Proxmox Backup Documenta on

Release 1.0.1-1

Proxmox Support Team

Wednesday, 11 November 2020

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 Introduction 3
1.1 What is Proxmox Backup Server? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Main Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Reasons for Data Backup? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.5 Software Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.6 Getting Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.6.1 Community Support Forum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.6.2 Mailing Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.6.3 Bug Tracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.7 License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.8 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Installation 7
2.1 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Minimum Server Requirements, for Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.2 Recommended Server System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.3 Supported Web Browsers for Accessing the Web Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Debian Package Repositories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1 SecureApt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.2 Proxmox Backup Enterprise Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.3 Proxmox Backup No-Subscription Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.4 Proxmox Backup Test Repository . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3 Server Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3.1 Install Proxmox Backup with the Installer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3.2 Install Proxmox Backup Server on Debian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3.3 Install Proxmox Backup Server on Proxmox VE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4 Client Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4.1 Install Proxmox Backup Client on Debian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4.2 Installing from source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4.3 Installing statically linked binary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3 Terminology 13
3.1 Backup Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1.1 Image Archives: <name>.img . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1.2 File Archives: <name>.pxar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1.3 Binary Data (BLOBs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1.4 Catalog File: catalog.pcat1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1.5 The Manifest: index.json . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2 Backup Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3 Backup ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4 Backup Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.5 Backup Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.6 Backup Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

i
4 Graphical User Interface 15
4.1 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2 Login . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.3 GUI Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.4 Sidebar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.4.1 Dashboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.4.2 Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.4.3 Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.4.4 Datastore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

5 Storage 21
5.1 Disk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.2 Datastore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2.1 Datastore Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

6 Network Management 27

7 User Management 29
7.1 User Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
7.2 API Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
7.3 Access Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
7.3.1 API Token permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
7.3.2 Effective permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

8 Managing Remotes 35
8.1 Remote . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
8.2 Sync Jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

9 Maintenance Tasks 37
9.1 Pruning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9.1.1 Prune Simulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9.1.2 Manual Pruning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9.1.3 Prune Schedules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9.1.4 Retention Settings Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.2 Garbage Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.3 Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.4 Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

10 Backup Client Usage 41

10.1 Repository Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
10.2 Environment Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
10.3 Output Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
10.4 Creating Backups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
10.4.1 Excluding files/folders from a backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
10.5 Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
10.5.1 Using a master key to store and recover encryption keys . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
10.6 Restoring Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
10.6.1 Interactive Restores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
10.6.2 Mounting of Archives via FUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
10.7 Login and Logout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
10.8 Changing the Owner of a Backup Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
10.9 Pruning and Removing Backups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
10.10Garbage Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
10.11Benchmarking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

11 Proxmox VE Integration 51

12 pxar Command Line Tool 53

12.1 Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

ii
 12.2 Creating an Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
12.3 Extracting an Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
12.4 List the Contents of an Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
12.5 Mounting an Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

13 Host System Administration 55

13.1 ZFS on Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
13.1.1 Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
13.1.2 ZFS Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

14 FAQ 63
14.1 What distribution is Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) based on? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
14.2 Which platforms are supported as a backup source (client)? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
14.3 Will Proxmox Backup Server run on a 32-bit processor? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
14.4 How long will my Proxmox Backup Server version be supported? . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
14.5 Can I copy or synchronize my datastore to another location? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
14.6 Can Proxmox Backup Server verify data integrity of a backup archive? . . . . . . . . . 64
14.7 When backing up to remote servers, do I have to trust the remote server? . . . . . . . 64
14.8 Is the backup incremental/deduplicated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

A Command Syntax 65
A.1 proxmox-backup-client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
A.1.1 Catalog Shell Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
A.2 proxmox-backup-manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A.3 pxar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

B File Formats 87
B.1 Proxmox File Archive Format (.pxar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

C Backup Protocol 89
C.1 Backup Protocol API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
C.2 Reader Protocol API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

D Calendar Events 95
D.1 Introduction and Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
D.2 Differences to systemd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
D.3 Notes on scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

E Glossary 97

F GNU Free Documentation License 99

Index 105

iii
iv
 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Copyright (C) 2019-2020 Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH

Version 1.0.1 – Wednesday, 11 November 2020

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the
GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software
Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of
the license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS
 CHAPTER

ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 What is Proxmox Backup Server?

Proxmox Backup Server is an enterprise-class, client-server backup software package that backs
up virtual machines, containers, and physical hosts. It is specially optimized for the Proxmox Virtual
Environment platform and allows you to back up your data securely, even between remote sites,
providing easy management with a web-based user interface.
It supports deduplication, compression, and authenticated encryption (AE). Using Rust as the im-
plementation language guarantees high performance, low resource usage, and a safe, high-quality
codebase.
Proxmox Backup uses state of the art cryptography for client communication and backup content
encryption. Encryption is done on the client side, making it safer to back up data to targets that are
not fully trusted.

1.2 Architecture

Proxmox Backup Server uses a client-server model. The server stores the backup data and provides
an API to create and manage datastores. With the API, it’s also possible to manage disks and other
server-side resources.
The backup client uses this API to access the backed up data. With the command line tool
proxmox-backup-client you can create backups and restore data. For QEMU with Proxmox
Virtual Environment we deliver an integrated client.
A single backup is allowed to contain several archives. For example, when you backup a virtual
machine, each disk is stored as a separate archive inside that backup. The VM configuration itself is
stored as an extra file. This way, it’s easy to access and restore only important parts of the backup,
without the need to scan the whole backup.

1.3 Main Features

Support for Proxmox VE The Proxmox Virtual Environment is fully supported and you
can easily backup virtual machines and containers.
Performance The whole software stack is written in Rust, in order to provide high speed
and memory efficiency.
Deduplication Periodic backups produce large amounts of duplicate data. The dedu-
plication layer avoids redundancy and minimizes the storage space used.
Incremental backups Changes between backups are typically low. Reading and send-
ing only the delta reduces the storage and network impact of backups.

3
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Data Integrity The built-in SHA-256 checksum algorithm ensures accuracy and consis-
tency in your backups.
Remote Sync It is possible to efficiently synchronize data to remote sites. Only deltas
containing new data are transferred.
Compression The ultra-fast Zstandard compression is able to compress several giga-
bytes of data per second.
Encryption Backups can be encrypted on the client-side, using AES-256 in Ga-
lois/Counter Mode (GCM) mode. This authenticated encryption (AE) mode provides
very high performance on modern hardware.
Web interface Manage the Proxmox Backup Server with the integrated, web-based
user interface.
Open Source No secrets. Proxmox Backup Server is free and open-source software.
The source code is licensed under AGPL, v3.
Support Enterprise support will be available from Proxmox once the beta phase is over.

1.4 Reasons for Data Backup?

The main purpose of a backup is to protect against data loss. Data loss can be caused by both
faulty hardware and human error.
A common mistake is to accidentally delete a file or folder which is still required. Virtualization can
even amplify this problem, as deleting a whole virtual machine can be as easy as pressing a single
button.
For administrators, backups can serve as a useful toolkit for temporarily storing data. For exam-
ple, it is common practice to perform full backups before installing major software updates. If
something goes wrong, you can easily restore the previous state.
Another reason for backups are legal requirements. Some data, especially business records, must
be kept in a safe place for several years by law, so that they can be accessed if required.
In general, data loss is very costly as it can severely damage your business. Therefore, ensure that
you perform regular backups and run restore tests.

1.5 So ware Stack

Proxmox Backup Server consists of multiple components:

• A server-daemon providing, among other things, a RESTful API, super-fast asynchronous
tasks, lightweight usage statistic collection, scheduling events, strict separation of privileged
and unprivileged execution environments
• A JavaScript management web interface
• A management CLI tool for the server (proxmox-backup-manager)
• A client CLI tool (proxmox-backup-client) to access the server easily from any Linux amd64 en-
vironment
Aside from the web interface, everything is written in the Rust programming language.
“The Rust programming language helps you write faster, more reliable software. High-
level ergonomics and low-level control are often at odds in programming language de-
sign; Rust challenges that conflict. Through balancing powerful technical capacity and a
great developer experience, Rust gives you the option to control low-level details (such
as memory usage) without all the hassle traditionally associated with such control.”

4 Chapter 1. Introduc on
 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

—The Rust Programming Language

1.6 Ge ng Help

1.6.1 Community Support Forum

We always encourage our users to discuss and share their knowledge using the Proxmox Commu-
nity Forum. The forum is moderated by the Proxmox support team. The large user base is spread
out all over the world. Needless to say that such a large forum is a great place to get information.

1.6.2 Mailing Lists

Proxmox Backup Server is fully open-source and contributions are welcome! Here is the primary
communication channel for developers:
Mailing list for developers PBS Development List

1.6.3 Bug Tracker

Proxmox runs a public bug tracker at https://bugzilla.proxmox.com. If an issue appears, file your
report there. An issue can be a bug as well as a request for a new feature or enhancement. The
bug tracker helps to keep track of the issue and will send a notification once it has been solved.

1.7 License

Copyright (C) 2019-2020 Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH

This software is written by Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH <[email protected]>
Proxmox Backup Server is free and open source software: you can use it, redistribute it, and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Soft-
ware Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without
even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program.
If not, see AGPL3.

1.8 History

Backup is, and always has been, a central aspect of IT administration. The need to recover from
data loss is fundamental and only increases with virtualization.
For this reason, we’ve been shipping a backup tool with Proxmox VE, from the beginning. This
tool is called vzdump and is able to make consistent snapshots of running LXC containers and KVM
virtual machines.
However, vzdump only allows for full backups. While this is fine for small backups, it becomes a
burden for users with large VMs. Both backup duration and storage usage are too high for this case,

1.6. Ge ng Help 5
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

especially for users who want to keep many backups of the same VMs. To solve these problems,
we needed to offer deduplication and incremental backups.
Back in October 2018, development started. We investigated several technologies and frameworks
and finally decided to use Rust as the implementation language, in order to provide high speed and
memory efficiency. The 2018-edition of Rust seemed promising for our requirements.
In July 2020, we released the first beta version of Proxmox Backup Server, followed by the first sta-
ble version in November 2020. With support for incremental, fully deduplicated backups, Proxmox
Backup significantly reduces network load and saves valuable storage space.

6 Chapter 1. Introduc on
 CHAPTER

TWO

INSTALLATION

Proxmox Backup is split into a server and client part. The server part can either be installed with a
graphical installer or on top of Debian from the provided package repository.

2.1 System Requirements

We recommend using high quality server hardware when running Proxmox Backup in production.
To further decrease the impact of a failed host, you can set up periodic, efficient, incremental data-
store synchronization from other Proxmox Backup Server instances.

2.1.1 Minimum Server Requirements, for Evalua on

These minimum requirements are for evaluation purposes only and should not be used in produc-
tion.
• CPU: 64bit (x86-64 or AMD64), 2+ Cores
• Memory (RAM): 2 GB RAM
• Hard drive: more than 8GB of space.
• Network card (NIC)

2.1.2 Recommended Server System Requirements

• CPU: Modern AMD or Intel 64-bit based CPU, with at least 4 cores
• Memory: minimum 4 GiB for the OS, filesystem cache and Proxmox Backup Server daemons.
Add at least another GiB per TiB storage space.
• OS storage:
– 32 GiB, or more, free storage space
– Use a hardware RAID with battery protected write cache (BBU) or a redundant ZFS setup
(ZFS is not compatible with a hardware RAID controller).
• Backup storage:
– Use only SSDs, for best results
– If HDDs are used: Using a metadata cache is highly recommended, for example, add a
ZFS special device mirror.
• Redundant Multi-GBit/s network interface cards (NICs)

7
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

2.1.3 Supported Web Browsers for Accessing the Web Interface

To access the server’s web-based user interface, we recommend using one of the following
browsers:
• Firefox, a release from the current year, or the latest Extended Support Release
• Chrome, a release from the current year
• Microsoft’s currently supported version of Edge
• Safari, a release from the current year

2.2 Debian Package Repositories

All Debian based systems use APT as a package management tool. The lists of repositories are
defined in /etc/apt/sources.list and the .list files found in the /etc/apt/sources.d/
directory. Updates can be installed directly with the apt command line tool, or via the GUI.
APT sources.list files list one package repository per line, with the most preferred source listed
first. Empty lines are ignored and a # character anywhere on a line marks the remainder of that line
as a comment. The information available from the configured sources is acquired by apt update.

Listing 1: File: /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian buster main contrib
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib

# security updates
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib

In addition, you need a package repository from Proxmox to get Proxmox Backup updates.

2.2.1 SecureApt

The Release files in the repositories are signed with GnuPG. APT is using these signatures to verify
that all packages are from a trusted source.
If you install Proxmox Backup Server from an official ISO image, the verification key is already in-
stalled.
If you install Proxmox Backup Server on top of Debian, download and install the key with the fol-
lowing commands:
# wget http://download.proxmox.com/debian/proxmox-ve-release-6.x.gpg -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.
,→d/proxmox-ve-release-6.x.gpg

Verify the SHA512 checksum afterwards with:

# sha512sum /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxmox-ve-release-6.x.gpg

The output should be:

acca6f416917e8e11490a08a1e2842d500b3a5d9f322c6319db0927b2901c3eae23cfb5cd5df6facf2b57399d3cfa52ad7769ebdd75d9b
,→/etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxmox-ve-release-6.x.gpg

and the md5sum:

# md5sum /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxmox-ve-release-6.x.gpg

Here, the output should be:

8 Chapter 2. Installa on
 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

f3f6c5a3a67baf38ad178e5ff1ee270c /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxmox-ve-release-6.x.gpg

2.2.2 Proxmox Backup Enterprise Repository

This will be the default, stable, and recommended repository. It is available for all Proxmox Backup
subscription users. It contains the most stable packages, and is suitable for production use. The
pbs-enterprise repository is enabled by default:

Listing 2: File: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/

pbs-enterprise.list
deb https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/pbs buster pbs-enterprise

To never miss important security fixes, the superuser (root@pam user) is notified via email about
new packages as soon as they are available. The change-log and details of each package can be
viewed in the GUI (if available).
Please note that you need a valid subscription key to access this repository. More informa-
tion regarding subscription levels and pricing can be found at https://www.proxmox.com/en/
proxmox-backup-server/pricing

Note: You can disable this repository by commenting out the above line using a # (at the start of
the line). This prevents error messages if you do not have a subscription key. Please configure the
pbs-no-subscription repository in that case.

2.2.3 Proxmox Backup No-Subscrip on Repository

As the name suggests, you do not need a subscription key to access this repository. It can be used
for testing and non-production use. It is not recommended to use it on production servers, because
these packages are not always heavily tested and validated.
We recommend to configure this repository in /etc/apt/sources.list.

Listing 3: File: /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian buster main contrib
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib

# PBS pbs-no-subscription repository provided by proxmox.com,

# NOT recommended for production use
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs buster pbs-no-subscription

# security updates
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib

2.2.4 Proxmox Backup Test Repository

This repository contains the latest packages and is heavily used by developers to test new features.
You can access this repository by adding the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list:

Listing 4: sources.list entry for pbstest

deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs buster pbstest

2.2. Debian Package Repositories 9

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

2.3 Server Installa on

The backup server stores the actual backed up data and provides a web based GUI for various
management tasks such as disk management.

Note: You always need a backup server. It is not possible to use Proxmox Backup without the
server part.

The disk image (ISO file) provided by Proxmox includes a complete Debian system (“buster” for
version 1.x) as well as all necessary packages for the Proxmox Backup server.
The installer will guide you through the setup process and allow you to partition the local disk(s),
apply basic system configurations (e.g. timezone, language, network), and install all required pack-
ages. The provided ISO will get you started in just a few minutes, and is the recommended method
for new and existing users.
Alternatively, Proxmox Backup server can be installed on top of an existing Debian system.

2.3.1 Install Proxmox Backup with the Installer

Download the ISO from https://www.proxmox.com/downloads. It includes the following:

• The Proxmox Backup server installer, which partitions the local disk(s) with ext4, xfs or ZFS,
and installs the operating system
• Complete operating system (Debian Linux, 64-bit)
• Proxmox Linux kernel with ZFS support
• Complete tool-set to administer backups and all necessary resources
• Web based management interface

Note: During the installation process, the complete server is used by default and all existing data
is removed.

2.3.2 Install Proxmox Backup Server on Debian

Proxmox ships as a set of Debian packages which can be installed on top of a standard Debian
installation. After configuring the sysadmin_package_repositories, you need to run:
# apt-get update
# apt-get install proxmox-backup-server

The commands above keep the current (Debian) kernel and install a minimal set of required pack-
ages.
If you want to install the same set of packages as the installer does, please use the following:
# apt-get update
# apt-get install proxmox-backup

This will install all required packages, the Proxmox kernel with ZFS support, and a set of common
and useful packages.

10 Chapter 2. Installa on
 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Caution: Installing Proxmox Backup on top of an existing Debian installation looks easy, but
it assumes that the base system and local storage have been set up correctly. In general this is
not trivial, especially when LVM or ZFS is used. The network configuration is completely up to
you as well.

Note: You can access the web interface of the Proxmox Backup Server with your web browser,
using HTTPS on port 8007. For example at https://<ip-or-dns-name>:8007

2.3.3 Install Proxmox Backup Server on Proxmox VE

After configuring the sysadmin_package_repositories, you need to run:

# apt-get update
# apt-get install proxmox-backup-server

Caution: Installing the backup server directly on the hypervisor is not recommended. It is safer
to use a separate physical server to store backups. Should the hypervisor server fail, you can
still access the backups.

Note: You can access the web interface of the Proxmox Backup Server with your web browser,
using HTTPS on port 8007. For example at https://<ip-or-dns-name>:8007

2.4 Client Installa on

2.4.1 Install Proxmox Backup Client on Debian

Proxmox ships as a set of Debian packages to be installed on top of a standard Debian installation.
After configuring the sysadmin_package_repositories, you need to run:
# apt-get update
# apt-get install proxmox-backup-client

2.4.2 Installing from source

2.4.3 Installing sta cally linked binary

2.4. Client Installa on 11

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

12 Chapter 2. Installa on
 CHAPTER

THREE

TERMINOLOGY

3.1 Backup Content

When doing deduplication, there are different strategies to get optimal results in terms of per-
formance and/or deduplication rates. Depending on the type of data, it can be split into fixed or
variable sized chunks.
Fixed sized chunking requires minimal CPU power, and is used to backup virtual machine images.
Variable sized chunking needs more CPU power, but is essential to get good deduplication rates
for file archives.
The Proxmox Backup Server supports both strategies.

3.1.1 Image Archives: <name>.img

This is used for virtual machine images and other large binary data. Content is split into fixed-sized
chunks.

3.1.2 File Archives: <name>.pxar

A file archive stores a full directory tree. Content is stored using the Proxmox File Archive Format
(.pxar), split into variable-sized chunks. The format is optimized to achieve good deduplication
rates.

3.1.3 Binary Data (BLOBs)

This type is used to store smaller (< 16MB) binary data such as configuration files. Larger files
should be stored as image archive.

Caution: Please do not store all files as BLOBs. Instead, use the file archive to store whole
directory trees.

3.1.4 Catalog File: catalog.pcat1

The catalog file is an index for file archives. It contains the list of files and is used to speed up search
operations.

13
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

3.1.5 The Manifest: index.json

The manifest contains the list of all backup files, their sizes and checksums. It is used to verify the
consistency of a backup.

3.2 Backup Type

The backup server groups backups by type, where type is one of:
vm This type is used for virtual machines. Typically consists of the virtual machine’s configuration
file and an image archive for each disk.
ct This type is used for containers. Consists of the container’s configuration and a single file archive
for the filesystem content.
host This type is used for backups created from within the backed up machine. Typically this
would be a physical host but could also be a virtual machine or container. Such backups may
contain file and image archives, there are no restrictions in this regard.

3.3 Backup ID

A unique ID. Usually the virtual machine or container ID. host type backups normally use the host-
name.

3.4 Backup Time

The time when the backup was made.

3.5 Backup Group

The tuple <type>/<ID> is called a backup group. Such a group may contain one or more backup
snapshots.

3.6 Backup Snapshot

The triplet <type>/<ID>/<time> is called a backup snapshot. It uniquely identifies a specific

backup within a datastore.

Listing 1: Backup Snapshot Examples

vm/104/2019-10-09T08:01:06Z
host/elsa/2019-11-08T09:48:14Z

As you can see, the time format is RFC3399 with Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, identified by
the trailing Z).

14 Chapter 3. Terminology
 CHAPTER

FOUR

GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE

Proxmox Backup Server offers an integrated, web-based interface to manage the server. This
means that you can carry out all administration tasks through your web browser, and that you
don’t have to worry about installing extra management tools. The web interface also provides a
built-in console, so if you prefer the command line or need some extra control, you have this option.
The web interface can be accessed via https://youripaddress:8007. The default login is root, and
the password is the one specified during the installation process.

4.1 Features

• Simple management interface for Proxmox Backup Server

• Monitoring of tasks, logs and resource usage
• Management of users, permissions, datastores, etc.
• Secure HTML5 console
• Support for multiple authentication sources
• Support for multiple languages
• Based on ExtJS 6.x JavaScript framework

4.2 Login

When you connect to the web interface, you will first see the login window. Proxmox Backup Server
supports various languages and authentication back ends (Realms), both of which can be selected
here.

Note: For convenience, you can save the username on the client side, by selecting the “Save User
name” checkbox at the bottom of the window.

15
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

4.3 GUI Overview

The Proxmox Backup Server web interface consists of 3 main sections:

• Header: At the top. This shows version information, and contains buttons to view documen-
tation, monitor running tasks, set the language and logout.
• Sidebar: On the left. This contains the configuration options for the server.
• Configuration Panel: In the center. This contains the control interface for the configuration
options in the Sidebar.

4.4 Sidebar

In the sidebar, on the left side of the page, you can see various items relating to specific manage-
ment activities.

4.4.1 Dashboard

The Dashboard shows a summary of activity and resource usage on the server. Specifically, this
displays hardware usage, a summary of previous and currently running tasks, and subscription
information.

16 Chapter 4. Graphical User Interface

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

4.4.2 Configura on

The Configuration section contains some system configuration options, such as time and network
configuration. It also contains the following subsections:
• Access Control: Add and manage users, API tokens, and the permissions associated with
these items
• Remotes: Add, edit and remove remotes (see Remote)
• Subscription: Upload a subscription key, view subscription status and access a text-based
system report.

4.4.3 Administra on

The Administration section contains a top panel, with further administration tasks and information.
These are:
• ServerStatus: Provides access to the console, power options, and various resource usage
statistics
• Services: Manage and monitor system services
• Updates: An interface for upgrading packages
• Syslog: View log messages from the server
• Tasks: Task history with multiple filter options

4.4. Sidebar 17
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

The administration menu item also contains a disk management subsection:

• Disks: View information on available disks
– Directory: Create and view information on ext4 and xfs disks
– ZFS: Create and view information on ZFS disks

18 Chapter 4. Graphical User Interface

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

4.4.4 Datastore

The Datastore section contains interfaces for creating and managing datastores. It contains a but-
ton to create a new datastore on the server, as well as a subsection for each datastore on the
system, in which you can use the top panel to view:
• Summary: Access a range of datastore usage statistics
• Content: Information on the datastore’s backup groups and their respective contents
• Prune & GC: Schedule pruning and garbage collection operations, and run garbage collection
manually
• Sync Jobs: Create, manage and run Sync Jobs from remote servers
• Verify Jobs: Create, manage and run Verification jobs on the datastore

4.4. Sidebar 19
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

20 Chapter 4. Graphical User Interface

 CHAPTER

FIVE

STORAGE

5.1 Disk Management

Proxmox Backup Server comes with a set of disk utilities, which are accessed using the disk sub-
command. This subcommand allows you to initialize disks, create various filesystems, and get
information about the disks.
To view the disks connected to the system, navigate to Administration -> Disks in the web inter-
face or use the list subcommand of disk:
# proxmox-backup-manager disk list
┌──────┬────────┬─────┬───────────┬─────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┬────────┐
│ name │ used │ gpt │ disk-type │ size │ model │ wearout │ status │
╞══════╪════════╪═════╪═══════════╪═════════════╪═══════════════╪═════════╪════════╡
│ sda │ lvm │ 1 │ hdd │ 34359738368 │ QEMU_HARDDISK │ - │ passed │
├──────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼─────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ sdb │ unused │ 1 │ hdd │ 68719476736 │ QEMU_HARDDISK │ - │ passed │
(continues on next page)

21
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

(continued from previous page)

├──────┼────────┼─────┼───────────┼─────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┼────────┤
│ sdc │ unused │ 1 │ hdd │ 68719476736 │ QEMU_HARDDISK │ - │ passed │
└──────┴────────┴─────┴───────────┴─────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┴────────┘

To initialize a disk with a new GPT, use the initialize subcommand:

# proxmox-backup-manager disk initialize sdX

You can create an ext4 or xfs filesystem on a disk using fs create, or by navigating to Admin-
istration -> Disks -> Directory in the web interface and creating one from there. The following
command creates an ext4 filesystem and passes the --add-datastore parameter, in order to
automatically create a datastore on the disk (in this case sdd). This will create a datastore at the
location /mnt/datastore/store1:
# proxmox-backup-manager disk fs create store1 --disk sdd --filesystem ext4 --add-datastore␣
,→true

You can also create a zpool with various raid levels from Administration -> Disks -> Zpool in the
web interface, or by using zpool create. The command below creates a mirrored zpool using
two disks (sdb & sdc) and mounts it under /mnt/datastore/zpool1:
# proxmox-backup-manager disk zpool create zpool1 --devices sdb,sdc --raidlevel mirror

Note: You can also pass the --add-datastore parameter here, to automatically create a datas-
tore from the disk.

You can use disk fs list and disk zpool list to keep track of your filesystems and zpools
respectively.
Proxmox Backup Server uses the package smartmontools. This is a set of tools used to monitor

22 Chapter 5. Storage
 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

and control the S.M.A.R.T. system for local hard disks. If a disk supports S.M.A.R.T. capability, and
you have this enabled, you can display S.M.A.R.T. attributes from the web interface or by using the
command:
# proxmox-backup-manager disk smart-attributes sdX

Note: This functionality may also be accessed directly through the use of the smartctl command,
which comes as part of the smartmontools package (see man smartctl for more details).

5.2 Datastore

A datastore refers to a location at which backups are stored. The current implementation uses a
directory inside a standard Unix file system (ext4, xfs or zfs) to store the backup data.
Datastores are identified by a simple ID. You can configure this when setting up the datastore. The
configuration information for datastores is stored in the file /etc/proxmox-backup/datastore.
cfg.

Note: The File Layout requires the file system to support at least 65538 subdirectories per direc-
tory. That number comes from the 216 pre-created chunk namespace directories, and the . and
.. default directory entries. This requirement excludes certain filesystems and filesystem config-
uration from being supported for a datastore. For example, ext3 as a whole or ext4 with the
dir_nlink feature manually disabled.

5.2. Datastore 23
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

5.2.1 Datastore Configura on

You can configure multiple datastores. Minimum one datastore needs to be configured. The data-
store is identified by a simple name and points to a directory on the filesystem. Each datastore
also has associated retention settings of how many backup snapshots for each interval of hourly,
daily, weekly, monthly, yearly as well as a time-independent number of backups to keep in
that store. Pruning and Removing Backups and garbage collection can also be configured to run pe-
riodically based on a configured schedule (see Calendar Events) per datastore.

Crea ng a Datastore

You can create a new datastore from the web interface, by clicking Add Datastore in the side menu,
under the Datastore section. In the setup window:
• Name refers to the name of the datastore
• Backing Path is the path to the directory upon which you want to create the datastore
• GC Schedule refers to the time and intervals at which garbage collection runs

24 Chapter 5. Storage
 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

• Prune Schedule refers to the frequency at which pruning takes place

• Prune Options set the amount of backups which you would like to keep (see Pruning and Re-
moving Backups).
• Comment can be used to add some contextual information to the datastore.
Alternatively you can create a new datastore from the command line. The following command
creates a new datastore called store1 on /backup/disk1/store1
# proxmox-backup-manager datastore create store1 /backup/disk1/store1

Managing Datastores

To list existing datastores from the command line run:

# proxmox-backup-manager datastore list
┌────────┬──────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ name │ path │ comment │
╞════════╪══════════════════════╪═════════════════════════════╡
│ store1 │ /backup/disk1/store1 │ This is my default storage. │
└────────┴──────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

You can change the garbage collection and prune settings of a datastore, by editing the datastore
from the GUI or by using the update subcommand. For example, the below command changes
the garbage collection schedule using the update subcommand and prints the properties of the
datastore with the show subcommand:
# proxmox-backup-manager datastore update store1 --gc-schedule 'Tue 04:27'
# proxmox-backup-manager datastore show store1
┌────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
│ Name │ Value │
╞════════════════╪═════════════════════════════╡
│ name │ store1 │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ path │ /backup/disk1/store1 │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ comment │ This is my default storage. │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ gc-schedule │ Tue 04:27 │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ keep-last │ 7 │
├────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
│ prune-schedule │ daily │
└────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

Finally, it is possible to remove the datastore configuration:

# proxmox-backup-manager datastore remove store1

Note: The above command removes only the datastore configuration. It does not delete any data
from the underlying directory.

File Layout

After creating a datastore, the following default layout will appear:

# ls -arilh /backup/disk1/store1
276493 -rw-r--r-- 1 backup backup 0 Jul 8 12:35 .lock
276490 drwxr-x--- 1 backup backup 1064960 Jul 8 12:35 .chunks

5.2. Datastore 25
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

.lock is an empty file used for process locking.

The .chunks directory contains folders, starting from 0000 and taking hexadecimal values until ffff.
These directories will store the chunked data after a backup operation has been executed.
# ls -arilh /backup/disk1/store1/.chunks
545824 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 ffff
545823 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fffe
415621 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fffd
415620 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fffc
353187 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fffb
344995 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fffa
144079 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fff9
144078 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fff8
144077 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 fff7
...
403180 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 000c
403179 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 000b
403177 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 000a
402530 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0009
402513 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0008
402509 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0007
276509 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0006
276508 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0005
276507 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0004
276501 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0003
276499 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0002
276498 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0001
276494 drwxr-x--- 2 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 0000
276489 drwxr-xr-x 3 backup backup 4.0K Jul 8 12:35 ..
276490 drwxr-x--- 1 backup backup 1.1M Jul 8 12:35 .

26 Chapter 5. Storage
 CHAPTER

SIX

NETWORK MANAGEMENT

Proxmox Backup Server provides both a web interface and a command line tool for network config-
uration. You can find the configuration options in the web interface under the Network Interfaces
section of the Configuration menu tree item. The command line tool is accessed via the network
subcommand. These interfaces allow you to carry out some basic network management tasks,
such as adding, configuring, and removing network interfaces.

Note: Any changes made to the network configuration are not applied, until you click on Apply
Configuration or enter the network reload command. This allows you to make many changes
at once. It also allows you to ensure that your changes are correct before applying them, as making
a mistake here can render the server inaccessible over the network.

To get a list of available interfaces, use the following command:

# proxmox-backup-manager network list
┌───────┬────────┬───────────┬────────┬─────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┐
│ name │ type │ autostart │ method │ address │ gateway │ ports/slaves │
╞═══════╪════════╪═══════════╪════════╪═════════════╪══════════════╪══════════════╡
│ bond0 │ bond │ 1 │ static │ x.x.x.x/x │ x.x.x.x │ ens18 ens19 │
├───────┼────────┼───────────┼────────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ ens18 │ eth │ 1 │ manual │ │ │ │
├───────┼────────┼───────────┼────────┼─────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ ens19 │ eth │ 1 │ manual │ │ │ │
└───────┴────────┴───────────┴────────┴─────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘

To add a new network interface, use the create subcommand with the relevant parameters. For
example, you may want to set up a bond, for the purpose of network redundancy. The following
command shows a template for creating the bond shown in the list above:
# proxmox-backup-manager network create bond0 --type bond --bond_mode active-backup --slaves␣
,→ens18,ens19 --autostart true --cidr x.x.x.x/x --gateway x.x.x.x

You can make changes to the configuration of a network interface with the update subcommand:
# proxmox-backup-manager network update bond0 --cidr y.y.y.y/y

You can also remove a network interface:

27
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# proxmox-backup-manager network remove bond0

The pending changes for the network configuration file will appear at the bottom of the web inter-
face. You can also view these changes, by using the command:
# proxmox-backup-manager network changes

If you would like to cancel all changes at this point, you can either click on the Revert button or use
the following command:
# proxmox-backup-manager network revert

If you are happy with the changes and would like to write them into the configuration file, select
Apply Configuration. The corresponding command is:
# proxmox-backup-manager network reload

Note: This command and corresponding GUI button rely on the ifreload command, from the
package ifupdown2. This package is included within the Proxmox Backup Server installation, how-
ever, you may have to install it yourself, if you have installed Proxmox Backup Server on top of
Debian or Proxmox VE.

You can also configure DNS settings, from the DNS section of Configuration or by using the dns
subcommand of proxmox-backup-manager.

28 Chapter 6. Network Management

 CHAPTER

SEVEN

USER MANAGEMENT

7.1 User Configura on

Proxmox Backup Server supports several authentication realms, and you need to choose the realm
when you add a new user. Possible realms are:
pam Linux PAM standard authentication. Use this if you want to authenticate as Linux
system user (Users need to exist on the system).
pbs Proxmox Backup Server realm. This type stores hashed passwords in /etc/
proxmox-backup/shadow.json.
After installation, there is a single user root@pam, which corresponds to the Unix superuser. User
configuration information is stored in the file /etc/proxmox-backup/user.cfg. You can use
the proxmox-backup-manager command line tool to list or manipulate users:

29
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# proxmox-backup-manager user list

┌─────────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────┬──────────┬────────────────┬────────────────────┐
│ userid │ enable │ expire │ firstname │ lastname │ email │ comment │
╞═════════════╪════════╪════════╪═══════════╪══════════╪════════════════╪════════════════════╡
│ root@pam │ 1 │ │ │ │ │ Superuser │
└─────────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴──────────┴────────────────┴────────────────────┘

The superuser has full administration rights on everything, so you normally want to add other users
with less privileges. You can add a new user with the user create subcommand or through the
web interface, under the User Management tab of Configuration -> Access Control. The create
subcommand lets you specify many options like --email or --password. You can update or
change any user properties using the update subcommand later (Edit in the GUI):
# proxmox-backup-manager user create john@pbs --email [email protected]
# proxmox-backup-manager user update john@pbs --firstname John --lastname Smith
# proxmox-backup-manager user update john@pbs --comment "An example user."

The resulting user list looks like this:

# proxmox-backup-manager user list
┌──────────┬────────┬────────┬───────────┬──────────┬──────────────────┬──────────────────┐
│ userid │ enable │ expire │ firstname │ lastname │ email │ comment │
╞══════════╪════════╪════════╪═══════════╪══════════╪══════════════════╪══════════════════╡
│ john@pbs │ 1 │ │ John │ Smith │ [email protected] │ An example user. │
├──────────┼────────┼────────┼───────────┼──────────┼──────────────────┼──────────────────┤
│ root@pam │ 1 │ │ │ │ │ Superuser │
└──────────┴────────┴────────┴───────────┴──────────┴──────────────────┴──────────────────┘

Newly created users do not have any permissions. Please read the Access Control section to learn
how to set access permissions.
If you want to disable a user account, you can do that by setting --enable to 0
# proxmox-backup-manager user update john@pbs --enable 0

Or completely remove the user with:

# proxmox-backup-manager user remove john@pbs

30 Chapter 7. User Management

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

7.2 API Tokens

Any authenticated user can generate API tokens which can in turn be used to configure various
clients, instead of directly providing the username and password.
API tokens serve two purposes:
1. Easy revocation in case client gets compromised
2. Limit permissions for each client/token within the users’ permission
An API token consists of two parts: an identifier consisting of the user name, the realm and a
tokenname (user@realm!tokenname), and a secret value. Both need to be provided to the client
in place of the user ID (user@realm) and the user password, respectively.

The API token is passed from the client to the server by setting the Authorization HTTP header
with method PBSAPIToken to the value TOKENID:TOKENSECRET.
Generating new tokens can done using proxmox-backup-manager or the GUI:
# proxmox-backup-manager user generate-token john@pbs client1
Result: {
(continues on next page)

7.2. API Tokens 31

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

(continued from previous page)

"tokenid": "john@pbs!client1",
"value": "d63e505a-e3ec-449a-9bc7-1da610d4ccde"
}

Note: The displayed secret value needs to be saved, since it cannot be displayed again after
generating the API token.

The user list-tokens sub-command can be used to display tokens and their metadata:
# proxmox-backup-manager user list-tokens john@pbs
┌──────────────────┬────────┬────────┬─────────┐
│ tokenid │ enable │ expire │ comment │
╞══════════════════╪════════╪════════╪═════════╡
│ john@pbs!client1 │ 1 │ │ │
└──────────────────┴────────┴────────┴─────────┘

Similarly, the user delete-token subcommand can be used to delete a token again.
Newly generated API tokens don’t have any permissions. Please read the next section to learn how
to set access permissions.

7.3 Access Control

By default new users and API tokens do not have any permission. Instead you need to specify what
is allowed and what is not. You can do this by assigning roles to users/tokens on specific objects
like datastores or remotes. The following roles exist:
NoAccess Disable Access - nothing is allowed.
Admin Can do anything.
Audit Can view things, but is not allowed to change settings.
DatastoreAdmin Can do anything on datastores.
DatastoreAudit Can view datastore settings and list content. But is not allowed to read the actual
data.
DatastoreReader Can Inspect datastore content and can do restores.
DatastoreBackup Can backup and restore owned backups.
DatastorePowerUser Can backup, restore, and prune owned backups.
RemoteAdmin Can do anything on remotes.
RemoteAudit Can view remote settings.
RemoteSyncOperator Is allowed to read data from a remote.

32 Chapter 7. User Management

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Access permission information is stored in /etc/proxmox-backup/acl.cfg. The file contains 5

fields, separated using a colon (‘:’) as a delimiter. A typical entry takes the form:
acl:1:/datastore:john@pbs:DatastoreBackup
The data represented in each field is as follows:
1. acl identifier
2. A 1 or 0, representing whether propagation is enabled or disabled, respectively
3. The object on which the permission is set. This can be a specific object (single datastore,
remote, etc.) or a top level object, which with propagation enabled, represents all children of
the object also.
4. The user(s)/token(s) for which the permission is set
5. The role being set
You can manage permissions via Configuration -> Access Control -> Permissions in the web in-
terface. Likewise, you can use the acl subcommand to manage and monitor user permissions
from the command line. For example, the command below will add the user john@pbs as a Data-
storeAdmin for the datastore store1, located at /backup/disk1/store1:
# proxmox-backup-manager acl update /datastore/store1 DatastoreAdmin --auth-id john@pbs

You can list the ACLs of each user/token using the following command:
# proxmox-backup-manager acl list
┌──────────┬───────────────────┬───────────┬────────────────┐
│ ugid │ path │ propagate │ roleid │
╞══════════╪═══════════════════╪═══════════╪════════════════╡
│ john@pbs │ /datastore/store1 │ 1 │ DatastoreAdmin │
└──────────┴───────────────────┴───────────┴────────────────┘

A single user/token can be assigned multiple permission sets for different datastores.

Note: Naming convention is important here. For datastores on the host, you must use the con-
vention /datastore/{storename}. For example, to set permissions for a datastore mounted
at /mnt/backup/disk4/store2, you would use /datastore/store2 for the path. For remote
stores, use the convention /remote/{remote}/{storename}, where {remote} signifies the
name of the remote (see Remote below) and {storename} is the name of the datastore on the
remote.

7.3.1 API Token permissions

API token permissions are calculated based on ACLs containing their ID independent of those of
their corresponding user. The resulting permission set on a given path is then intersected with that
of the corresponding user.
In practice this means:
1. API tokens require their own ACL entries
2. API tokens can never do more than their corresponding user

7.3.2 Effec ve permissions

To calculate and display the effective permission set of a user or API token you can use the
proxmox-backup-manager user permission command:

7.3. Access Control 33

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# proxmox-backup-manager user permissions john@pbs --path /datastore/store1

Privileges with (*) have the propagate flag set

Path: /datastore/store1
- Datastore.Audit (*)
- Datastore.Backup (*)
- Datastore.Modify (*)
- Datastore.Prune (*)
- Datastore.Read (*)
- Datastore.Verify (*)

# proxmox-backup-manager acl update /datastore/store1 DatastoreBackup --auth-id 'john@pbs!

,→client1'
# proxmox-backup-manager user permissions 'john@pbs!client1' --path /datastore/store1
Privileges with (*) have the propagate flag set

Path: /datastore/store1
- Datastore.Backup (*)

34 Chapter 7. User Management

 CHAPTER

EIGHT

MANAGING REMOTES

8.1 Remote

A remote refers to a separate Proxmox Backup Server installation and a user on that installa-
tion, from which you can sync datastores to a local datastore with a Sync Job. You can config-
ure remotes in the web interface, under Configuration -> Remotes. Alternatively, you can use
the remote subcommand. The configuration information for remotes is stored in the file /etc/
proxmox-backup/remote.cfg.

To add a remote, you need its hostname or IP, a userid and password on the remote, and its cer-
tificate fingerprint. To get the fingerprint, use the proxmox-backup-manager cert info com-
mand on the remote, or navigate to Dashboard in the remote’s web interface and select Show
Fingerprint.
# proxmox-backup-manager cert info |grep Fingerprint
Fingerprint (sha256): 64:d3:ff:3a:50:38:53:5a:9b:f7:50:...:ab:fe

Using the information specified above, you can add a remote from the Remotes configuration
panel, or by using the command:
# proxmox-backup-manager remote create pbs2 --host pbs2.mydomain.example --userid sync@pam --
,→password 'SECRET' --fingerprint 64:d3:ff:3a:50:38:53:5a:9b:f7:50:...:ab:fe

Use the list, show, update, remove subcommands of proxmox-backup-manager remote to

manage your remotes:
# proxmox-backup-manager remote update pbs2 --host pbs2.example
# proxmox-backup-manager remote list
┌──────┬──────────────┬──────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┬─────────┐
│ name │ host │ userid │ fingerprint │ comment │
╞══════╪══════════════╪══════════╪═══════════════════════════════════════════╪═════════╡
│ pbs2 │ pbs2.example │ sync@pam │64:d3:ff:3a:50:38:53:5a:9b:f7:50:...:ab:fe │ │
└──────┴──────────────┴──────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────┴─────────┘
# proxmox-backup-manager remote remove pbs2

35
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

8.2 Sync Jobs

Sync jobs are configured to pull the contents of a datastore on a Remote to a local datastore.
You can manage sync jobs in the web interface, from the Sync Jobs tab of the datastore which
you’d like to set one up for, or using the proxmox-backup-manager sync-job command. The
configuration information for sync jobs is stored at /etc/proxmox-backup/sync.cfg. To create
a new sync job, click the add button in the GUI, or use the create subcommand. After creating a
sync job, you can either start it manually from the GUI or provide it with a schedule (see Calendar
Events) to run regularly.
# proxmox-backup-manager sync-job create pbs2-local --remote pbs2 --remote-store local --
,→store local --schedule 'Wed 02:30'
# proxmox-backup-manager sync-job update pbs2-local --comment 'offsite'
# proxmox-backup-manager sync-job list
┌────────────┬───────┬────────┬──────────────┬───────────┬─────────┐
│ id │ store │ remote │ remote-store │ schedule │ comment │
╞════════════╪═══════╪════════╪══════════════╪═══════════╪═════════╡
│ pbs2-local │ local │ pbs2 │ local │ Wed 02:30 │ offsite │
└────────────┴───────┴────────┴──────────────┴───────────┴─────────┘
# proxmox-backup-manager sync-job remove pbs2-local

For setting up sync jobs, the configuring user needs the following permissions:
1. Remote.Read on the /remote/{remote}/{remote-store} path
2. at least Datastore.Backup on the local target datastore (/datastore/{store})
If the remove-vanished option is set, Datastore.Prune is required on the local datastore as
well. If the owner option is not set (defaulting to root@pam) or set to something other than the
configuring user, Datastore.Modify is required as well.

Note: A sync job can only sync backup groups that the configured remote’s user/API token can
read. If a remote is configured with a user/API token that only has Datastore.Backup privileges,
only the limited set of accessible snapshots owned by that user/API token can be synced.

36 Chapter 8. Managing Remotes

 CHAPTER

NINE

MAINTENANCE TASKS

9.1 Pruning

Prune lets you specify which backup snapshots you want to keep. The following retention options
are available:
keep-last <N> Keep the last <N> backup snapshots.
keep-hourly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> hours. If there is more than one backup for a
single hour, only the latest is kept.
keep-daily <N> Keep backups for the last <N> days. If there is more than one backup for a single
day, only the latest is kept.
keep-weekly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> weeks. If there is more than one backup for a
single week, only the latest is kept.

Note: Weeks start on Monday and end on Sunday. The software uses the ISO week date
system and handles weeks at the end of the year correctly.

keep-monthly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> months. If there is more than one backup for
a single month, only the latest is kept.
keep-yearly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> years. If there is more than one backup for a
single year, only the latest is kept.
The retention options are processed in the order given above. Each option only covers backups
within its time period. The next option does not take care of already covered backups. It will only
consider older backups.
Unfinished and incomplete backups will be removed by the prune command unless they are newer
than the last successful backup. In this case, the last failed backup is retained.

9.1.1 Prune Simulator

You can use the built-in prune simulator to explore the effect of different retetion options with
various backup schedules.

37
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

9.1.2 Manual Pruning

To access pruning functionality for

a specific backup group, you can use the prune command line option discussed in Pruning and
Removing Backups, or navigate to the Content tab of the datastore and click the scissors icon in the
Actions column of the relevant backup group.

9.1.3 Prune Schedules

To prune on a datastore level, scheduling options can be found under the Prune & GC tab of the
datastore. Here you can set retention settings and edit the interval at which pruning takes place.

38 Chapter 9. Maintenance Tasks

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

9.1.4 Reten on Se ngs Example

The backup frequency and retention of old backups may depend on how often data changes, and
how important an older state may be, in a specific work load. When backups act as a company’s
document archive, there may also be legal requirements for how long backup snapshots must be
kept.
For this example, we assume that you are doing daily backups, have a retention period of 10 years,
and the period between backups stored gradually grows.
• keep-last: 3 - even if only daily backups, an admin may want to create an extra one just
before or after a big upgrade. Setting keep-last ensures this.
• keep-hourly: not set - for daily backups this is not relevant. You cover extra manual backups
already, with keep-last.
• keep-daily: 13 - together with keep-last, which covers at least one day, this ensures that you
have at least two weeks of backups.
• keep-weekly: 8 - ensures that you have at least two full months of weekly backups.
• keep-monthly: 11 - together with the previous keep settings, this ensures that you have at
least a year of monthly backups.
• keep-yearly: 9 - this is for the long term archive. As you covered the current year with the
previous options, you would set this to nine for the remaining ones, giving you a total of at
least 10 years of coverage.
We recommend that you use a higher retention period than is minimally required by your environ-
ment; you can always reduce it if you find it is unnecessarily high, but you cannot recreate backup
snapshots from the past.

9.2 Garbage Collec on

You can monitor and run garbage collection on the Proxmox Backup Server using the
garbage-collection subcommand of proxmox-backup-manager. You can use the start sub-
command to manually start garbage collection on an entire datastore and the status subcom-
mand to see attributes relating to the garbage collection.
This functionality can also be accessed in the GUI, by navigating to Prune & GC from the top panel.
From here, you can edit the schedule at which garbage collection runs and manually start the
operation.

9.3 Verifica on

Proxmox Backup offers vari-

ous verification options to ensure that backup data is intact. Verification is generally carried out
through the creation of verify jobs. These are scheduled tasks that run verification at a given inter-
val (see Calendar Events). With these, you can set whether already verified snapshots are ignored,
as well as set a time period, after which verified jobs are checked again. The interface for creating
verify jobs can be found under the Verify Jobs tab of the datastore.

9.2. Garbage Collec on 39

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Note: It is recommended that you reverify all backups at least monthly, even if a previous verifi-
cation was successful. This is becuase physical drives are susceptible to damage over time, which
can cause an old, working backup to become corrupted in a process known as bit rot/data degra-
dation. It is good practice to have a regularly recurring (hourly/daily) verification job, which checks
new and expired backups, then another weekly/monthly job that will reverify everything. This way,
there will be no surprises when it comes to restoring data.

Aside from using verify jobs, you can also run verification manually on entire datastores, backup
groups, or snapshots. To do this, navigate to the Content tab of the datastore and either click
Verify All, or select the V. icon from the Actions column in the table.

9.4 No fica ons

Proxmox Backup Server can send you notification emails about automatically scheduled verifica-
tion, garbage-collection and synchronization tasks results.
By default, notifications are send to the email address configured for the root@pam user. You can
set that user for each datastore.
You can also change the level of notification received per task type, the following options are avail-
able:
• Always: send a notification for any scheduled task, independent of the outcome
• Errors: send a notification for any scheduled task resulting in an error
• Never: do not send any notification at all

40 Chapter 9. Maintenance Tasks

 CHAPTER

TEN

BACKUP CLIENT USAGE

The command line client is called proxmox-backup-client.

10.1 Repository Loca ons

The client uses the following notation to specify a datastore repository on the backup server.
[[username@]server[:port]:]datastore
The default value for username is root@pam. If no server is specified, the default is the local host
(localhost).
You can specify a port if your backup server is only reachable on a different port (e.g. with NAT and
port forwarding).
Note that if the server is an IPv6 address, you have to write it with square brackets (for example,
[fe80::01]).
You can pass the repository with the --repository command line option, or by setting the
PBS_REPOSITORY environment variable.
Here some examples of valid repositories and the real values

Example User Host:Port Datastore

mydatastore root@pam localhost:8007 mydatas-
tore
myhostname:mydatastore root@pam myhostname:8007 mydatas-
tore
user@pbs@myhostname:mydatastore user@pbs myhostname:8007 mydatas-
tore
user@pbs!token@host:store user@pbs! myhostname:8007 mydatas-
token tore
192.168.55.55:1234:mydatastore root@pam 192.168.55.55:1234 mydatas-
tore
[ff80::51]:mydatastore root@pam [ff80::51]:8007 mydatas-
tore
[ff80::51]:1234:mydatastore root@pam [ff80::51]:1234 mydatas-
tore

10.2 Environment Variables

PBS_REPOSITORY The default backup repository.

41
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

PBS_PASSWORD When set, this value is used for the password required for the backup server. You
can also set this to a API token secret.
PBS_ENCRYPTION_PASSWORD When set, this value is used to access the secret encryption key (if
protected by password).
PBS_FINGERPRINT When set, this value is used to verify the server certificate (only used if
the system CA certificates cannot validate the certificate).

10.3 Output Format

Most commands support the --output-format parameter. It accepts the following values:
text Text format (default). Structured data is rendered as a table.
json JSON (single line).
json-pretty JSON (multiple lines, nicely formatted).
Please use the following environment variables to modify output behavior:
PROXMOX_OUTPUT_FORMAT Defines the default output format.
PROXMOX_OUTPUT_NO_BORDER If set (to any value), do not render table borders.
PROXMOX_OUTPUT_NO_HEADER If set (to any value), do not render table headers.

Note: The text format is designed to be human readable, and not meant to be parsed by au-
tomation tools. Please use the json format if you need to process the output.

10.4 Crea ng Backups

This section explains how to create a backup from within the machine. This can be a physical host,
a virtual machine, or a container. Such backups may contain file and image archives. There are no
restrictions in this case.

Note: If you want to backup virtual machines or containers on Proxmox VE, see Proxmox VE Inte-
gration.

For the following example you need to have a backup server set up, working credentials and need
to know the repository name. In the following examples we use backup-server:store1.
# proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ --repository backup-server:store1
Starting backup: host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z
Client name: elsa
skip mount point: "/boot/efi"
skip mount point: "/dev"
skip mount point: "/run"
skip mount point: "/sys"
Uploaded 12129 chunks in 87 seconds (564 MB/s).
End Time: 2019-12-03T10:36:29+01:00

This will prompt you for a password and then uploads a file archive named root.pxar containing
all the files in the / directory.

42 Chapter 10. Backup Client Usage

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Caution: Please note that the proxmox-backup-client does not automatically include mount
points. Instead, you will see a short skip mount point notice for each of them. The idea is to
create a separate file archive for each mounted disk. You can explicitly include them using the
--include-dev option (i.e. --include-dev /boot/efi). You can use this option multiple
times for each mount point that should be included.

The --repository option can get quite long and is used by all commands. You can avoid having to
enter this value by setting the environment variable PBS_REPOSITORY. Note that if you would like
this to remain set over multiple sessions, you should instead add the below line to your .bashrc
file.
# export PBS_REPOSITORY=backup-server:store1

After this you can execute all commands without specifying the --repository option.
One single backup is allowed to contain more than one archive. For example, if you want to backup
two disks mounted at /mnt/disk1 and /mnt/disk2:
# proxmox-backup-client backup disk1.pxar:/mnt/disk1 disk2.pxar:/mnt/disk2

This creates a backup of both disks.

The backup command takes a list of backup specifications, which include the archive name on the
server, the type of the archive, and the archive source at the client. The format is:
<archive-name>.<type>:<source-path>
Common types are .pxar for file archives, and .img for block device images. To create a backup
of a block device run the following command:
# proxmox-backup-client backup mydata.img:/dev/mylvm/mydata

10.4.1 Excluding files/folders from a backup

Sometimes it is desired to exclude certain files or folders from a backup archive. To tell the Proxmox
Backup client when and how to ignore files and directories, place a text file called .pxarexclude
in the filesystem hierarchy. Whenever the backup client encounters such a file in a directory, it
interprets each line as glob match patterns for files and directories that are to be excluded from
the backup.
The file must contain a single glob pattern per line. Empty lines are ignored. The same is true
for lines starting with #, which indicates a comment. A ! at the beginning of a line reverses the
glob match pattern from an exclusion to an explicit inclusion. This makes it possible to exclude
all entries in a directory except for a few single files/subdirectories. Lines ending in / match only
on directories. The directory containing the .pxarexclude file is considered to be the root of the
given patterns. It is only possible to match files in this directory and its subdirectories.
\ is used to escape special glob characters. ? matches any single character. * matches any charac-
ter, including an empty string. ** is used to match subdirectories. It can be used to, for example,
exclude all files ending in .tmp within the directory or subdirectories with the following pattern **/
*.tmp. [...] matches a single character from any of the provided characters within the brackets.
[!...] does the complementary and matches any single character not contained within the brack-
ets. It is also possible to specify ranges with two characters separated by -. For example, [a-z]
matches any lowercase alphabetic character and [0-9] matches any one single digit.
The order of the glob match patterns defines whether a file is included or excluded, that is to say
later entries override previous ones. This is also true for match patterns encountered deeper down
the directory tree, which can override a previous exclusion. Be aware that excluded directories will
not be read by the backup client. Thus, a .pxarexclude file in an excluded subdirectory will

10.4. Crea ng Backups 43

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

have no effect. .pxarexclude files are treated as regular files and will be included in the backup
archive.
For example, consider the following directory structure:
# ls -aR folder
folder/:
. .. .pxarexclude subfolder0 subfolder1

folder/subfolder0:
. .. file0 file1 file2 file3 .pxarexclude

folder/subfolder1:
. .. file0 file1 file2 file3

The different .pxarexclude files contain the following:

# cat folder/.pxarexclude
/subfolder0/file1
/subfolder1/*
!/subfolder1/file2

# cat folder/subfolder0/.pxarexclude
file3

This would exclude file1 and file3 in subfolder0 and all of subfolder1 except file2.
Restoring this backup will result in:
ls -aR restored
restored/:
. .. .pxarexclude subfolder0 subfolder1

restored/subfolder0:
. .. file0 file2 .pxarexclude

restored/subfolder1:
. .. file2

10.5 Encryp on

Proxmox Backup supports client-side encryption with AES-256 in GCM mode. To set this up, you
first need to create an encryption key:
# proxmox-backup-client key create my-backup.key
Encryption Key Password: **************

The key is password protected by default. If you do not need this extra protection, you can also
create it without a password:
# proxmox-backup-client key create /path/to/my-backup.key --kdf none

Having created this key, it is now possible to create an encrypted backup, by passing the --keyfile
parameter, with the path to the key file.
# proxmox-backup-client backup etc.pxar:/etc --keyfile /path/to/my-backup.key
Password: *********
Encryption Key Password: **************
...

Note: If you do not specify the name of the backup key, the key will be created in the default lo-
cation ~/.config/proxmox-backup/encryption-key.json. proxmox-backup-client will
also search this location by default, in case the --keyfile parameter is not specified.

44 Chapter 10. Backup Client Usage

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

You can avoid entering the passwords by setting the environment variables PBS_PASSWORD and
PBS_ENCRYPTION_PASSWORD.

10.5.1 Using a master key to store and recover encryp on keys

You can also use proxmox-backup-client key to create an RSA public/private key pair, which
can be used to store an encrypted version of the symmetric backup encryption key alongside each
backup and recover it later.
To set up a master key:
1. Create an encryption key for the backup:
# proxmox-backup-client key create
creating default key at: "~/.config/proxmox-backup/encryption-key.json"
Encryption Key Password: **********
...

The resulting file will be saved to ~/.config/proxmox-backup/encryption-key.json.

2. Create an RSA public/private key pair:
# proxmox-backup-client key create-master-key
Master Key Password: *********
...

This will create two files in your current directory, master-public.pem and
master-private.pem.
3. Import the newly created master-public.pem public certificate, so that
proxmox-backup-client can find and use it upon backup.
# proxmox-backup-client key import-master-pubkey /path/to/master-public.pem
Imported public master key to "~/.config/proxmox-backup/master-public.pem"

4. With all these files in place, run a backup job:

# proxmox-backup-client backup etc.pxar:/etc

The key will be stored in your backup, under the name rsa-encrypted.key.

Note: The --keyfile parameter can be excluded, if the encryption key is in the default
path. If you specified another path upon creation, you must pass the --keyfile parameter.

5. To test that everything worked, you can restore the key from the backup:
# proxmox-backup-client restore /path/to/backup/ rsa-encrypted.key /path/to/target

Note: You should not need an encryption key to extract this file. However, if a key exists at
the default location (~/.config/proxmox-backup/encryption-key.json) the program
will prompt you for an encryption key password. Simply moving encryption-key.json out
of this directory will fix this issue.

6. Then, use the previously generated master key to decrypt the file:
# openssl rsautl -decrypt -inkey master-private.pem -in rsa-encrypted.key -out /path/to/
,→target
Enter pass phrase for ./master-private.pem: *********

7. The target file will now contain the encryption key information in plain text. The success of this
can be confirmed by passing the resulting json file, with the --keyfile parameter, when
decrypting files from the backup.

10.5. Encryp on 45
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Warning: Without their key, backed up files will be inaccessible. Thus, you should keep keys
ordered and in a place that is separate from the contents being backed up. It can happen, for
example, that you back up an entire system, using a key on that system. If the system then
becomes inaccessible for any reason and needs to be restored, this will not be possible as the
encryption key will be lost along with the broken system.

It is recommended that you keep your master key safe, but easily accessible, in order for quick
disaster recovery. For this reason, the best place to store it is in your password manager, where it is
immediately recoverable. As a backup to this, you should also save the key to a USB drive and store
that in a secure place. This way, it is detached from any system, but is still easy to recover from,
in case of emergency. Finally, in preparation for the worst case scenario, you should also consider
keeping a paper copy of your master key locked away in a safe place. The paperkey subcommand
can be used to create a QR encoded version of your master key. The following command sends
the output of the paperkey command to a text file, for easy printing.
proxmox-backup-client key paperkey --output-format text > qrkey.txt

10.6 Restoring Data

The regular creation of backups is a necessary step to avoiding data loss. More importantly, how-
ever, is the restoration. It is good practice to perform periodic recovery tests to ensure that you
can access the data in case of problems.
First, you need to find the snapshot which you want to restore. The snapshot command provides
a list of all the snapshots on the server:
# proxmox-backup-client snapshots
┌────────────────────────────────┬─────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┐
│ snapshot │ size │ files │
╞════════════════════════════════╪═════════════╪════════════════════════════════════╡
│ host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:30:15Z │ 51788646825 │ root.pxar catalog.pcat1 index.json │
├────────────────────────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
│ host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z │ 51790622048 │ root.pxar catalog.pcat1 index.json │
├────────────────────────────────┼─────────────┼────────────────────────────────────┤
...

You can inspect the catalog to find specific files.

# proxmox-backup-client catalog dump host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z
...
d "./root.pxar.didx/etc/cifs-utils"
l "./root.pxar.didx/etc/cifs-utils/idmap-plugin"
d "./root.pxar.didx/etc/console-setup"
...

The restore command lets you restore a single archive from the backup.
# proxmox-backup-client restore host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z root.pxar /target/path/

To get the contents of any archive, you can restore the index.json file in the repository to the
target path ‘-‘. This will dump the contents to the standard output.
# proxmox-backup-client restore host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z index.json -

10.6.1 Interac ve Restores

If you only want to restore a few individual files, it is often easier to use the interactive recovery
shell.

46 Chapter 10. Backup Client Usage

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# proxmox-backup-client catalog shell host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z root.pxar

Starting interactive shell
pxar:/ > ls
bin boot dev etc home lib lib32
...

The interactive recovery shell is a minimal command line interface that utilizes the metadata stored
in the catalog to quickly list, navigate and search files in a file archive. To restore files, you can select
them individually or match them with a glob pattern.
Using the catalog for navigation reduces the overhead considerably because only the catalog needs
to be downloaded and, optionally, decrypted. The actual chunks are only accessed if the metadata
in the catalog is not enough or for the actual restore.
Similar to common UNIX shells cd and ls are the commands used to change working directory
and list directory contents in the archive. pwd shows the full path of the current working directory
with respect to the archive root.
Being able to quickly search the contents of the archive is a commonly needed feature. That’s
where the catalog is most valuable. For example:
pxar:/ > find etc/**/*.txt --select
"/etc/X11/rgb.txt"
pxar:/ > list-selected
etc/**/*.txt
pxar:/ > restore-selected /target/path
...

This will find and print all files ending in .txt located in etc/ or a subdirectory and add the corre-
sponding pattern to the list for subsequent restores. list-selected shows these patterns and
restore-selected finally restores all files in the archive matching the patterns to /target/path
on the local host. This will scan the whole archive.
With restore /target/path you can restore the sub-archive given by the current working direc-
tory to the local target path /target/path on your host. By additionally passing a glob pattern
with --pattern <glob>, the restore is further limited to files matching the pattern. For example:
pxar:/ > cd /etc/
pxar:/etc/ > restore /target/ --pattern **/*.conf
...

The above will scan trough all the directories below /etc and restore all files ending in .conf.

10.6.2 Moun ng of Archives via FUSE

The FUSE implementation for the pxar archive allows you to mount a file archive as a read-only
filesystem to a mountpoint on your host.
# proxmox-backup-client mount host/backup-client/2020-01-29T11:29:22Z root.pxar /mnt/
,→mountpoint
# ls /mnt/mountpoint
bin dev home lib32 libx32 media opt root sbin sys usr
boot etc lib lib64 lost+found mnt proc run srv tmp var

This allows you to access the full contents of the archive in a seamless manner.

Note: As the FUSE connection needs to fetch and decrypt chunks from the backup server’s data-
store, this can cause some additional network and CPU load on your host, depending on the oper-
ations you perform on the mounted filesystem.

To unmount the filesystem use the umount command on the mountpoint:

10.6. Restoring Data 47

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# umount /mnt/mountpoint

10.7 Login and Logout

The client tool prompts you to enter the logon password as soon as you want to access the backup
server. The server checks your credentials and responds with a ticket that is valid for two hours.
The client tool automatically stores that ticket and uses it for further requests to this server.
You can also manually trigger this login/logout using the login and logout commands:
# proxmox-backup-client login
Password: **********

To remove the ticket, issue a logout:

# proxmox-backup-client logout

10.8 Changing the Owner of a Backup Group

By default, the owner of a backup group is the user which was used to originally create that backup
group (or in the case of sync jobs, root@pam). This means that if a user mike@pbs created a backup,
another user john@pbs can not be used to create backups in that same backup group. In case you
want to change the owner of a backup, you can do so with the below command, using a user that
has Datastore.Modify privileges on the datastore.
# proxmox-backup-client change-owner vm/103 john@pbs

This can also be done from within the web interface, by navigating to the Content section of the
datastore that contains the backup group and selecting the user icon under the Actions column.
Common cases for this could be to change the owner of a sync job from root@pam, or to repurpose
a backup group.

10.9 Pruning and Removing Backups

You can manually delete a backup snapshot using the forget command:
# proxmox-backup-client forget <snapshot>

Caution: This command removes all archives in this backup snapshot. They will be inaccessible
and unrecoverable.

Although manual removal is sometimes required, the prune command is normally used to system-
atically delete older backups. Prune lets you specify which backup snapshots you want to keep. The
following retention options are available:
--keep-last <N> Keep the last <N> backup snapshots.
--keep-hourly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> hours. If there is more than one backup for
a single hour, only the latest is kept.
--keep-daily <N> Keep backups for the last <N> days. If there is more than one backup for a
single day, only the latest is kept.

48 Chapter 10. Backup Client Usage

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--keep-weekly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> weeks. If there is more than one backup for
a single week, only the latest is kept.

Note: Weeks start on Monday and end on Sunday. The software uses the ISO week date
system and handles weeks at the end of the year correctly.

--keep-monthly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> months. If there is more than one backup
for a single month, only the latest is kept.
--keep-yearly <N> Keep backups for the last <N> years. If there is more than one backup for a
single year, only the latest is kept.
The retention options are processed in the order given above. Each option only covers backups
within its time period. The next option does not take care of already covered backups. It will only
consider older backups.
Unfinished and incomplete backups will be removed by the prune command unless they are newer
than the last successful backup. In this case, the last failed backup is retained.
# proxmox-backup-client prune <group> --keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 4 --keep-monthly 3

You can use the --dry-run option to test your settings. This only shows the list of existing snap-
shots and what actions prune would take.
# proxmox-backup-client prune host/elsa --dry-run --keep-daily 1 --keep-weekly 3
┌────────────────────────────────┬──────┐
│ snapshot │ keep │
╞════════════════════════════════╪══════╡
│ host/elsa/2019-12-04T13:20:37Z │ 1 │
├────────────────────────────────┼──────┤
│ host/elsa/2019-12-03T09:35:01Z │ 0 │
├────────────────────────────────┼──────┤
│ host/elsa/2019-11-22T11:54:47Z │ 1 │
├────────────────────────────────┼──────┤
│ host/elsa/2019-11-21T12:36:25Z │ 0 │
├────────────────────────────────┼──────┤
│ host/elsa/2019-11-10T10:42:20Z │ 1 │
└────────────────────────────────┴──────┘

Note: Neither the prune command nor the forget command free space in the chunk-store. The
chunk-store still contains the data blocks. To free space you need to perform Garbage Collection.

10.10 Garbage Collec on

The prune command removes only the backup index files, not the data from the datastore. This
task is left to the garbage collection command. It is recommended to carry out garbage collection
on a regular basis.
The garbage collection works in two phases. In the first phase, all data blocks that are still in use
are marked. In the second phase, unused data blocks are removed.

Note: This command needs to read all existing backup index files and touches the complete
chunk-store. This can take a long time depending on the number of chunks and the speed of the
underlying disks.

Note: The garbage collection will only remove chunks that haven’t been used for at least one day
(exactly 24h 5m). This grace period is necessary because chunks in use are marked by touching

10.10. Garbage Collec on 49

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

the chunk which updates the atime (access time) property. Filesystems are mounted with the
relatime option by default. This results in a better performance by only updating the atime
property if the last access has been at least 24 hours ago. The downside is, that touching a chunk
within these 24 hours will not always update its atime property.
Chunks in the grace period will be logged at the end of the garbage collection task as Pending
removals.

# proxmox-backup-client garbage-collect
starting garbage collection on store store2
Start GC phase1 (mark used chunks)
Start GC phase2 (sweep unused chunks)
percentage done: 1, chunk count: 219
percentage done: 2, chunk count: 453
...
percentage done: 99, chunk count: 21188
Removed bytes: 411368505
Removed chunks: 203
Original data bytes: 327160886391
Disk bytes: 52767414743 (16 %)
Disk chunks: 21221
Average chunk size: 2486565
TASK OK

10.11 Benchmarking

The backup client also comes with a benchmarking tool. This tool measures various metrics re-
lating to compression and encryption speeds. You can run a benchmark using the benchmark
subcommand of proxmox-backup-client:
# proxmox-backup-client benchmark
Uploaded 656 chunks in 5 seconds.
Time per request: 7659 microseconds.
TLS speed: 547.60 MB/s
SHA256 speed: 585.76 MB/s
Compression speed: 1923.96 MB/s
Decompress speed: 7885.24 MB/s
AES256/GCM speed: 3974.03 MB/s
┌───────────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
│ Name │ Value │
╞═══════════════════════════════════╪═════════════════════╡
│ TLS (maximal backup upload speed) │ 547.60 MB/s (93%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ SHA256 checksum computation speed │ 585.76 MB/s (28%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ ZStd level 1 compression speed │ 1923.96 MB/s (89%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ ZStd level 1 decompression speed │ 7885.24 MB/s (98%) │
├───────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
│ AES256 GCM encryption speed │ 3974.03 MB/s (104%) │
└───────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘

Note: The percentages given in the output table correspond to a comparison against a Ryzen 7
2700X. The TLS test connects to the local host, so there is no network involved.

You can also pass the --output-format parameter to output stats in json, rather than the default
table format.

50 Chapter 10. Backup Client Usage

 CHAPTER

ELEVEN

PROXMOX VE INTEGRATION

You need to define a new storage with type ‘pbs’ on your Proxmox VE node. The following example
uses store2 as storage name, and assumes the server address is localhost, and you want to
connect as user1@pbs.
# pvesm add pbs store2 --server localhost --datastore store2
# pvesm set store2 --username user1@pbs --password <secret>

Note: If you would rather not pass your password as plain text, you can pass the --password
parameter, without any arguments. This will cause the program to prompt you for a password
upon entering the command.

If your backup server uses a self signed certificate, you need to add the certificate fingerprint to
the configuration. You can get the fingerprint by running the following command on the backup
server:
# proxmox-backup-manager cert info | grep Fingerprint
Fingerprint (sha256): 64:d3:ff:3a:50:38:53:5a:9b:f7:50:...:ab:fe

Please add that fingerprint to your configuration to establish a trust relationship:

# pvesm set store2 --fingerprint 64:d3:ff:3a:50:38:53:5a:9b:f7:50:...:ab:fe

After that you should be able to see storage status with:

# pvesm status --storage store2
Name Type Status Total Used Available %
store2 pbs active 3905109820 1336687816 2568422004 34.23%

Having added the PBS datastore to Proxmox VE, you can backup VMs and containers in the same
way you would for any other storage device within the environment (see PVE Admin Guide: Backup
and Restore.

51
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

52 Chapter 11. Proxmox VE Integra on

 CHAPTER

TWELVE

PXAR COMMAND LINE TOOL

12.1 Descrip on

pxar is a command line utility to create and manipulate archives in the Proxmox File Archive Format
(.pxar). It is inspired by casync file archive format, which caters to a similar use-case. The .pxar
format is adapted to fulfill the specific needs of the Proxmox Backup Server, for example, efficient
storage of hardlinks. The format is designed to reduce storage space needed on the server by
achieving a high level of deduplication.

12.2 Crea ng an Archive

Run the following command to create an archive of a folder named source:

# pxar create archive.pxar /path/to/source

This will create a new archive called archive.pxar with the contents of the source folder.

Note: pxar will not overwrite any existing archives. If an archive with the same name is already
present in the target folder, the creation will fail.

By default, pxar will skip certain mountpoints and will not follow device boundaries. This design
decision is based on the primary use case of creating archives for backups. It makes sense to not
back up the contents of certain temporary or system specific files. To alter this behavior and follow
device boundaries, use the --all-file-systems flag.
It is possible to exclude certain files and/or folders from the archive by passing the --exclude
parameter with gitignore-style match patterns.
For example, you can exclude all files ending in .txt from the archive by running:
# pxar create archive.pxar /path/to/source --exclude '**/*.txt'

Be aware that the shell itself will try to expand all of the glob patterns before invoking pxar. In
order to avoid this, all globs have to be quoted correctly.
It is possible to pass the --exclude parameter multiple times, in order to match more than one
pattern. This allows you to use more complex file exclusion/inclusion behavior. However, it is
recommended to use .pxarexclude files instead for such cases.
For example you might want to exclude all .txt files except for a specific one from the archive.
This is achieved via the negated match pattern, prefixed by !. All the glob patterns are relative to
the source directory.
# pxar create archive.pxar /path/to/source --exclude '**/*.txt' --exclude '!/folder/file.txt'

53
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Note: The order of the glob match patterns matters as later ones override previous ones. Permu-
tations of the same patterns lead to different results.

pxar will store the list of glob match patterns passed as parameters via the command line, in a file
called .pxarexclude-cli at the root of the archive. If a file with this name is already present in the
source folder during archive creation, this file is not included in the archive and the file containing
the new patterns is added to the archive instead, the original file is not altered.
A more convenient and persistent way to exclude files from the archive is by placing the glob match
patterns in .pxarexclude files. It is possible to create and place these files in any directory of the
filesystem tree. These files must contain one pattern per line, again later patterns win over previous
ones. The patterns control file exclusions of files present within the given directory or further below
it in the tree. The behavior is the same as described in Creating Backups.

12.3 Extrac ng an Archive

An existing archive, archive.pxar, is extracted to a target directory with the following com-
mand:
# pxar extract archive.pxar /path/to/target

If no target is provided, the content of the archive is extracted to the current working directory.
In order to restore only parts of an archive, single files, and/or folders, it is possible to pass the
corresponding glob match patterns as additional parameters or to use the patterns stored in a file:
# pxar extract etc.pxar /restore/target/etc --pattern '**/*.conf'

The above example restores all .conf files encountered in any of the sub-folders in the archive
etc.pxar to the target /restore/target/etc. A path to the file containing match patterns can
be specified using the --files-from parameter.

12.4 List the Contents of an Archive

To display the files and directories contained in an archive archive.pxar, run the following com-
mand:
# pxar list archive.pxar

This displays the full path of each file or directory with respect to the archives root.

12.5 Moun ng an Archive

pxar allows you to mount and inspect the contents of an archive via FUSE. In order to mount an
archive named archive.pxar to the mountpoint /mnt, run the command:
# pxar mount archive.pxar /mnt

Once the archive is mounted, you can access its content under the given mountpoint.
# cd /mnt
# ls
bin dev home lib32 libx32 media opt root sbin sys usr
boot etc lib lib64 lost+found mnt proc run srv tmp var

54 Chapter 12. pxar Command Line Tool

 CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

HOST SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION

Proxmox Backup is based on the famous Debian Linux distribution. That means that you have
access to the whole world of Debian packages, and the base system is well documented. The
Debian Administrator’s Handbook is available online, and provides a comprehensive introduction
to the Debian operating system.
A standard Proxmox Backup installation uses the default repositories from Debian, so you get
bug fixes and security updates through that channel. In addition, we provide our own package
repository to roll out all Proxmox related packages. This includes updates to some Debian packages
when necessary.
We also deliver a specially optimized Linux kernel, where we enable all required virtualization and
container features. That kernel includes drivers for ZFS, and several hardware drivers. For example,
we ship Intel network card drivers to support their newest hardware.
The following sections will concentrate on backup related topics. They either explain things which
are different on Proxmox Backup, or tasks which are commonly used on Proxmox Backup. For
other topics, please refer to the standard Debian documentation.

13.1 ZFS on Linux

ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. There
is no need to manually compile ZFS modules - all packages are included.
By using ZFS, it’s possible to achieve maximum enterprise features with low budget hardware, but
also high performance systems by leveraging SSD caching or even SSD only setups. ZFS can re-
place cost intense hardware raid cards by moderate CPU and memory load combined with easy
management.
General ZFS advantages
• Easy configuration and management with GUI and CLI.
• Reliable
• Protection against data corruption
• Data compression on file system level
• Snapshots
• Copy-on-write clone
• Various raid levels: RAID0, RAID1, RAID10, RAIDZ-1, RAIDZ-2 and RAIDZ-3
• Can use SSD for cache
• Self healing
• Continuous integrity checking
• Designed for high storage capacities

55
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

• Asynchronous replication over network

• Open Source
• Encryption

13.1.1 Hardware

ZFS depends heavily on memory, so you need at least 8GB to start. In practice, use as much you
can get for your hardware/budget. To prevent data corruption, we recommend the use of high
quality ECC RAM.
If you use a dedicated cache and/or log disk, you should use an enterprise class SSD (e.g. Intel SSD
DC S3700 Series). This can increase the overall performance significantly.
IMPORTANT: Do not use ZFS on top of hardware controller which has its own cache management.
ZFS needs to directly communicate with disks. An HBA adapter is the way to go, or something like
LSI controller flashed in IT mode.

13.1.2 ZFS Administra on

This section gives you some usage examples for common tasks. ZFS itself is really powerful and
provides many options. The main commands to manage ZFS are zfs and zpool. Both commands
come with great manual pages, which can be read with:
# man zpool
# man zfs

Create a new zpool

To create a new pool, at least one disk is needed. The ashift should have the same sector-size (2
power of ashift) or larger as the underlying disk.
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> <device>

Create a new pool with RAID-0

Minimum 1 disk
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> <device1> <device2>

Create a new pool with RAID-1

Minimum 2 disks
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> mirror <device1> <device2>

Create a new pool with RAID-10

Minimum 4 disks
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> mirror <device1> <device2> mirror <device3> <device4>

56 Chapter 13. Host System Administra on

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Create a new pool with RAIDZ-1

Minimum 3 disks
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> raidz1 <device1> <device2> <device3>

Create a new pool with RAIDZ-2

Minimum 4 disks
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> raidz2 <device1> <device2> <device3> <device4>

Create a new pool with cache (L2ARC)

It is possible to use a dedicated cache drive partition to increase the performance (use SSD).
As <device> it is possible to use more devices, like it’s shown in “Create a new pool with RAID*”.
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> <device> cache <cache_device>

Create a new pool with log (ZIL)

It is possible to use a dedicated cache drive partition to increase the performance (SSD).
As <device> it is possible to use more devices, like it’s shown in “Create a new pool with RAID*”.
# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> <device> log <log_device>

Add cache and log to an exis ng pool

If you have a pool without cache and log. First partition the SSD in 2 partition with parted or gdisk

Important: Always use GPT partition tables.

The maximum size of a log device should be about half the size of physical memory, so this is
usually quite small. The rest of the SSD can be used as cache.
# zpool add -f <pool> log <device-part1> cache <device-part2>

Changing a failed device

# zpool replace -f <pool> <old device> <new device>

Changing a failed bootable device

Depending on how Proxmox Backup was installed it is either using grub or systemd-boot as boot-
loader.
The first steps of copying the partition table, reissuing GUIDs and replacing the ZFS partition are the
same. To make the system bootable from the new disk, different steps are needed which depend
on the bootloader in use.

13.1. ZFS on Linux 57

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# sgdisk <healthy bootable device> -R <new device>

# sgdisk -G <new device>
# zpool replace -f <pool> <old zfs partition> <new zfs partition>

Note: Use the zpool status -v command to monitor how far the resilvering process of the new disk
has progressed.

With systemd-boot:
# pve-efiboot-tool format <new disk's ESP>
# pve-efiboot-tool init <new disk's ESP>

Note: ESP stands for EFI System Partition, which is setup as partition #2 on bootable disks setup
by the {pve} installer since version 5.4. For details, see xref:sysboot_systemd_boot_setup[Setting
up a new partition for use as synced ESP].

With grub:
Usually grub.cfg is located in /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# grub-install <new disk>
# grub-mkconfig -o /path/to/grub.cfg

Ac vate E-Mail No fica on

ZFS comes with an event daemon, which monitors events generated by the ZFS kernel module. The
daemon can also send emails on ZFS events like pool errors. Newer ZFS packages ship the daemon
in a separate package, and you can install it using apt-get:
# apt-get install zfs-zed

To activate the daemon it is necessary to edit /etc/zfs/zed.d/zed.rc with your favorite editor, and
uncomment the ZED_EMAIL_ADDR setting:
ZED_EMAIL_ADDR="root"

Please note Proxmox Backup forwards mails to root to the email address configured for the root
user.
IMPORTANT: The only setting that is required is ZED_EMAIL_ADDR. All other settings are optional.

Limit ZFS Memory Usage

It is good to use at most 50 percent (which is the default) of the system memory for ZFS ARC to
prevent performance shortage of the host. Use your preferred editor to change the configuration
in /etc/modprobe.d/zfs.conf and insert:
options zfs zfs_arc_max=8589934592

This example setting limits the usage to 8GB.

Important: If your root file system is ZFS you must update your initramfs every time this value
changes:

58 Chapter 13. Host System Administra on

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

# update-initramfs -u

SWAP on ZFS

Swap-space created on a zvol may generate some troubles, like blocking the server or generating
a high IO load, often seen when starting a Backup to an external Storage.
We strongly recommend to use enough memory, so that you normally do not run into low memory
situations. Should you need or want to add swap, it is preferred to create a partition on a physical
disk and use it as swap device. You can leave some space free for this purpose in the advanced
options of the installer. Additionally, you can lower the swappiness value. A good value for servers
is 10:
# sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10

To make the swappiness persistent, open /etc/sysctl.conf with an editor of your choice and add the
following line:
vm.swappiness = 10

Table 1: Linux kernel swappiness parameter values :widths:auto

Value Strategy
vm.swappiness The kernel will swap only to avoid an ‘out of memory’ condition
=0
vm.swappiness Minimum amount of swapping without disabling it entirely.
=1
vm.swappiness Sometimes recommended to improve performance when sufficient mem-
= 10 ory exists in a system.
vm.swappiness The default value.
= 60
vm.swappiness The kernel will swap aggressively.
= 100

ZFS Compression

To activate compression: .. code-block:: console

# zpool set compression=lz4 <pool>
We recommend using the lz4 algorithm, since it adds very little CPU overhead. Other algorithms
such as lzjb and gzip-N (where N is an integer 1-9 representing the compression ratio, 1 is fastest
and 9 is best compression) are also available. Depending on the algorithm and how compressible
the data is, having compression enabled can even increase I/O performance.
You can disable compression at any time with: .. code-block:: console
# zfs set compression=off <dataset>
Only new blocks will be affected by this change.

ZFS Special Device

Since version 0.8.0 ZFS supports special devices. A special device in a pool is used to store metadata,
deduplication tables, and optionally small file blocks.
A special device can improve the speed of a pool consisting of slow spinning hard disks with a lot
of metadata changes. For example workloads that involve creating, updating or deleting a large

13.1. ZFS on Linux 59

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

number of files will benefit from the presence of a special device. ZFS datasets can also be config-
ured to store whole small files on the special device which can further improve the performance.
Use fast SSDs for the special device.

Important: The redundancy of the special device should match the one of the pool, since the
special device is a point of failure for the whole pool.

Warning: Adding a special device to a pool cannot be undone!

Create a pool with special device and RAID-1:

# zpool create -f -o ashift=12 <pool> mirror <device1> <device2> special mirror <device3>
,→<device4>

Adding a special device to an existing pool with RAID-1:

# zpool add <pool> special mirror <device1> <device2>

ZFS datasets expose the special_small_blocks=<size> property. size can be 0 to disable storing small
file blocks on the special device or a power of two in the range between 512B to 128K. After setting
the property new file blocks smaller than size will be allocated on the special device.

Important: If the value for special_small_blocks is greater than or equal to the recordsize (default
128K) of the dataset, all data will be written to the special device, so be careful!

Setting the special_small_blocks property on a pool will change the default value of that property for
all child ZFS datasets (for example all containers in the pool will opt in for small file blocks).
Opt in for all file smaller than 4K-blocks pool-wide:
# zfs set special_small_blocks=4K <pool>

Opt in for small file blocks for a single dataset:

# zfs set special_small_blocks=4K <pool>/<filesystem>

Opt out from small file blocks for a single dataset:

# zfs set special_small_blocks=0 <pool>/<filesystem>

Troubleshoo ng

Corrupted cachefile
In case of a corrupted ZFS cachefile, some volumes may not be mounted during boot until mounted
manually later.
For each pool, run:
# zpool set cachefile=/etc/zfs/zpool.cache POOLNAME

and afterwards update the initramfs by running:

# update-initramfs -u -k all

and finally reboot your node.

Sometimes the ZFS cachefile can get corrupted, and zfs-import-cache.service doesn’t import the
pools that aren’t present in the cachefile.

60 Chapter 13. Host System Administra on

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Another workaround to this problem is enabling the zfs-import-scan.service, which searches and
imports pools via device scanning (usually slower).

13.1. ZFS on Linux 61

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

62 Chapter 13. Host System Administra on

 CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

FAQ

14.1 What distribu on is Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) based on?

Proxmox Backup Server is based on Debian GNU/Linux.

14.2 Which pla orms are supported as a backup source (client)?

The client tool works on most modern Linux systems, meaning you are not limited to Debian-based
backups.

14.3 Will Proxmox Backup Server run on a 32-bit processor?

Proxmox Backup Server only supports 64-bit CPUs (AMD or Intel). There are no future plans to
support 32-bit processors.

14.4 How long will my Proxmox Backup Server version be supported?

Proxmox Backup Ver- Debian Version First Re- Debian Proxmox Backup
sion lease EOL EOL
Proxmox Backup 1.x Debian 10 2020-11 tba tba
(Buster)

14.5 Can I copy or synchronize my datastore to another loca on?

Proxmox Backup Server allows you to copy or synchronize datastores to other locations, through
the use of Remotes and Sync Jobs. Remote is the term given to a separate server, which has a datas-
tore that can be synced to a local store. A Sync Job is the process which is used to pull the contents
of a datastore from a Remote to a local datastore.

63
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

14.6 Can Proxmox Backup Server verify data integrity of a backup

archive?

Proxmox Backup Server uses a built-in SHA-256 checksum algorithm, to ensure data integrity.
Within each backup, a manifest file (index.json) is created, which contains a list of all the backup
files, along with their sizes and checksums. This manifest file is used to verify the integrity of each
backup.

14.7 When backing up to remote servers, do I have to trust the remote

server?

Proxmox Backup Server supports client-side encryption, meaning your data is encrypted before it
reaches the server. Thus, in the event that an attacker gains access to the server, they will not be
able to read the data.

Note: Encryption is not enabled by default. To set up encryption, see the Encryption section of
the Proxmox Backup Server Administration Guide.

14.8 Is the backup incremental/deduplicated?

With Proxmox Backup Server, backups are sent incremental and data is deduplicated on the server.
This minimizes both the storage consumed and the network impact.

64 Chapter 14. FAQ

 APPENDIX

COMMAND SYNTAX

A.1 proxmox-backup-client

proxmox-backup-client backup {<backupspec>} [OPTIONS]

Create (host) backup.
<backupspec> <array> List of backup source specifications ([<label.ext>:<path>] …)
Optional parameters:
--backup-id <string> Backup ID.
--backup-time <integer> (1547797308 - N) Backup time (Unix epoch.)
--backup-type <string> Backup type.
--chunk-size <integer> (64 - 4096) (default=4096) Chunk size in KB. Must
be a power of 2.
--crypt-mode <string> (default=encrypt) Defines whether data is encrypted
(using an AEAD cipher), only signed, or neither.
--entries-max <integer> (default=1048576) Max number of entries to hold in
memory.
--exclude <array> List of paths or patterns for matching files to exclude.
--include-dev <array> Include mountpoints with same st_dev number (see man
fstat) as specified files.
--keyfd <integer> (0 - N) Pass an encryption key via an already opened file de-
scriptor.
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key. All data will be encrypted using this key.
--repository <string> Repository URL.
--skip-lost-and-found <boolean> Skip lost+found directory.
--verbose <boolean> Verbose output.

proxmox-backup-client benchmark [OPTIONS]

Run benchmark tests
Optional parameters:
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key. All data will be encrypted using this key.
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.
--verbose <boolean> Verbose output.

65
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

proxmox-backup-client catalog dump <snapshot> [OPTIONS]

Dump catalog.
<snapshot> <string> Snapshot path.
Optional parameters:
--keyfd <integer> (0 - N) Pass an encryption key via an already opened file de-
scriptor.
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client catalog shell <snapshot> <archive-name> [OPTIONS]

Shell to interactively inspect and restore snapshots.
<snapshot> <string> Group/Snapshot path.
<archive-name> <string> Backup archive name.
Optional parameters:
--keyfd <integer> (0 - N) Pass an encryption key via an already opened file de-
scriptor.
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client change-owner <group> <new-owner> [OPTIONS]

Change owner of a backup group
<group> <string> Backup group.
<new-owner> <string> Authentication ID
Optional parameters:
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client files <snapshot> [OPTIONS]

List snapshot files.
<snapshot> <string> Snapshot path.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client forget <snapshot> [OPTIONS]

Forget (remove) backup snapshots.
<snapshot> <string> Snapshot path.
Optional parameters:
--repository <string> Repository URL.

66 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

proxmox-backup-client garbage-collect [OPTIONS]

Start garbage collection for a specific repository.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client help [{<command>}] [OPTIONS]

Get help about specified command (or sub-command).
<command> <array> Command. This may be a list in order to spefify nested sub-
commands.
Optional parameters:
--verbose <boolean> Verbose help.
proxmox-backup-client key change-passphrase [<path>] [OPTIONS]
Change the encryption key’s password.
<path> <string> Key file. Without this the default key’s password will be changed.
Optional parameters:
--kdf <string> (default=scrypt) Key derivation function for password pro-
tected encryption keys.

proxmox-backup-client key create [<path>] [OPTIONS]

Create a new encryption key.
<path> <string> Output file. Without this the key will become the new default en-
cryption key.
Optional parameters:
--kdf <string> (default=scrypt) Key derivation function for password pro-
tected encryption keys.

proxmox-backup-client key create-master-key

Create an RSA public/private key pair used to put an encrypted version of the symmetric backup
encryption key onto the backup server along with each backup.

proxmox-backup-client key import-master-pubkey <path>

Import an RSA public key used to put an encrypted version of the symmetric backup encryption
key onto the backup server along with each backup.
<path> <string> Path to the PEM formatted RSA public key.

proxmox-backup-client key paperkey [<path>] [OPTIONS]

Generate a printable, human readable text file containing the encryption key.
This also includes a scanable QR code for fast key restore.

A.1. proxmox-backup-client 67
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

<path> <string> Key file. Without this the default key’s will be used.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Paperkey output format
--subject <string> Include the specified subject as titel text.

proxmox-backup-client list [OPTIONS]

List backup groups.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client login [OPTIONS]

Try to login. If successful, store ticket.
Optional parameters:
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client logout [OPTIONS]

Logout (delete stored ticket).
Optional parameters:
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client map <snapshot> <archive-name> [OPTIONS]

Map a drive image from a VM backup to a local loopback device. Use ‘unmap’ to undo. WARNING:
Only do this with trusted backups!
<snapshot> <string> Group/Snapshot path.
<archive-name> <string> Backup archive name.
Optional parameters:
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key.
--repository <string> Repository URL.
--verbose <boolean> (default=false) Verbose output and stay in foreground.

proxmox-backup-client mount <snapshot> <archive-name> <target> [OPTIONS]

Mount pxar archive.
<snapshot> <string> Group/Snapshot path.
<archive-name> <string> Backup archive name.
<target> <string> Target directory path.
Optional parameters:
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key.

68 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--repository <string> Repository URL.

--verbose <boolean> (default=false) Verbose output and stay in foreground.

proxmox-backup-client prune <group> [OPTIONS]

Prune a backup repository.
<group> <string> Backup group.
Optional parameters:
--dry-run <boolean> Just show what prune would do, but do not delete anything.
--keep-daily <integer> (1 - N) Number of daily backups to keep.
--keep-hourly <integer> (1 - N) Number of hourly backups to keep.
--keep-last <integer> (1 - N) Number of backups to keep.
--keep-monthly <integer> (1 - N) Number of monthly backups to keep.
--keep-weekly <integer> (1 - N) Number of weekly backups to keep.
--keep-yearly <integer> (1 - N) Number of yearly backups to keep.
--output-format <string> Output format.
--quiet <boolean> Minimal output - only show removals.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client restore <snapshot> <archive-name> <target> [OPTIONS]

Restore backup repository.
<snapshot> <string> Group/Snapshot path.
<archive-name> <string> Backup archive name.
<target> <string> Target directory path. Use ‘-‘ to write to standard output.
We do not extraxt ‘.pxar’ archives when writing to standard output.
Optional parameters:
--allow-existing-dirs <boolean> Do not fail if directories already exists.
--crypt-mode <string> (default=encrypt) Defines whether data is encrypted
(using an AEAD cipher), only signed, or neither.
--keyfd <integer> (0 - N) Pass an encryption key via an already opened file de-
scriptor.
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key. All data will be encrypted using this key.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client snapshots [<group>] [OPTIONS]

List backup snapshots.
<group> <string> Backup group.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

A.1. proxmox-backup-client 69
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

proxmox-backup-client status [OPTIONS]

Get repository status.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.
proxmox-backup-client task list [OPTIONS]
List running server tasks for this repo user
Optional parameters:
--all <boolean> Also list stopped tasks.
--limit <integer> (1 - 1000) (default=50) The maximal number of tasks to
list.
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client task log <upid> [OPTIONS]

Display the task log.
<upid> <string> Unique Process/Task ID.
Optional parameters:
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client task stop <upid> [OPTIONS]

Try to stop a specific task.
<upid> <string> Unique Process/Task ID.
Optional parameters:
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client unmap [<name>]

Unmap a loop device mapped with ‘map’ and release all resources.
<name> <string> Archive name, path to loopdev (/dev/loopX) or loop device number.
Omit to list all current mappings and force cleaning up leftover instances.

proxmox-backup-client upload-log <snapshot> <logfile> [OPTIONS]

Upload backup log file.
<snapshot> <string> Group/Snapshot path.
<logfile> <string> The path to the log file you want to upload.
Optional parameters:
--crypt-mode <string> (default=encrypt) Defines whether data is encrypted
(using an AEAD cipher), only signed, or neither.

70 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--keyfd <integer> (0 - N) Pass an encryption key via an already opened file de-
scriptor.
--keyfile <string> Path to encryption key. All data will be encrypted using this key.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

proxmox-backup-client version [OPTIONS]

Show client and optional server version
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--repository <string> Repository URL.

A.1.1 Catalog Shell Commands

Those command are available when you start an interactive restore shell:
proxmox-backup-client shell <snapshot> <name.pxar>

cd [<path>]
Change the current working directory to the new directory
<path> <string> target path.

clear-selected
Clear the list of files selected for restore.

deselect <path>
Deselect an entry for restore.
This will return an error if the entry was not found in the list of entries selected for restore.
<path> <string> path to entry to remove from list.

exit
Exit the shell

find <pattern> [OPTIONS]

Find entries in the catalog matching the given match pattern.
<pattern> <string> Match pattern for matching files in the catalog.
Optional parameters:
--select <boolean> (default=false) Add matching filenames to list for restore.

help [{<command>}] [OPTIONS]

Get help about specified command (or sub-command).

A.1. proxmox-backup-client 71
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

<command> <array> Command. This may be a list in order to spefify nested sub-
commands.
Optional parameters:
--verbose <boolean> Verbose help.

list-selected [OPTIONS]
List entries currently selected for restore.
Optional parameters:
--patterns <boolean> (default=false) List match patterns instead of the
matching files.

ls [<path>]
List the content of working directory or given path.
<path> <string> target path.

pwd
List the current working directory.

restore <target> [OPTIONS]

Restore the sub-archive given by the current working directory to target.
By further providing a pattern, the restore can be limited to a narrower subset of this sub-archive.
If pattern is not present or empty, the full archive is restored to target.
<target> <string> target path for restore on local filesystem.
Optional parameters:
--pattern <string> match pattern to limit files for restore.

restore-selected <target>
Restore the selected entries to the given target path.
Target must not exist on the clients filesystem.
<target> <string> target path for restore on local filesystem.

select <path>
Select an entry for restore.
This will return an error if the entry is already present in the list or if an invalid path was provided.
<path> <string> target path.

stat <path>
Read the metadata for a given directory entry.
This is expensive because the data has to be read from the pxar archive, which means reading over
the network.
<path> <string> target path.

72 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

A.2 proxmox-backup-manager

proxmox-backup-manager acl list [OPTIONS]

Access Control list.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager acl update <path> <role> [OPTIONS]

Update Access Control List (ACLs).
<path> <string> Access control path.
<role> <string> Role
Optional parameters:
--auth-id <string> Authentication ID
--delete <boolean> Remove permissions (instead of adding it).
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--group <string> Group ID
--propagate <boolean> (default=true) Allow to propagate (inherit) permis-
sions.
proxmox-backup-manager cert info
Display node certificate information.

proxmox-backup-manager cert update [OPTIONS]

Update node certificates and generate all needed files/directories.
Optional parameters:
--force <boolean> Force generation of new SSL certifate.
proxmox-backup-manager datastore create <name> <path> [OPTIONS]
Create new datastore config.
<name> <string> Datastore name.
<path> <string> Directory name
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--gc-schedule <string> Run garbage collection job at specified schedule.
--keep-daily <integer> (1 - N) Number of daily backups to keep.
--keep-hourly <integer> (1 - N) Number of hourly backups to keep.
--keep-last <integer> (1 - N) Number of backups to keep.
--keep-monthly <integer> (1 - N) Number of monthly backups to keep.
--keep-weekly <integer> (1 - N) Number of weekly backups to keep.
--keep-yearly <integer> (1 - N) Number of yearly backups to keep.

A.2. proxmox-backup-manager 73
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--notify <string> Datastore notification setting

--notify-user <string> User ID
--prune-schedule <string> Run prune job at specified schedule.

proxmox-backup-manager datastore list [OPTIONS]

Datastore list.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager datastore remove <name> [OPTIONS]

Remove a datastore configuration.
<name> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.

proxmox-backup-manager datastore show <name> [OPTIONS]

Show datastore configuration
<name> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager datastore update <name> [OPTIONS]

Update datastore config.
<name> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--delete <array> List of properties to delete.
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--gc-schedule <string> Run garbage collection job at specified schedule.
--keep-daily <integer> (1 - N) Number of daily backups to keep.
--keep-hourly <integer> (1 - N) Number of hourly backups to keep.
--keep-last <integer> (1 - N) Number of backups to keep.
--keep-monthly <integer> (1 - N) Number of monthly backups to keep.
--keep-weekly <integer> (1 - N) Number of weekly backups to keep.
--keep-yearly <integer> (1 - N) Number of yearly backups to keep.
--notify <string> Datastore notification setting
--notify-user <string> User ID

74 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--prune-schedule <string> Run prune job at specified schedule.

--verify-new <boolean> (default=false) If enabled, all new backups will be
verified right after completion.
proxmox-backup-manager disk fs create <name> --disk <string> [OPTIONS]
Create a Filesystem on an unused disk. Will be mounted under ‘/mnt/datastore/<name>’.
<name> <string> Datastore name.
--disk <string> Block device name (/sys/block/<name>).
Optional parameters:
--add-datastore <boolean> Configure a datastore using the directory.
--filesystem <string>

proxmox-backup-manager disk fs list [OPTIONS]

List systemd datastore mount units.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager disk initialize <disk> [OPTIONS]

Initialize empty Disk with GPT
<disk> <string> Block device name (/sys/block/<name>).
Optional parameters:
--uuid <string> UUID for the GPT table.

proxmox-backup-manager disk list [OPTIONS]

Local disk list.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager disk smart-attributes <disk> [OPTIONS]

Show SMART attributes.
<disk> <string> Block device name (/sys/block/<name>).
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
proxmox-backup-manager disk zpool create <name> --devices <string>
--raidlevel <string> [OPTIONS]
create a zfs pool
<name> <string> Datastore name.
--devices <string> A list of disk names, comma separated.
--raidlevel <string> The ZFS RAID level to use.
Optional parameters:

A.2. proxmox-backup-manager 75
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--add-datastore <boolean> Configure a datastore using the zpool.

--ashift <integer> (9 - 16) (default=12) Pool sector size exponent.
--compression <string> (default=On) The ZFS compression algorithm to use.

proxmox-backup-manager disk zpool list [OPTIONS]

Local zfs pools.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
proxmox-backup-manager dns get [OPTIONS]
Read DNS settings
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager dns set [OPTIONS]

Update DNS settings.
Optional parameters:
--delete <array> List of properties to delete.
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--dns1 <string> First name server IP address.
--dns2 <string> Second name server IP address.
--dns3 <string> Third name server IP address.
--search <string> Search domain for host-name lookup.
proxmox-backup-manager garbage-collection start <store> [OPTIONS]
Start garbage collection for a specific datastore.
<store> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager garbage-collection status <store> [OPTIONS]

Show garbage collection status for a specific datastore.
<store> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager help [{<command>}] [OPTIONS]

Get help about specified command (or sub-command).
<command> <array> Command. This may be a list in order to spefify nested sub-
commands.

76 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Optional parameters:
--verbose <boolean> Verbose help.
proxmox-backup-manager network changes
Show pending configuration changes (diff)

proxmox-backup-manager network create <iface> [OPTIONS]

Create network interface configuration.
<iface> <string> Network interface name.
Optional parameters:
--autostart <boolean> Autostart interface.
--bond-primary <string> Network interface name.
--bond_mode <string> Linux Bond Mode
--bond_xmit_hash_policy <string> Bond Transmit Hash Policy for LACP
(802.3ad)
--bridge_ports <string> A list of network devices, comma separated.
--bridge_vlan_aware <boolean> Enable bridge vlan support.
--cidr <string> IPv4 address with netmask (CIDR notation).
--cidr6 <string> IPv6 address with netmask (CIDR notation).
--comments <string> Comments (inet, may span multiple lines)
--comments6 <string> Comments (inet5, may span multiple lines)
--gateway <string> IPv4 address.
--gateway6 <string> IPv6 address.
--method <string> Interface configuration method
--method6 <string> Interface configuration method
--mtu <integer> (46 - 65535) (default=1500) Maximum Transmission Unit.
--slaves <string> A list of network devices, comma separated.
--type <string> Network interface type

proxmox-backup-manager network list [OPTIONS]

Network device list.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager network reload

Reload network configuration (requires ifupdown2).

proxmox-backup-manager network remove <iface> [OPTIONS]

Remove network interface configuration.
<iface> <string> Network interface name.

A.2. proxmox-backup-manager 77
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Optional parameters:
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.

proxmox-backup-manager network revert

Revert network configuration (rm /etc/network/interfaces.new).

proxmox-backup-manager network update <iface> [OPTIONS]

Update network interface config.
<iface> <string> Network interface name.
Optional parameters:
--autostart <boolean> Autostart interface.
--bond-primary <string> Network interface name.
--bond_mode <string> Linux Bond Mode
--bond_xmit_hash_policy <string> Bond Transmit Hash Policy for LACP
(802.3ad)
--bridge_ports <string> A list of network devices, comma separated.
--bridge_vlan_aware <boolean> Enable bridge vlan support.
--cidr <string> IPv4 address with netmask (CIDR notation).
--cidr6 <string> IPv6 address with netmask (CIDR notation).
--comments <string> Comments (inet, may span multiple lines)
--comments6 <string> Comments (inet5, may span multiple lines)
--delete <array> List of properties to delete.
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--gateway <string> IPv4 address.
--gateway6 <string> IPv6 address.
--method <string> Interface configuration method
--method6 <string> Interface configuration method
--mtu <integer> (46 - 65535) (default=1500) Maximum Transmission Unit.
--slaves <string> A list of network devices, comma separated.
--type <string> Network interface type

proxmox-backup-manager pull <remote> <remote-store> <local-store> [OPTIONS]

Sync datastore from another repository
<remote> <string> Remote ID.
<remote-store> <string> Datastore name.
<local-store> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:

78 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--output-format <string> Output format.

--remove-vanished <boolean> (default=true) Delete vanished backups. This
remove the local copy if the remote backup was deleted.
proxmox-backup-manager remote create <name> --auth-id <string> --host
<string> --password <string> [OPTIONS]
Create new remote.
<name> <string> Remote ID.
--auth-id <string> Authentication ID
--host <string> DNS name or IP address.
--password <string> Password or auth token for remote host.
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--fingerprint <string> X509 certificate fingerprint (sha256).
--port <integer> (default=8007) The (optional) port.

proxmox-backup-manager remote list [OPTIONS]

List configured remotes.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager remote remove <name> [OPTIONS]

Remove a remote from the configuration file.
<name> <string> Remote ID.
Optional parameters:
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.

proxmox-backup-manager remote show <name> [OPTIONS]

Show remote configuration
<name> <string> Remote ID.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager remote update <name> [OPTIONS]

Update remote configuration.
<name> <string> Remote ID.
Optional parameters:
--auth-id <string> Authentication ID
--comment <string> Comment (single line).

A.2. proxmox-backup-manager 79
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--delete <array> List of properties to delete.

--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--fingerprint <string> X509 certificate fingerprint (sha256).
--host <string> DNS name or IP address.
--password <string> Password or auth token for remote host.
--port <integer> The (optional) port.

proxmox-backup-manager report
System report
proxmox-backup-manager subscription get [OPTIONS]
Read subscription info.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager subscription remove

Delete subscription info.

proxmox-backup-manager subscription set <key>

Set a subscription key and check it.
<key> <string> Proxmox Backup Server subscription key.

proxmox-backup-manager subscription update [OPTIONS]

Check and update subscription status.
Optional parameters:
--force <boolean> (default=false) Always connect to server, even if informa-
tion in cache is up to date.
proxmox-backup-manager sync-job create <id> --remote <string>
--remote-store <string> --store <string> [OPTIONS]
Create a new sync job.
<id> <string> Job ID.
--remote <string> Remote ID.
--remote-store <string> Datastore name.
--store <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--owner <string> Authentication ID
--remove-vanished <boolean> (default=true) Delete vanished backups. This
remove the local copy if the remote backup was deleted.
--schedule <string> Run sync job at specified schedule.

80 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

proxmox-backup-manager sync-job list [OPTIONS]

Sync job list.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager sync-job remove <id> [OPTIONS]

Remove a sync job configuration
<id> <string> Job ID.
Optional parameters:
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.

proxmox-backup-manager sync-job show <id> [OPTIONS]

Show sync job configuration
<id> <string> Job ID.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager sync-job update <id> [OPTIONS]

Update sync job config.
<id> <string> Job ID.
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--delete <array> List of properties to delete.
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--owner <string> Authentication ID
--remote <string> Remote ID.
--remote-store <string> Datastore name.
--remove-vanished <boolean> (default=true) Delete vanished backups. This
remove the local copy if the remote backup was deleted.
--schedule <string> Run sync job at specified schedule.
--store <string> Datastore name.
proxmox-backup-manager task list [OPTIONS]
List running server tasks.
Optional parameters:
--all <boolean> Also list stopped tasks.

A.2. proxmox-backup-manager 81
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--limit <integer> (1 - 1000) (default=50) The maximal number of tasks to

list.
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager task log <upid>

Display the task log.
<upid> <string> Unique Process/Task ID.

proxmox-backup-manager task stop <upid>

Try to stop a specific task.
<upid> <string> Unique Process/Task ID.
proxmox-backup-manager user create <userid> [OPTIONS]
Create new user.
<userid> <string> User ID
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--email <string> E-Mail Address.
--enable <boolean> (default=true) Enable the account (default). You can set
this to ‘0’ to disable the account.
--expire <integer> (0 - N) (default=0) Account expiration date (seconds
since epoch). ‘0’ means no expiration date.
--firstname <string> First name.
--lastname <string> Last name.
--password <string> User Password.

proxmox-backup-manager user delete-token <userid> <tokenname> [OPTIONS]

Delete a user’s API token
<userid> <string> User ID
<tokenname> <string> The token ID part of an API token authentication id.
This alone does NOT uniquely identify the API token and therefore does not imple-
ment Eq. In order to compare token IDs directly, they need to be explicitly com-
pared as strings by calling .as_str().
`compile_fail fn test(a: Tokenname, b: Tokenname) -> bool { a
== b // illegal and does not compile } `
Optional parameters:
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.

proxmox-backup-manager user generate-token <userid> <tokenname> [OPTIONS]

Generate a new API token with given metadata
<userid> <string> User ID

82 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

<tokenname> <string> The token ID part of an API token authentication id.

This alone does NOT uniquely identify the API token and therefore does not imple-
ment Eq. In order to compare token IDs directly, they need to be explicitly com-
pared as strings by calling .as_str().
`compile_fail fn test(a: Tokenname, b: Tokenname) -> bool { a
== b // illegal and does not compile } `
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--enable <boolean> (default=true) Enable the account (default). You can set
this to ‘0’ to disable the account.
--expire <integer> (0 - N) (default=0) Account expiration date (seconds
since epoch). ‘0’ means no expiration date.

proxmox-backup-manager user list [OPTIONS]

List configured users.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager user list-tokens <userid> [OPTIONS]

List tokens associated with user.
<userid> <string> User ID
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

proxmox-backup-manager user permissions <auth-id> [OPTIONS]

List permissions of user/token.
<auth-id> <string> Authentication ID
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.
--path <string> Access control path.

proxmox-backup-manager user remove <userid> [OPTIONS]

Remove a user from the configuration file.
<userid> <string> User ID
Optional parameters:
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.

A.2. proxmox-backup-manager 83
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

proxmox-backup-manager user update <userid> [OPTIONS]

Update user configuration.
<userid> <string> User ID
Optional parameters:
--comment <string> Comment (single line).
--digest <string> Prevent changes if current configuration file has different
SHA256 digest. This can be used to prevent concurrent modifications.
--email <string> E-Mail Address.
--enable <boolean> (default=true) Enable the account (default). You can set
this to ‘0’ to disable the account.
--expire <integer> (0 - N) (default=0) Account expiration date (seconds
since epoch). ‘0’ means no expiration date.
--firstname <string> First name.
--lastname <string> Last name.
--password <string> User Password.

proxmox-backup-manager verify <store> [OPTIONS]

Verify backups
<store> <string> Datastore name.
Optional parameters:
--output-format <string> Output format.

A.3 pxar

pxar create <archive> <source> [OPTIONS]

Create a new .pxar archive.
<archive> <string> Archive name.
<source> <string> Source directory.
Optional parameters:
--all-file-systems <boolean> (default=false) Include mounted sudirs.
--entries-max <integer> (0 - 9223372036854775807) (default=1048576)
Max number of entries loaded at once into memory
--exclude <array> List of paths or pattern matching files to exclude.
--no-acls <boolean> (default=false) Ignore access control list entries.
--no-device-nodes <boolean> (default=false) Ignore device nodes.
--no-fcaps <boolean> (default=false) Ignore file capabilities.
--no-fifos <boolean> (default=false) Ignore fifos.
--no-sockets <boolean> (default=false) Ignore sockets.
--no-xattrs <boolean> (default=false) Ignore extended file attributes.

84 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

--verbose <boolean> (default=false) Verbose output.

pxar extract <archive> [<target>] [OPTIONS]

Extract an archive.
<archive> <string> Archive name.
<target> <string> Target directory
Optional parameters:
--allow-existing-dirs <boolean> (default=false) Allows directories to al-
ready exist on restore.
--files-from <string> File containing match pattern for files to restore.
--no-acls <boolean> (default=false) Ignore access control list entries.
--no-device-nodes <boolean> (default=false) Ignore device nodes.
--no-fcaps <boolean> (default=false) Ignore file capabilities.
--no-fifos <boolean> (default=false) Ignore fifos.
--no-sockets <boolean> (default=false) Ignore sockets.
--no-xattrs <boolean> (default=false) Ignore extended file attributes.
--pattern <array> List of paths or pattern matching files to restore
--strict <boolean> (default=false) Stop on errors. Otherwise most errors will
simply warn.
--verbose <boolean> (default=false) Verbose output.

pxar help [{<command>}] [OPTIONS]

Get help about specified command (or sub-command).
<command> <array> Command. This may be a list in order to spefify nested sub-
commands.
Optional parameters:
--verbose <boolean> Verbose help.

pxar list <archive> [OPTIONS]

List the contents of an archive.
<archive> <string> Archive name.
Optional parameters:
--verbose <boolean> (default=false) Verbose output.

pxar mount <archive> <mountpoint> [OPTIONS]

Mount the archive to the provided mountpoint via FUSE.
<archive> <string> Archive name.
<mountpoint> <string> Mountpoint for the file system.
Optional parameters:
--verbose <boolean> (default=false) Verbose output, running in the fore-
ground (for debugging).

A.3. pxar 85
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

86 Appendix A. Command Syntax

 APPENDIX

FILE FORMATS

B.1 Proxmox File Archive Format (.pxar)

archive.pxar ENTRY size: u64 = 64

{XATTR}* extended attribute list type: u64 = ENTRY
{ACL_USER}* USER ACL entries feature_flags: u64
{ACL_GROUP}* GROUP ACL entries mode: u64
[ACL_GROUP_OBJ] the ACL_GROUP_OBJ flags: u64
[ACL_DEFAULT] the various default ACL fields uid: u64
{ACL_DEFAULT_USER}* USER ACL entries gid: u64
{ACL_DEFAULT_GROUP}* GROUP ACL entries mtime: u64
[FCAPS] file capability in Linux disk format
[QUOTA_PROJECT_ID] the ext4/xfs quota project ID
{DirectoryEntries}* FILENAME
PAYLOAD SYMLINK DEVICE
GOODBYE ENTRY HARDLINK

87
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

88 Appendix B. File Formats

 APPENDIX

BACKUP PROTOCOL

C.1 Backup Protocol API

GET .
Directory index.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD blob
Upload binary blob file.
Required properties:
encoded-size <integer> (12 - 16777260) Encoded blob size.
file-name <string> Backup archive name.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD dynamic_chunk
Upload a new chunk.
Required properties:
digest <string> Chunk digest (SHA256).
encoded-size <integer> (13 - 16777260) Encoded chunk size.
size <integer> (1 - 16777216) Chunk size.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Dynamic writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST dynamic_close
Close dynamic index writer.
Required properties:
chunk-count <integer> (1 - N) Chunk count. This is used to verify that the
server got all chunks.
csum <string> Digest list checksum.
size <integer> (1 - N) File size. This is used to verify that the server got all data.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Dynamic writer ID.

89
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Returns: <null>

POST dynamic_index
Create dynamic chunk index file.
Required properties:
archive-name <string> Backup archive name.
Returns: <null>

PUT dynamic_index
Append chunk to dynamic index writer.
Required properties:
digest-list <array> Chunk digest list.
offset-list <array> Chunk offset list.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Dynamic writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST finish
Mark backup as finished.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD fixed_chunk
Upload a new chunk.
Required properties:
digest <string> Chunk digest (SHA256).
encoded-size <integer> (13 - 16777260) Encoded chunk size.
size <integer> (1 - 16777216) Chunk size.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Fixed writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST fixed_close
Close fixed index writer.
Required properties:
chunk-count <integer> (0 - N) Chunk count. This is used to verify that the
server got all chunks. Ignored for incremental backups.
csum <string> Digest list checksum.
size <integer> (0 - N) File size. This is used to verify that the server got all data.
Ignored for incremental backups.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Fixed writer ID.

90 Appendix C. Backup Protocol

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Returns: <null>

POST fixed_index
Create fixed chunk index file.
Required properties:
archive-name <string> Backup archive name.
size <integer> (1 - N) File size.
Optional properties:
reuse-csum <string> If set, compare last backup’s csum and reuse index for incre-
mental backup if it matches.
Returns: <null>

PUT fixed_index
Append chunk to fixed index writer.
Required properties:
digest-list <array> Chunk digest list.
offset-list <array> Chunk offset list.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Fixed writer ID.
Returns: <null>

DOWNLOAD previous
Download archive from previous backup.
Required properties:
archive-name <string> Backup archive name.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD speedtest
Test upload speed.
Returns: <null>

C.2 Reader Protocol API

GET .
Directory index.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD blob
Upload binary blob file.
Required properties:

C.2. Reader Protocol API 91

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

encoded-size <integer> (12 - 16777260) Encoded blob size.

file-name <string> Backup archive name.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD dynamic_chunk
Upload a new chunk.
Required properties:
digest <string> Chunk digest (SHA256).
encoded-size <integer> (13 - 16777260) Encoded chunk size.
size <integer> (1 - 16777216) Chunk size.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Dynamic writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST dynamic_close
Close dynamic index writer.
Required properties:
chunk-count <integer> (1 - N) Chunk count. This is used to verify that the
server got all chunks.
csum <string> Digest list checksum.
size <integer> (1 - N) File size. This is used to verify that the server got all data.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Dynamic writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST dynamic_index
Create dynamic chunk index file.
Required properties:
archive-name <string> Backup archive name.
Returns: <null>

PUT dynamic_index
Append chunk to dynamic index writer.
Required properties:
digest-list <array> Chunk digest list.
offset-list <array> Chunk offset list.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Dynamic writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST finish
Mark backup as finished.

92 Appendix C. Backup Protocol

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Returns: <null>

UPLOAD fixed_chunk
Upload a new chunk.
Required properties:
digest <string> Chunk digest (SHA256).
encoded-size <integer> (13 - 16777260) Encoded chunk size.
size <integer> (1 - 16777216) Chunk size.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Fixed writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST fixed_close
Close fixed index writer.
Required properties:
chunk-count <integer> (0 - N) Chunk count. This is used to verify that the
server got all chunks. Ignored for incremental backups.
csum <string> Digest list checksum.
size <integer> (0 - N) File size. This is used to verify that the server got all data.
Ignored for incremental backups.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Fixed writer ID.
Returns: <null>

POST fixed_index
Create fixed chunk index file.
Required properties:
archive-name <string> Backup archive name.
size <integer> (1 - N) File size.
Optional properties:
reuse-csum <string> If set, compare last backup’s csum and reuse index for incre-
mental backup if it matches.
Returns: <null>

PUT fixed_index
Append chunk to fixed index writer.
Required properties:
digest-list <array> Chunk digest list.
offset-list <array> Chunk offset list.
wid <integer> (1 - 256) Fixed writer ID.

C.2. Reader Protocol API 93

Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Returns: <null>

DOWNLOAD previous
Download archive from previous backup.
Required properties:
archive-name <string> Backup archive name.
Returns: <null>

UPLOAD speedtest
Test upload speed.
Returns: <null>

94 Appendix C. Backup Protocol

 APPENDIX

CALENDAR EVENTS

D.1 Introduc on and Format

Certain tasks, for example pruning and garbage collection, need to be performed on a regular
basis. Proxmox Backup Server uses a format inspired by the systemd Time and Date Specification
(see systemd.time manpage) called calendar events for its schedules.
Calendar events are expressions to specify one or more points in time. They are mostly compatible
with systemd’s calendar events.
The general format is as follows:

Listing 1: Calendar event

[WEEKDAY] [[YEARS-]MONTHS-DAYS] [HOURS:MINUTES[:SECONDS]]

Note that there either has to be at least a weekday, date or time part. If the weekday or date part is
omitted, all (week)days are included. If the time part is omitted, the time 00:00:00 is implied. (e.g.
‘2020-01-01’ refers to ‘2020-01-01 00:00:00’)
Weekdays are specified with the abbreviated English version: mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun.
Each field can contain multiple values in the following formats:
• comma-separated: e.g., 01,02,03
• as a range: e.g., 01..10
• as a repetition: e.g, 05/10 (means starting at 5 every 10)
• and a combination of the above: e.g., 01,05..10,12/02
• or a * for every possible value: e.g., *:00
There are some special values that have specific meaning:

Value Syntax
minutely *-*-* *:*:00
hourly *-*-* *:00:00
daily *-*-* 00:00:00
weekly mon *-*-* 00:00:00
monthly *-*-01 00:00:00
yearly or annually *-01-01 00:00:00
quarterly *-01,04,07,10-01 00:00:00
semiannually or semi-annually *-01,07-01 00:00:00

Here is a table with some useful examples:

95
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

Example Alterna ve Explana on

mon,tue,wed,thu,fri
mon..fri Every working day at 00:00
sat,sun sat..sun Only on weekends at 00:00
mon,wed,fri – Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 00:00
12:05 – Every day at 12:05 PM
*:00/5 0/1:0/5 Every five minutes
mon..wed mon,tue,wed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday 30, 40 and 50 minutes after ev-
*:30/10 *:30/10 ery full hour
mon..fri – Every working day every 15 minutes between 8 AM and 6 PM
8..17,22:0/15 and between 10 PM and 11 PM
fri 12..13:5/20 fri 12,13:5/20 Friday at 12:05, 12:25, 12:45, 13:05, 13:25 and 13:45
12,14,16,18,20,22:5
12/2:5 Every day starting at 12:05 until 22:05, every 2 hours
*:* 0/1:0/1 Every minute (minimum interval)
*-05 – On the 5th day of every Month
Sat *-1..7 – First Saturday each Month at 15:00
15:00
2015-10-21 – 21st October 2015 at 00:00

D.2 Differences to systemd

Not all features of systemd calendar events are implemented:

• no Unix timestamps (e.g. @12345): instead use date and time to specify a specific point in
time
• no timezone: all schedules use the set timezone on the server
• no sub-second resolution
• no reverse day syntax (e.g. 2020-03~01)
• no repetition of ranges (e.g. 1..10/2)

D.3 Notes on scheduling

In Proxmox Backup scheduling for most tasks is done in the proxmox-backup-proxy. This daemon
checks all job schedules if they are due every minute. This means that even if calendar events can
contain seconds, it will only be checked once a minute.
Also, all schedules will be checked against the timezone set in the Proxmox Backup server.

96 Appendix D. Calendar Events

 APPENDIX

GLOSSARY

Virtual machine A virtual machine is a program that can execute an entire operating system in-
side an emulated hardware environment.
Container A container is an isolated user space. Programs run directly on the host’s kernel, but
with limited access to the host resources.
Datastore A place to store backups. A directory which contains the backup data. The current
implementation is file-system based.
Rust Rust is a new, fast and memory-efficient system programming language. It has no runtime
or garbage collector. Rust’s rich type system and ownership model guarantee memory-safety
and thread-safety. I can eliminate many classes of bugs at compile-time.
Sphinx Is a tool that makes it easy to create intelligent and beautiful documentation. It was orig-
inally created for the documentation of the Python programming language. It has excellent
facilities for the documentation of software projects in a range of languages.
reStructuredText Is an easy-to-read, what-you-see-is-what-you-get plaintext markup syntax and
parser system.
FUSE Filesystem in Userspace (FUSE) defines an interface which makes it possible to implement a
filesystem in userspace as opposed to implementing it in the kernel. The fuse kernel driver
handles filesystem requests and sends them to a userspace application.
Remote A remote Proxmox Backup Server installation and credentials for a user on it. You can
pull datastores from a remote to a local datastore in order to have redundant backups.

97
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

98 Appendix E. Glossary
 APPENDIX

GNU FREE DOCUMENTATION LICENSE

Version 1.3, 3 November 2008

Copyright (C) 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/>
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but
changing it is not allowed.
0. PREAMBLE
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document
“free” in the sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute
it, with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License
preserves for the author and publisher a way to get credit for their work, while not being considered
responsible for modifications made by others.
This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must them-
selves be free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a
copyleft license designed for free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free soft-
ware needs free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same
freedoms that the software does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used
for any textual work, regardless of subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We
recommend this License principally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference.
1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed
by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice
grants a world-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the condi-
tions stated herein. The “Document”, below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of
the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”. You accept the license if you copy, modify or
distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright law.
A “Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it,
either copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
A “Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals
exclusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document’s
overall subject (or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall
subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not
explain any mathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the
subject or with related matters, or of legal, commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position
regarding them.
The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those
of Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If
a section does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as
Invariant. The Document may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify
any Invariant Sections then there are none.

99
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-
Cover Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover
Text may be at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.
A “Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format
whose specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document
straightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint pro-
grams or (for drawings) some widely available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text
formatters or for automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for input to text formatters.
A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose markup, or absence of markup, has
been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent.
An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that is not
“Transparent” is called “Opaque”.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo
input format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-
conforming simple HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of trans-
parent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that
can be read and edited only by proprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD
and/or processing tools are not generally available, and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript
or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes only.
The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are
needed to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works
in formats which do not have any title page as such, “Title Page” means the text near the most
prominent appearance of the work’s title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
The “publisher” means any person or entity that distributes copies of the Document to the public.
A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely
XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here
XYZ stands for a specific section name mentioned below, such as “Acknowledgements”, “Dedica-
tions”, “Endorsements”, or “History”.) To “Preserve the Title” of such a section when you modify the
Document means that it remains a section “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License
applies to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in
this License, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty
Disclaimers may have is void and has no effect on the meaning of this License.
2. VERBATIM COPYING
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommer-
cially, provided that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License
applies to the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions what-
soever to those of this License. You may not use technical measures to obstruct or control the
reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may accept com-
pensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies you must also
follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display
copies.
3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Doc-
ument, numbering more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you
must enclose the copies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover
Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly
and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must present the full title
with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add other material on the covers
in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve the title of the
Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.

100 Appendix F. GNU Free Documenta on License

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones
listed (as many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must
either include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or
with each Opaque copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using pub-
lic has access to download using public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy
of the Document, free of added material. If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably
prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensure that this Trans-
parent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least one year after the last
time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that edition to
the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redis-
tributing any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version
of the Document.
4. MODIFICATIONS
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections
2 and 3 above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with
the Modified Version filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification
of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things
in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document,
and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History
section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original
publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship
of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors
of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you
from this requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright
notices.
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permis-
sion to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the
Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts
given in the Document’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least
the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page.
If there is no section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year,
authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing
the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent
copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous
versions it was based on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a
network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself,
or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the sec-
tion, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor ac-
knowledgements and/or dedications given therein.

101
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles.
Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Mod-
ified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any
Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary
Sections and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate
some or all of these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections
in the Modified Version’s license notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of
your Modified Version by various parties–for example, statements of peer review or that the text
has been approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words
as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage
of Front-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made
by) any one entity. If the Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously
added by you or by arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not
add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicit permission from the previous publisher
that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their
names for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the
terms defined in section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combi-
nation all of the Invariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all
as Invariant Sections of your combined work in its license notice, and that you preserve all their
Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant
Sections may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same
name but different contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of
it, in parentheses, the name of the original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a
unique number. Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in
the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original doc-
uments, forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowl-
edgements”, and any sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “En-
dorsements”.
6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this
License, and replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single
copy that is included in the collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim
copying of each of the documents in all other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this
License, provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this
License in all other respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents
or works, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the

102 Appendix F. GNU Free Documenta on License

 Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

copyright resulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s
users beyond what the individual works permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate,
this License does not apply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselves derivative
works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the
Document is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed
on covers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers
if the Document is in electronic form. Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket
the whole aggregate.
8. TRANSLATION
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Docu-
ment under the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special
permission from their copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant
Sections in addition to the original versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a trans-
lation of this License, and all the license notices in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers,
provided that you also include the original English version of this License and the original versions
of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the translation and the origi-
nal version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the re-
quirement (section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.
9. TERMINATION
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided
under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and
will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright
holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally ter-
minates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation
by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copy-
right holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have
received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure
the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.
Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have
received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not
permanently reinstated, receipt of a copy of some or all of the same material does not give you
any rights to use it.
10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation
License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but
may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies
that a particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the
option of following the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version
that has been published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does
not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published (not as
a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document specifies that a proxy can decide which
future versions of this License can be used, that proxy’s public statement of acceptance of a version
permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.
11. RELICENSING
“Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any World Wide Web server that
publishes copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those

103
Proxmox Backup Documenta on, Release 1.0.1-1

works. A public wiki that anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A “Massive Multiau-
thor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) contained in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus
published on the MMC site.
“CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative
Commons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Fran-
cisco, California, as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organi-
zation.
“Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another
Document.
An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first
published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated
in whole or in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus
incorporated prior to November 1, 2008.
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the
same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.

104 Appendix F. GNU Free Documenta on License

 INDEX

C
Container, 97

D
Datastore, 97

F
FUSE, 97

R
Remote, 97
reStructuredText, 97
Rust, 97

S
Sphinx, 97

V
Virtual machine, 97

105