Install Proxmox Backup Client on Rocky, Alma, Fedora, Alpine, ARM and other non-Debian Linux

If you’re on Debian or Ubuntu, the official procedure is short and lives in our documentation: see Proxmox Backup Client installation. This guide is for everything else: Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, RHEL, Fedora, Alpine, Arch, openSUSE, ARM hosts (Raspberry Pi and similar), and running the client inside a container.

The good news: the client now ships as a statically linked binary, which makes it usable on almost any Linux distribution without compiling anything yourself.

Why no official package for your distro?

The Proxmox team officially publishes APT repositories for Debian (and Debian derivatives like Ubuntu) only. There is no native RPM, no Alpine APK, no Arch PKG. That doesn’t mean you can’t run the client elsewhere: it just means you need one of the methods below.

Method 1: download the static .deb from the Proxmox mirror and extract the binary (recommended)

Since June 2025, Proxmox ships a proxmox-backup-client-static package. The binary inside has all its dependencies linked statically, so it runs on any glibc x86_64 Linux. Note that proxmox-backup-client-static is not in the standard Debian/Ubuntu repositories: it lives in the pbs-client Proxmox repo at http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs-client/.

The good news is that the .deb is hosted directly on the Proxmox mirror, so you don’t need to add the APT repo or even have apt on your machine. Download the package and extract the binary:

# 1. Download the latest static .deb from the Proxmox mirror.
#    Current version at the time of writing: 3.4.6-1.
wget http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs-client/dists/bookworm/main/binary-amd64/proxmox-backup-client-static_3.4.6-1_amd64.deb

# 2a. With dpkg available (Debian, Ubuntu):
dpkg-deb -x proxmox-backup-client-static_*_amd64.deb extracted/

# 2b. Without dpkg (Rocky, Alma, RHEL, Fedora, Alpine, ...):
ar x proxmox-backup-client-static_*_amd64.deb
mkdir -p extracted && tar -xf data.tar.* -C extracted/

# 3. Install the binary into your PATH.
install -m 0755 extracted/usr/bin/proxmox-backup-client /usr/local/bin/
proxmox-backup-client version

To pick another version, browse the package index at http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs-client/dists/bookworm/main/binary-amd64/Packages (use bullseye or buster for older toolchains).

Some Alpine images don’t ship zstd by default. If tar -xf data.tar.zst fails, install it first: apk add zstd.

Method 2: copy from a Debian host with the Proxmox repo configured (shortcut)

If you already have a Debian or Ubuntu machine with the Proxmox pbs-client repository configured (a Proxmox VE host, a PBS server, or any Debian where you’ve followed our installation procedure to add the repo), you can install the package via APT and copy the binary over:

# On the Debian host with the Proxmox repo configured
apt update
apt install proxmox-backup-client-static

# Copy the binary to the target machine (Rocky, Fedora, etc.)
scp /usr/bin/proxmox-backup-client root@target:/usr/local/bin/

Then on the target machine:

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/proxmox-backup-client
proxmox-backup-client version

Distribution-specific notes

Rocky Linux 9 / AlmaLinux 9 / RHEL 9

Tested and works with the static binary above. No extra dependencies needed.

[root@rocky9 ~]# /usr/local/bin/proxmox-backup-client version
client version: 3.4.1

Fedora 41 and later

Also tested. The static binary runs without extra packages.

[root@fedora41 ~]# /usr/local/bin/proxmox-backup-client version
client version: 3.4.1

Alpine Linux

Alpine uses musl libc, not glibc, so the standard static binary won’t run as-is. You have two options:

• Run the client inside a Debian container on Alpine (see Method 3 below). Simplest.
• Install gcompat (apk add gcompat), the glibc compatibility shim for Alpine. Works for many glibc binaries but isn’t officially supported for the PBS client. Test before relying on it.

Arch Linux and openSUSE

Both ship glibc. The static binary should work out of the box, the same way it does on Rocky/Fedora. There’s also a community AUR package on Arch (proxmox-backup-client) maintained outside the Proxmox team: convenient but unofficial.

ARM hosts (Raspberry Pi, ARM servers)

Important constraint: the Proxmox pbs-client APT repository officially publishes amd64 packages only. The Release file at download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs-client/dists/bookworm/Release declares Architectures: amd64, and the proxmox-backup-client-static binary is x86_64 as well. There is no upstream arm64 build today, on Debian or anywhere else.

This applies whatever your OS: Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit, Ubuntu Server ARM, Debian on ARM, Alpine on ARM. None of them can apt install proxmox-backup-client from the Proxmox repo.

Two realistic options:

• Build from source (Method 4 below): the client is written in Rust and compiles cleanly on ARM. Expect to install a Rust toolchain and a few -dev packages, then 20-30 minutes on first build.
• Run an amd64 Debian container under emulation (Docker Buildx + QEMU, --platform=linux/amd64): works on any ARM host, but expect a significant CPU penalty. Fine for small backups, painful for terabytes.

If you’re on Debian/ARM and you really want APT, watch the Proxmox bug tracker: adding arm64 to the pbs-client repo has been requested but is not yet shipped.

Method 3: run the client in a Debian container

If your distro is Alpine, if you don’t want to install glibc compatibility, or if you simply want to keep your host clean, run the client inside a Debian container. This works on any host with Docker, Podman or LXC installed.

A minimal Dockerfile:

FROM debian:bookworm-slim

RUN apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends ca-certificates wget gnupg \
 && wget -q https://enterprise.proxmox.com/debian/proxmox-release-bookworm.gpg \
        -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxmox-release-bookworm.gpg \
 && echo "deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs-client bookworm main" \
        > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pbs-client.list \
 && apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends proxmox-backup-client \
 && apt-get clean && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

ENTRYPOINT ["proxmox-backup-client"]

Build and use it:

docker build -t pbs-client .

# Run a backup of /data on the host
docker run --rm \
  -v /data:/data:ro \
  pbs-client backup root.pxar:/data \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store

For a system-wide backup, mount the directories you need read-only and run the client as root inside the container. For Podman users, swap docker for podman: the syntax is identical.

Method 4: compile from source

For ARM on non-Debian, or if you want an audited build, the client source is open. Clone the Proxmox Git repository and follow its README:

git clone git://git.proxmox.com/git/proxmox-backup.git
cd proxmox-backup
# Follow the build instructions in README.md (Rust toolchain required)

This path is for advanced users. Expect to install a recent Rust toolchain, several -dev system packages and to spend 20-30 minutes on first build.

Choosing your method

Method	Distros covered	Effort	When to pick
1. Download .deb from Proxmox mirror + extract	Rocky, Alma, RHEL, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE (x86_64 only)	Low	Default for glibc x86_64 distros, no Debian host required
2. Copy from a Debian host with the Proxmox repo configured	Same as above (x86_64 only)	Low	Shortcut when you already manage a PVE/PBS or Debian host
3. Debian container	Anything that runs Docker/Podman/LXC (x86_64 native, ARM via amd64 emulation)	Low	Alpine, isolated host, ARM as a fallback
4. Compile from source	Anything that has a Rust toolchain	High	ARM (any distro), audited builds, custom features

After installation: a quick sanity check

Regardless of the method, validate the install:

proxmox-backup-client version
proxmox-backup-client list \
  --repository user@pbs!token@your-cloud-pbs-instance:store

If list returns your snapshots (or an empty list without error), authentication and network are good.

For the actual backup commands and the systemd timer setup, the procedure is identical to Debian: see the Proxmox Backup Client installation documentation for the full reference.

Using with Cloud-PBS

The same client connects to any Proxmox Backup Server, including Cloud-PBS. Grab the repository URL and the API token from your Cloud-PBS dashboard, then plug them into the --repository flag of any proxmox-backup-client command. No extra configuration required.

Troubleshooting

If something doesn’t work, the most common issues have dedicated walk-throughs:

• Backup owner check failed
• PBS Client error: missing key

If the binary refuses to run on your distro, check that you have glibc (ldd --version). musl-based systems (Alpine, some embedded distros) need Method 2 instead.