Save/Export VM/CT backups from PBS to USB disk for offsite/offline backups

[khe91]

Hi,

Is there there a way to Save/Export VM/CT backups from PBS to USB disk for offsite/offline backups ?

Thanks,

Karsten

 

[Dark26]

Maybe mount the disk on the PBS server.

Create a datastore on it.

Create a sync job between the orignal data store and the usb one.

 

[khe91]

If the PBS is down I can't restore from such a datastore on USB. I would like to have files like the PVE backups.

 

[Dark26]

If the PBS is down I can't restore from such a datastore on USB. I would like to have files like the PVE backups.

Good question . i think you can mount the datastore on another pbs server it needed. Maybe someone can confirm that.

 

[khe91]

Yes I could do that, but would prefer a simple solution. Just connect the USB disk to a PVE host or client with SMB share and restore.
Kind of 2 tier backup, first save to PBS then from there to removable USB disk.
At the the moment I create all backups twice from PVE to PBS and from PVE to removable USB disk.

 

[fabian]

you can use the client to restore all the files (as raw disk images, or pxar archives, or raw blobs in case of configs) to the USB disk. you can't directly restore those in PVE, but you can use them to re-create your guests (e.g. via qm importdisk).

 

[fireon]

And how are the data stored? Why i ask is, if i have a look at my dataset i see this:

NAME                                 USED  AVAIL     REFER  MOUNTPOINT
v-machines/pve-backupserver-store1   398G  3,31T      398G  /v-machines/pve-backupserver-store1

And if i have a look at the real space i see this:

❯ du -sh *
11M     ct
58M     vm

I'm confused, what's right now? Because i would copy it to USB drive.

 

[carsten2]

I think you can just copy the whole pvebackup dataset or directory (including the hidden files) to the USB disk. At the remote site you could create another PBS, copy this directory into the server and specifiy it as a backup storage.

For the file layout see here https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/administration-guide.html#datastore-configuration

 

[fireon]

I think you can just copy the whole pvebackup dataset or directory (including the hidden files) to the USB disk. At the remote site you could create another PBS, copy this directory into the server and specifiy it as a backup storage.

I see. There is ".chunks" Folder, ok. so i tested it. And... it was not possible to add an existing PBS Pool with data to an new installed PBS. The error said that data exists in this pool, and it is not possible to add an pool with existing data to PBS.

So it look likes it is not possible to restore data, from an external backup.

 

[carsten2]

I would create new pvebackup folder on the new server and then replace the complete contents with the backup (then maybe restart). Did you try this?

 

[fireon]

Ah ok, this way... hmm, yes that could work. I wanted to integrate the existing one, that should work ... I mean, now I have to copy / move 10TB (as an example) so that I can then play it back as vm ... but that can't be good either.

But maybe this: Create a new one with the same name, but not replace the content. Stop Backupserver Service, remove the whole created new Dataset, after this rename the dataset with the right content, after start the Service. This could work...

 

[carsten2]

I don't think you can integrate two backup databases.

If you want to seed a new remote server, i.e. with not existing database, then just replace the pvebackup contents.
If you already have a remote server and want to integrate other VMs, then I would transfer the VMs the the remote backup server (which should also be a proxmox server) and just make a lokal backup. Maybe you have to change the owner afterwards (see above).

 

[tomstephens89]

So I have to wake this thread up as I am excited to use Proxmox Backup Server for the first time. (I am a long time user of Proxmox VE).

Is there an easy way, like the OP asked, that I can copy a backup from a period in time, to a USB disk for DIRECT restoration on a PVE host? Or so I can mount the VM disk and recover my files?

 

[che]

So I have to wake this thread up as I am excited to use Proxmox Backup Server for the first time. (I am a long time user of Proxmox VE).

Is there an easy way, like the OP asked, that I can copy a backup from a period in time, to a USB disk for DIRECT restoration on a PVE host? Or so I can mount the VM disk and recover my files?

In order to directly restore the VM including all the config ecc. afaik at the moment no.

But what you can do is use the proxmox-backup-client restore functionality in order to restore the VM data to an image and mount that as loopback device in order to access the data of VMs. Or recreate the VM from that data.
For LXCs you get a pxar archive which you can easily access by the pxar tool.

See this post:

you can use the client to restore all the files (as raw disk images, or pxar archives, or raw blobs in case of configs) to the USB disk. you can't directly restore those in PVE, but you can use them to re-create your guests (e.g. via qm importdisk).

 

[plastilin]

The function of exporting a virtual machine in zstd format directly from pbs is in great demand. for example I need to transfer a copy of a virtual machine to another host that does not have pbs access. The pbs repository is hosted on iscsi and is located outside the perimeter. So I have to make another backup on pve itself, while loading the disk subsystem. Can we expect this to be implemented in the future? Thanks for the product, though.

 

[alfe]

This solution might resolve the problem of PBS backups to external drives:

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/copy-backups-to-external-drive.88791/post-389048

But a more integrated solution as said in the previous post is definitely a better option.