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Version: DPX 4.16

🆕 Proxmox Backup

Proxmox VE backup protects the QEMU virtual machines running on a Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) cluster. Protection is agentless: no software is installed inside the guests. DPX reads virtual machine data through the Proxmox API and the Proxmox DPX Plugin on the Proxmox host, and writes it to a vStor backup destination.

Backups are incremental-forever. The first time a virtual machine is protected, DPX performs a base backup that copies all of its allocated data. Subsequent runs are automatically incremental and transfer only the blocks that changed since the previous run. The choice is made per disk, so a single virtual machine can have some disks backed up as a base and others incrementally in the same run. DPX falls back to a base backup for a disk when there is no valid previous backup to build on – for example on the first run, after the previous recovery point has expired, or if the change tracking on the host is no longer consistent.

Restriction.

Incremental backups rely on change tracking that Proxmox VE maintains for each disk. Because of a Proxmox VE limitation, this tracking is removed for RAW and VMDK disks whenever the virtual machine is powered off or restarted; the next backup of such a disk is then a full base backup. QCOW2 disks keep their change tracking across a restart and continue to be backed up incrementally.

DPX keeps a separate vStor volume for each protected virtual machine. Each successful run seals a vStor snapshot of that volume, and the snapshot becomes a recovery point you can restore from. Recovery points are kept for the job's retention period (90 days by default). A single Proxmox VE backup job can protect virtual machines from more than one Proxmox cluster; each virtual machine is backed up to its own volume regardless of the cluster it belongs to.

Note.

When a job protects several virtual machines and some of them fail while others succeed, the job finishes with a partial success status. The virtual machines that completed still produce valid recovery points; only the ones that failed need to be addressed and run again.

Restrictions.
  • Proxmox VE backup and restore are only supported in the web interface.
  • Only QEMU virtual machines are protected. LXC containers are not supported.
  • Virtual machine disks in the RAW, VMDK, and QCOW2 formats are supported.
  • vStor is the only supported backup storage for this job type.

Prerequisites​

Before creating a Proxmox VE backup job, ensure the following conditions are met:

  • A Proxmox VE node is added to the Enterprise, with the Proxmox DPX Plugin installed on the host. See Adding a Proxmox VE Node.
  • A vStor server is available as the backup destination, with a pool to hold the backups. DPX creates a volume and its NFS share for each protected virtual machine automatically.
See also.

For detailed information on compatible versions of your application and operating systems, see DPX 4.16 Compatibility Matrix.