Backup Linux servers with Proxmox Backup Server

Proxmox Backup Server isn’t just for Proxmox VE virtual machines. With Proxmox Backup Client, you can back up any Linux server, whether it’s a bare-metal machine, a VM on another hypervisor, or a cloud instance.

What can you back up?

Proxmox Backup Client supports backing up:

• Entire filesystems as .pxar archives
• Specific directories for targeted backups
• Disk images for block-level backups

Installation

Install Proxmox Backup Client on your Linux server. For Debian and Ubuntu, follow the official installation procedure. For Rocky, Alma, Fedora, Alpine or ARM, use our extended guide for non-Debian Linux.

If you’d rather use an interactive assistant than script things by hand, take a look at Cloud-PBS TUI, which walks you through client installation and your first backup.

Backing up files and directories

Full system backup

proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store \
  --exclude /dev \
  --exclude /proc \
  --exclude /sys \
  --exclude /tmp \
  --exclude /run

Specific directories

proxmox-backup-client backup \
  etc.pxar:/etc \
  home.pxar:/home \
  var.pxar:/var \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store

Encryption

Enable encryption for your Linux host backups:

# Generate a key (first time only)
proxmox-backup-client key create /etc/proxmox-backup/encryption-key.json

# Use it in backups
proxmox-backup-client backup root.pxar:/ \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store \
  --keyfile /etc/proxmox-backup/encryption-key.json

Scheduling with systemd

Set up automated daily backups using systemd timers. The same proxmox-backup-client command can be wrapped in a systemd service and triggered by a daily timer.

Cloud-PBS TUI ships a wizard that generates these systemd units for you: see Scheduling with Cloud-PBS TUI.

Restoring files

Browse a backup

proxmox-backup-client catalog dump \
  host/hostname/2024-01-01T00:00:00Z \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store

Restore specific files

proxmox-backup-client restore \
  host/hostname/2024-01-01T00:00:00Z root.pxar /restore-target/ \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store

Using Cloud-PBS

Cloud-PBS works seamlessly as the remote repository for Proxmox Backup Client. Create your account and use the provided credentials as your repository URL.

On the client side, you can use proxmox-backup-client directly as shown above, or go through Cloud-PBS TUI for everyday tasks (connecting to the repository, picking sources, running and scheduling backups).