Verifiying Backups

[MRosu]

How do you all verify your backups that are performed via the Proxmox Backup tool?

Anyone automating it?

Also, are there plans for the future to have a way to verify backups, or is that outside the scope of
Proxmox?

 

[dietmar]

Also, are there plans for the future to have a way to verify backups, or is that outside the scope of
Proxmox?

How exactly do you want to verify them?

 

[lilCDNnrg]

I have used a second Proxmox setup running on my desktop under Virtualbox to make sure they load and run, though they don't get network access due to the nested virtualization.

 

[LnxBil]

There is no automatic way to do that.

You have to come up with something yourself, like this:

• install qemu-agent on every box
• restore on a different box in a different Proxmox VE system on a different network (crucial)
• startup and query the ip address via qemu agent (if that fails, backup is not ok)

That is very rudimental, but it works.

You can enhance if you already monitor your stuff, just run the checks against the restored copy.

 

[MRosu]

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't know at all how I could accomplish this, but now I get what verification can mean.

My only thought was similar to what LnxBil mentioned:

There would be a VM with a disk size large enough to restore any backup. Then, I would have to manually restore each backup to it and open the console to see if everything is up and running. I would also probably remove the network interface so it wouldn't come up on the network.

After going through the thoughts above, now I can answer how I would see an automated method for verifying backups:

• Proxmox can monitor backups that are created and put on a list
• Every backup then is restored to an isolated VM, in order.
• The VM goes through a simple test: Ping the network. Pass / Fail
  
• A certain amount of time (user settable) elapses after a completed restore and before the next backup in line is restored
• This would also give someone time to run test scripts against services that run in the VM (it could be isolated to its own VLAN)

Actually now that I think about it even more, all this could probably be easily done with the command line tools.

Thank you all for your input, it's been a great help.

 

[LnxBil]

run test scripts against services that run in the VM (it could be isolated to its own VLAN)

Keep in mind that the MAC address is cloned and it will create fuzz if you boot it up nevertheless if in a vlan or not. You have to have a physically separated network for that - I felt into that pit once.

 

[MRosu]

Keep in mind that the MAC address is cloned and it will create fuzz if you boot it up nevertheless if in a vlan or not. You have to have a physically separated network for that - I felt into that pit once.

Oooo I didn't think about that. Thanks for the heads up. Now I understand why you mentioned that specifically.

 

[liora2k]

there is a similar solution for XCP-NG that restore the vm remove the nic and start it up till a connection is made trough the qemu-agent and shut it down and delete the restored vm