Using CIFS/NFS as datastore

np86

Well-Known Member
Jun 11, 2016
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Firsty, so pleased about the news about this product. Probably one of the biggest improvement you could make for Proxmox.

So I got the PBS setup, but since my current backup data are on my NAS, I would like to add it as CIFS/NFS share.
But when I create datastore pointing to /mnt/pvebackup it times out and doesnt work. I tried to check what permission the local datastore used, and from what I could see, it should just be user: backup and group: backup?
 
Hi all,

Same thoughts here - but wasn't able to successfully use NFS as well. It might be that proxmox relies on a filesystem controlled by the backup server... but would be glad to get a clarification...

Thanks
Tobias
 
Hi all,

Same thoughts here - but wasn't able to successfully use NFS as well. It might be that proxmox relies on a filesystem controlled by the backup server... but would be glad to get a clarification...

Thanks
Tobias
Yep same here. I run PBS as a VM, so I would prefer some network storage. Right now I have just added an extra disk on that storage, but would prefer NFS/CIFS if possible.
 
Hi
Yep same here. I run PBS as a VM, so I would prefer some network storage. Right now I have just added an extra disk on that storage, but would prefer NFS/CIFS if possible.

I have installed pbs as a vm right now (using cpu=host in order to get aes support) but I am not 100% convinced that, on the long run, running the backup server as a VM is the way to go.

In case your VM Cluster completely breaks down... could be a nightmare.

I will evaluate this at a later point... for now it's on a VM.

Tobias
 
Hi


I have installed pbs as a vm right now (using cpu=host in order to get aes support) but I am not 100% convinced that, on the long run, running the backup server as a VM is the way to go.

In case your VM Cluster completely breaks down... could be a nightmare.

I will evaluate this at a later point... for now it's on a VM.

Tobias
Well I could just get a small factor PC to run as PBS, if network storage is actually supported. But this is just my homelab, and I am just testing out PBS at the moment.
 
Hi,
Well I could just get a small factor PC to run as PBS, if network storage is actually supported. But this is just my homelab, and I am just testing out PBS at the moment.

I seem to have made it run with NFS. Best Tip I can give you is to check the NFS Server permissions (user-mapping / root-squash).

Permissions on your backup mount must be 755.

Tobias

P.S: what a stupid mistake on my side...
 
CIFS works here OK using the additional uid=34,noforceuid,gid=34,noforcegid mountoptions (numbers are from id backup

Note, on datastore create we pre-allocate quite a few directories (2^16), on local filesystem this can happen relatively fast (~ 1s) but on a network attached storage it can take a few minutes. Currently, this does not run in a task (that's planned), so the webinterface aborts the connection after 30 seconds, but the backend still finishes the allocation (you can check the syslog) - so the datastore should actually appear after a few minutes even if it times out.

An alternative is using the CLI for this one-time addition, for example:
Bash:
proxmox-backup-manager datastore create NAME /mnt/tl-cifs/dest

NFS can be more troublesome, especially if not NFSv4 with id mapping.
 
CIFS works here OK using the additional uid=34,noforceuid,gid=34,noforcegid mountoptions (numbers are from id backup

Note, on datastore create we pre-allocate quite a few directories (2^16), on local filesystem this can happen relatively fast (~ 1s) but on a network attached storage it can take a few minutes. Currently, this does not run in a task (that's planned), so the webinterface aborts the connection after 30 seconds, but the backend still finishes the allocation (you can check the syslog) - so the datastore should actually appear after a few minutes even if it times out.

An alternative is using the CLI for this one-time addition, for example:
Bash:
proxmox-backup-manager datastore create NAME /mnt/tl-cifs/dest

NFS can be more troublesome, especially if not NFSv4 with id mapping.
Thank you. "noforce" was what I was missing for it to work.
 
CIFS works here OK using the additional uid=34,noforceuid,gid=34,noforcegid mountoptions (numbers are from id backup
It work for me too, thank you.
But backup speed seems very slow when CIFS attached via 10G network to a VM for testing purpose.


Uploaded 132 chunks in 5 seconds.
Time per request: 38461 microseconds.
TLS speed: 109.05 MB/s
SHA256 speed: 135.45 MB/s
Compression speed: 554.75 MB/s
Decompress speed: 1617.13 MB/s
AES256/GCM speed: 202.89 MB/s
┌───────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────┐
│ Name │ Value │
╞═══════════════════════════════════╪════════════════════╡
│ TLS (maximal backup upload speed) │ 109.05 MB/s (18%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ SHA256 checksum comptation speed │ 135.45 MB/s (6%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ ZStd level 1 compression speed │ 554.75 MB/s (26%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ ZStd level 1 decompression speed │ 1617.13 MB/s (20%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ AES256 GCM encryption speed │ 202.89 MB/s (5%) │
└───────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────┘
 
TLS speed: 109.05 MB/s
SHA256 speed: 135.45 MB/s

What CPU do you have? Most of those numbers are bound to CPU (and somewhat memory) of the host where the benchmark is run on. Especially Intel and especially older ones are really slow here. E.g., you only get 6% hashing of an upper class AMD Ryzen CPU here.
 
VM with 2G RAM, 2 vCPU changed to host, E5-2640v3 seems improve a lot.
But relatively slow compared to those available figure..

Uploaded 573 chunks in 5 seconds.
Time per request: 8800 microseconds.
TLS speed: 476.62 MB/s
SHA256 speed: 330.90 MB/s
Compression speed: 806.28 MB/s
Decompress speed: 3307.85 MB/s
AES256/GCM speed: 1742.83 MB/s
┌───────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────┐
│ Name │ Value │
╞═══════════════════════════════════╪════════════════════╡
│ TLS (maximal backup upload speed) │ 476.62 MB/s (81%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ SHA256 checksum comptation speed │ 330.90 MB/s (16%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ ZStd level 1 compression speed │ 806.28 MB/s (37%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ ZStd level 1 decompression speed │ 3307.85 MB/s (41%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│ AES256 GCM encryption speed │ 1742.83 MB/s (46%) │
└───────────────────────────────────┴────────────────────┘
 
Hi,
I also used an SMB share mounted via /etc/fstab. Unfortunately, PBS constantly writes a few KBps to my NAS, why can that be?
 
normal behaviour of SMB Shares... even NFS is not completely quiet.

Tobias
hm, thats strage, my nextcloud instance on Ubuntu also uses SMB share for data, but is completely quiet while being in idle.
with NFS, i get something like:

mkstemp "/mnt/backupdata/ProxmoxBackup/.lock.tmp_XXXXXX" failed: EPERM: Operation not permitted
when trying to make a datastore
 
hm, thats strage, my nextcloud instance on Ubuntu also uses SMB share for data, but is completely quiet while being in idle.
with NFS, i get something like:

mkstemp "/mnt/backupdata/ProxmoxBackup/.lock.tmp_XXXXXX" failed: EPERM: Operation not permitted
when trying to make a datastore
is that the same cifs server with the same client settings?

Tobias
 
is that the same cifs server with the same client settings?

Tobias
Same Freenas server, I just try to connect via NFS instead of SMB
Connection itself works, i can see all nfs directorys in the PBS shell, but i cannot add a datastore with this directory
I guess this is some sort of permissions trouble, but i am too much of a newbie to understand this linux permission stuff
btw, thanks for your replys :)
 
Careful.

Before you start relying on a CIFS mount, you might really want to check out https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/u...or-prune-when-storage-is-on-cifs-mount.80098/

If you are running into the same issues (this was verified on multiple installations and by multiple users) you might end up being unable to prune or delete backups from a datastore on CIFS, which basically means you'll have no other option than to destroy the datastore and use something other than CIFS (or something other than PBS, if CIFS is your only option).
 
Last edited:
Firsty, so pleased about the news about this product. Probably one of the biggest improvement you could make for Proxmox.

So I got the PBS setup, but since my current backup data are on my NAS, I would like to add it as CIFS/NFS share.
But when I create datastore pointing to /mnt/pvebackup it times out and doesnt work. I tried to check what permission the local datastore used, and from what I could see, it should just be user: backup and group: backup?
out of curiosity, did you setup it on its own machine?
 
Hello everyone

I tried using NFS first, but nothing else rather than permission errors.

Only CIFS worked, with the mount options previously posted here, but as chotaire correctly mentioned
Careful.

Before you start relying on a CIFS mount, you might really want to check out https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/u...or-prune-when-storage-is-on-cifs-mount.80098/

If you are running into the same issues (this was verified on multiple installations and by multiple users) you might end up being unable to prune or delete backups from a datastore on CIFS, which basically means you'll have no other option than to destroy the datastore and use something other than CIFS (or something other than PBS, if CIFS is your only option).
This issue is present.

BUT, this time, if I switch the mount option to NFS everything works nicely fine. To the SAME network share created with CIFS
So it looks like with NFS there are issues only when creating the datastore

I'm using a Synology NAS as server btw
 
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Hello everyone

I tried using NFS first, but nothing else rather than permission errors.

Only CIFS worked, with the mount options previously posted here, but as chotaire correctly mentioned

This issue is present.

BUT, this time, if I switch the mount option to NFS everything works nicely fine. To the SAME network share created with CIFS
So it looks like with NFS there are issues only when creating the datastore

I'm using a Synology NAS as server btw
I am interested in how you did this. I too want to use my Synology with PBS and a NFS share. How did you get Proxmox to see it?
 

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