Installation & configuration

Create VM / install PBS

VM spec:

DiskSize: 10GB
CPU     : 2 core 1 socket
Memory  : 2GB

ISO install Proxmox backup server ISO install. Follow install, nothing special to set

Configuration

Configure VM datastore for PBS data

By default you can't mount this directly, nor can you create a direct datastore and mount to the VM. So we need to use a Directory Mapping instead.

1. Log into the web UI

2. Setup Directory mapping

   1. Datacenter > Directory Mappings > Add

      Name: vault-vm-backups
      Path: /vault/vm_backups
      

3. Update the VM mount the mapping

   1. Select the VM > Hardware > Add > Virtiofs

      DirectoryId: vault-vm-backups
      

   2. Reboot the VM

4. Mount within the VM

   1. SSH into the VM

   2. Check the virtiofs mount was recognised by the VM ok

      dmesg | grep -i virtiofs
      

      You should see the name of the virtiofs ID that was added earlier vault-vm-backups

   3. Mount everything

      mkdir -p /mnt/backup-data
      mount -t virtiofs vault-vm-backups /mnt/backup-data
      vi /etc/fstab
      # Add the following so it mounts automatically
      vault-vm-backups /mnt/backup-data  virtiofs  defaults  0  0
      

Configure PBS

1. Log into the web UI

2. Datastore > Add datastore

   1. Setup with properties

      Name          : Backups
      BackingPath   : /mnt/backup-data
      PruneJobConfig: Keep last 4, keep 5 daily, keep 4 weekly, keep 2 monthly, keep 1 yearly
      

3. Select the datastore created > options > Verify new snapshots

   • Enable

4. Setup the backup user to limit access between PVE and PBS

   1. Configuration > Access Control > Add

      User    : proxmox
      Password: Add one
                [Save to password manager as this will be forgotten in time]
      

   2. Configuration > Access Control > Permissions > Add > User permission

      Path: /datastore
      User: proxmox@pbs
      Role: Datastore admin
      

5. Get the certificate fingerprint for PVE registration

   1. Configuration > Certificates
   2. Copy the finger print for next section

Configure PVE to use PBS

1. Log into the web UI

2. Setup the Proxmox backup connection

   1. Datacenter > Storage > Add Proxmox Backup Server

      ID         : vault-vm-backup
      Server     : <IP to PBS>
      Username   : proxmox@pbs
      Password   : <proxmox@pbs password>
      Datastore  : Backups (the datastore created within PBS)
      Fingerprint: <pbs fingerprint copied earlier>
      

3. Setup backup schedule

   1. Datacenter > Backups > Edit backup job

      Storage       : vault-vm-backup
      Schedule      : '23:00'
      Selection mode: Include selected VMs
                      [Unselect anything you don't want AND unselect PBS to avoid recursion backup]
      

4. Test backup is working

   1. Datacenter > Backups > Backup now

Note: The first backup is full (not incremental), any VM shutdown is always full backup, only online VMs that have at least one full backup will have incremental backups taken