmap.

 

[tom]

We plan to ship a "Prune simulator"

Already available - see https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/prune-simulator/index.html

Seems you missed https://www.proxmox.com/en/training/video-tutorials/item/introduction-to-proxmox-backup-server-1-0