How To Install Proxmox Backup Server Step by Step?

132

Proxmox Backup Server is a powerful backup and recovery solution for virtual machines, physical hosts and containers. It is an enterprise backup solution designed to be easy to use and integrate with the Proxmox Virtual Environment platform. In this post, we’ll cover how to install Proxmox Backup Server, and discuss the features and benefits it offers.

What is Proxmox Backup Server?

The Proxmox Backup Server is an enterprise-grade backup solution for backing up VMs, containers, and physical hosts. It includes sought-after features like incremental backups, deduplication, Zstandard compression, and encryption.

Of course, the solution seamlessly integrates with Proxmox VE, making it a great choice to back up your Proxmox VE servers, even between sites. It helps to align data protection strategies with the 3-2-1 backup best practice methodology.

GNU AGPL License

Proxmox Backup Server is released under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), a free and open-source license that ensures the software remains freely available to the community.

Proxmox Backup Server Nodes

Proxmox Backup Server nodes can be virtual machines or physical hosts configured to back up and restore data. You can manage multiple nodes from a single management interface, making monitoring and controlling your backup infrastructure easy and possible from a single-pane-of-glass.

Virtual Machines, Physical Hosts, and Containers

Proxmox Backup Server supports virtual machines, physical hosts, and containers, making it a versatile solution that can be used to back up and restore various systems. The backup solution can back up and restore data from containers and physical hosts, which makes it an ideal solution for businesses of all sizes running their workloads on Proxmox or other QEMU solutions.

Note. Check our article about Proxmox alternatives for virtualization.

Incremental and Deduplicated Backups

Proxmox Backup Server supports incremental and deduplicated backups, which can help save time and storage space. Incremental backups only back up data changes since the last backup, while deduplicated backups remove duplicate data to save storage space.

Backup Snapshots

Proxmox Backup Server can take backup snapshots of your virtual machines and physical hosts, which can be used to restore your systems to a previous state if necessary. This feature can be handy in a system failure or data loss. Also, in the case of ransomware, you may need to roll back to a previous state before the attack.

Integrated Web Interface

Proxmox Backup Server includes an intuitive web interface that makes managing your backup infrastructure, monitoring backups and recovery processes, and ensuring data integrity super easy. The web interface is user-friendly and provides easy access to all of the features and functionality of the backup solution.

Prune Job System

The prune job system automatically removes old backup data that is no longer needed, which helps save storage space and keep your backup infrastructure running smoothly. The system can be configured to remove backups based on a single schedule, which makes it easy to manage and control your backup infrastructure.

Backup Monitoring features

Backup Server ensures data integrity using authenticated encryption, which protects your data from unauthorized access and tampering. The backup solution also provides CPU load averages, IOWait percentages, and storage space information, which can help you monitor and manage your backup infrastructure.

Updates and upgrades via apt repository

Proxmox Backup Server supports a local apt-mirror, which can help ensure that you have access to the latest software updates and security patches. Updates are important to security and can help keep your backup infrastructure running smoothly and securely.

Recovery Processes

The recovery processes of Proxmox Backup Server are simple and easy to use. You can restore your data from a full backup or incremental backup. The restore processes can also be initiated remotely, which makes it easy to manage your backup infrastructure from anywhere.

Proxmox VE Integration

Proxmox Backup Server integrates seamlessly with the Proxmox Virtual Environment platform, providing a comprehensive backup solution designed to work with the platform’s virtual machines and containers.

The backup solution is a stable default for the Proxmox server solutions and is fully trusted by the Proxmox community. First, you add your Proxmox Backup Server storage in your Datacenter of your Proxmox VE environment. Once completed, you select the Proxmox Backup Server as your backup target for your virtual machine, containers, and physical hosts.

Strong Encryption and Access Control

Proxmox Backup Server provides encryption and access control, allowing admins to protect data from unauthorized access and tampering. In addition, you can manage access to the backup infrastructure using the management interface, which makes it easy to control who has access to your backup data.

Includes Two-factor Authentication

One of the great features of the Proxmox Backup Server solution is the built-in two-factor authentication. Attackers commonly go after backups to eliminate any change businesses have to restore their environment from backups, especially ransomware. Therefore, protecting your backup server with 2FA is a must.

The two-factor authentication in Proxmox Backup Server can be activated from the GUI and uses Time-based One Time Passwords (TOTP). It also provides a single-use recovery code.

Note. Check our article Proxmox Docker container configuration.

Installing Proxmox Backup Server

The Proxmox Backup Server installation is a straightforward process involving downloading the ISO image, creating an installation medium, and following the installer. You can also install Proxmox Backup Server using the command line interface in Debian, although this option is less user-friendly. To do that, you can run the command:

apt-install proxmox-backup

Let’s look at the screenshots from installing Proxmox Backup Sever from ISO:

Accept the EULA.

Select the target disk for the installation.

Set the location and time zone configuration.

Configure the administrator password and email address.

Configure the management network configuration.

Verify the summary of configuration information and begin the installation.

The Proxmox Backup Server installation begins.

The Proxmox Backup Server will boot into a familiar command line interface, similar to Proxmox VE.

With the Proxmox Backup Server installed, we can now configure the Proxmox Backup Server datastore and add it to Proxmox VE.

Log in and Create a new Proxmox backup server datastore

After logging into the Proxmox Backup Server interface, we are met with the intuitive interface.

Click Datastore > Add Datastore. Here we will name and configure the local storage.

The new storage has been configured and added to the Proxmox Backup Server.

Next, we need to copy the fingerprint of the Proxmox Backup Server. This is used to add the storage on the Proxmox VE host.

On the Proxmox VE server, under Datacenter > Storage > Add, choose the Proxmox Backup Server option.

Enter your Proxmox Backup Server information, including the IP address or host, storage, and paste the fingerprint you copied from the Proxmox Backup Server.

The Proxmox Backup Server storage is successfully added to Proxmox VE.

We can now target the Proxmox Backup Server for backing up containers or virtual machines from Proxmox VE.

Wrapping up

Proxmox Backup Server is an excellent solution for those running Proxmox and other QEMU-based hypervisors, KVM, etc. It has many features in enterprise backup solutions, such as encryption, deduplication, incremental backups, etc. It also spans many technologies, including physical machines, virtual machines, and containers, helping organizations protect their infrastructure regardless of their application’s technology platform.