Upgrade 5.4 to 6x

[leenux_tux]

Firstly, thanks to the Proxmox dev's for an amazing product. I rarely post because the system is rock solid and I have not had any problems for years, until recently whilst attempting an in place upgrade from 5.4 to 6

Some details around the config. I think very simple deployment.
Home/home office setup for work and educational purposes
Proxmox install to SSD. VM's are hosted via NFS to a FreeNAS server
The Proxmox server also has 3X3TB hard drive (ZFS) for hosting backups from the FreeNAS system back to the Proxmox server, Proxmox VM backups are also kept on the NFS share (FreeNAS) so get passed back to the Proxmox server.

I recently decided to upgrade from 5.4 to 6.x attempting the in place upgrade but has only partially worked leaving the ZFS pool unavailable. I now want to do a full re-install of Proxmox, however, the guidance states "make a full backup of all VM's" (or similar). If I have my VM;s hosted on an NFS share do I still need to backup ?

Many thanks

N

 

[Moayad]

Hi,

I recently decided to upgrade from 5.4 to 6.x attempting the in place upgrade but has only partially worked leaving the ZFS pool unavailable. I now want to do a full re-install of Proxmox, however, the guidance states "make a full backup of all VM's" (or similar). If I have my VM;s hosted on an NFS share do I still need to backup ?

If backups for VMs are in on another storage you can install new Proxmox VE and restore them, but I recommend to restore one of them on another Proxmox VE before install new VE, to see if you're VMs backup are correct.

 

[leenux_tux]

Thanks for your advice Moayad.

As a test I created a new VM, got it up and running and logged in successfully, just so I know the VM "works".
I backed it up to my FreeNAS NFS storage where all my VM backups are stored and deleted the VM via the ProxMox GUI
I then restored the deleted VM, started it up and logged in OK

I think that proves VM's can be backed up and restored successfully.

So now I want to re-install ProxMox. Is there any documentation I can review which will give me some pointers and any "gotchas" that I might need to be aware of ? For example, are there any config files I can save off which will help with the rebuild, for example "Storage", I have a local file system for storing ISO images (I already have these backed up on my FreeNAS system), as mentioned above a FreeNAS system serves up my ProxMox backups but also acts as an NFS data store for my VM's. If I save of a specific set of files, configure the data stores correctly, will my VM's "magically" appear in the ProxMox GUI ?

Thanks and regards

N

 

[t.lamprecht]

For example, are there any config files I can save off which will help with the rebuild, for example "Storage",

Most Proxmox VE relevant configurations are in /etc/pve

There's a documentation for most files: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pmxcfs.html#_files

So, I'd always keep a copy of the configuration files in there, it is also a good idea to save the backing sqlite database before starting the re-installation.

systemctl stop pve-cluster
cp /var/lib/pve-cluster/config.db /path/to/backup/

# you'd need to start pve-cluster again if you want to do some PVE operations
# systemctl start pve-cluster

 

[t.lamprecht]

If I save of a specific set of files, configure the data stores correctly, will my VM's "magically" appear in the ProxMox GUI ?

If you restore the storage.cfg and the guest configs under

nodes/<NAME>/qemu-server/<VMID>.conf

nodes/<NAME>/lxc/<VMID>.conf

it can actually behave like that, as long as all was on external storage, and no host-specific stuff like disk/PCIe pass-through was configured.

Still, always good to keep up-to-date, restore tested, backups around.

 

[leenux_tux]

Perfect, many thanks Thomas for the prompt reply and information. Doesn't look as complicated as I originally thought !