Storing to a new Proxmox Server

[mason64]

Hi

Sorry if this is a basic question, Can PBS be used not just as a backup server but to restore to another proxmox server, for example if i had a proxmox server with 5 vm's i back up and all of sudden that proxmox server died, Am i able to restore the backup to another proxmox server i have with no hassles? as the other server will be a totally different spec to the first proxmox server.

Thanks

 

[MarkusKo]

Hi mason64

That depends. In general yes, you can restore PBS backups to any PVE server. Just add the PBS server as a datastore to your new PVE server. Then you should be able to browse all the existing VM backups and restore them.

Now some caveats:
- PBS should be independent of the PVE server you back up (not virtualized on that same PVE or use any datastore like virtual disk or nfs share ...) otherwise you would not be able to access PBS and the backups on the new PVE server.

- restoring the VM's should work but running them depends on the VM config, if you set the VM cpu type to "host" you may have to reconfigure some things in the VM's on the new PVE server, if both PVE servers support the same cpu instructions and you have set the VM's to something both support, like x86-64-v4 then there should be not problem.

- if you use namespaces on PBS you have to set up the existing datastore / namespace to your new PVE server to see the backups

- alternatively if you want to migrate (assuming both PVE servers are running) you can also use vzdump backups or migrate via PDM

- if you did something more uncommon like pcie / usb passthrough you will have to adapt that on the new PVE server and in the VM's

- PBS only has backups of your VM's, not your PVE server, you should document your PVE server settings so you can set up your replacement server more easily. You could use pvereport and dump the output to a file and transfer to your pc or you backup all important config files of your PVE server regularly.