Step-by-Step Guide: Installing and Configuring Proxmox Backup Server for Secure VM Backups

Installing Proxmox Backup Server

Let's move on to installation. As with Proxmox VE, this is a fairly straightforward process.

• Once started on our media, the Proxmox welcome menu should appear. Select Install Proxmox Backup Server (Graphical):

• Read the EULA if you have the time and accept by clicking on I agree:

• Select the target hard disk and click on Next:

• Enter country and select time zone and keyboard layout:

• Set a strong password for the root user and enter an e-mail address:

• Select the physical network card and IP configuration you wish to give to the management interface:

• Check the information displayed and click on Install to start Proxmox VE installation. Once installation is complete, the system automatically reboots:

• Once restarted, Proxmox Backup Server will prompt you to connect to the web interface on the address you defined earlier and on port 8007:

Connecting to the Web interface

• Open a web browser and access the Proxmox administration interface using the address you specified above:

Add No-Subscription repository

If, like me, you don't have a subscription, you may want to disable enterprise repositories (which needs valid licensing) and enable no-subscription repositories.

Note: For companies, it's recommended to have a valid subscription.

• Go to Administration. In the Repositories menu, click on the enterprise repository line and click to the Disable button:

• Click the Add button:

• Select No-Subscription and click Add:

• Go to the Shell menu and run an upgrade:

root@host:~# apt update && apt full-upgrade

• Then create a /backup folder in which the backups will be placed:

root@host:~# mkdir /backup

Add backup user

For security reasons, we don't want to use the root user to make backups, so we'll create a user with restrictive rights dedicated to this task.

• Go to Access Control menu and click on Add:

• Enter a username, set a complex password and click on Add:

Add Datastore

Now we need to declare a datastore in order to indicate to Proxmox Backup Server where to put the data.

• Click on Add Datastore:

• Give the datastore a name and specify the path, here /datastore/backup for our /backup folder previously created:

• Select the newly added datastore. In the Permissions tab, click Add > User Permission:

• Select newly created backup@pbs as user. For role, select DatastorePowerUser for minimum rights:

• Finally, go to the newly declared datastore and click on Show Connection Information:

• It will print all the information we will need to add the datastore to our Proxmox VE:

Add PBS

We are now going to declare our Proxmox Backup Server datastore to our Proxmox VE.

• Connect to your Proxmox VE web interface and go to Storage. From there click on Add > Proxmox Backup Server:

• Set the following information based on the data retrieved earlier:
  • Name: Define a name of your choice.
  • Server: IP or name of the PBS server. Note that you can specify the TCP port.
  • Username and Password: Enter the ids of the backup user previously set.
  • Datastore: The name of our PBS datastore.
  • Fingerprint: Copy and paste the Fingerprint of the PBS server.

• Optionally (but recommended) you can set Encryption in order to protect your backup. Select Auto-generate and click on Add:

• Follow recommendations by saving the key:

• You should now be able to back up any virtual machine to your Proxmox Backup Server:

Schedule Backup

Now it's time to configure our backup in order to automatically save our virtual machines.

• Navigate to Datacenter > Backup and click on Add:

• Create a Backup Job with the following parameters:
  • Storage: the Proxmox Backup Server previously set.
  • Schedule: Here for example, every day at 2:00 AM.
  • Selection mode: VMs that are selected.