WZ-IT provides PBS setup and operations, including the agreed backup and verification concept. Arrange a meeting.
This guide covers installation planning through the first checked backup. It includes the commands for datastore, access, connection to Proxmox VE and maintenance tasks. As of October 2026, based on the PBS 4.2 documentation.
Contents
- Requirements and deployment model
- Install PBS
- Configure datastore and access
- Connect Proxmox VE
- Operations and acceptance
- Sources
Requirements and deployment model
The installation documentation recommends four or more CPU cores, 4 GiB RAM plus at least 1 GiB per TiB of storage and at least 32 GiB OS storage. Plan backup capacity and reserves separately; fast local storage is preferred.
| Model | Clarify before deciding |
|---|---|
| Separate physical server | Backup access when the PVE host fails |
| PBS as a VM on Proxmox | Startup and datastore access without the failed production host |
| PBS in LXC | Additional kernel, permission and mount dependencies; do not infer equivalent support status from this guide |
| PBS directly on PVE | Not recommended by the vendor; shared failure domain |
VM and LXC are architectural considerations here. The default procedure uses the vendor ISO installer. A separate system and an offsite copy address different failure scenarios.
Install PBS
- Obtain the ISO from the Proxmox download page and compare its published checksum.
- Identify the target device unambiguously. The installer overwrites the selected drives; back up existing data independently beforehand.
- Boot the ISO and configure target drives, time zone, administrator access, hostname, IP, gateway and DNS.
- After reboot, open
https://PBS-HOST:8007and check certificate identity. - Configure repositories according to the subscription and install updates after reviewing release notes. The vendor recommends the enterprise repository for production.
The port is TCP 8007, not 8006 (PBS services). Limit firewall access to required PVE nodes and administration networks.
Configure datastore and access
Under Datastore > Add Datastore, choose a name and the intended storage path. For local datastores PBS documents ext4, XFS and ZFS and specific filesystem requirements. NFS is not a separate PBS datastore type. For an NFS mount, check startup ordering, mount failures, permissions and filesystem behaviour beforehand; a reachable path does not establish suitability.
Create the datastore on the command line, either on a new disk or on an existing path:
proxmox-backup-manager disk list
proxmox-backup-manager disk fs create store1 --disk sdb --filesystem ext4 --add-datastore true
# or on an existing path:
proxmox-backup-manager datastore create store1 /backup/disk1/store1
proxmox-backup-manager datastore show store1
The file system must support at least 65,538 subdirectories per directory; ext3 and ext4 without the dir_nlink feature are not supported. The datastore creates a .chunks directory holding the data blocks.
User, permission and token for Proxmox VE:
proxmox-backup-manager user create backup@pbs --password '<password>'
proxmox-backup-manager acl update /datastore/store1 DatastoreBackup --auth-id backup@pbs
proxmox-backup-manager user generate-token backup@pbs pve
proxmox-backup-manager acl update /datastore/store1 DatastoreBackup --auth-id 'backup@pbs!pve'
The DatastoreBackup role allows backing up and restoring one's own backups. The token gets its own ACLs; its secret is shown only once.
S3 requires a separate procedure with a local cache: PBS with Hetzner Object Storage.
Create a dedicated backup user and, where needed, an API token. Limit datastore scope with ACLs; the user and a token with separate privileges both need effective permissions. User management explains roles and permission intersections. Do not distribute administrator credentials as general backup credentials.
Connect Proxmox VE
In PVE, open Datacenter > Storage > Add > Proxmox Backup Server and enter server, datastore and credentials. For a self-signed certificate, provide the fingerprint independently checked on PBS. Then check connectivity and datastore access (PVE integration).
On the command line this corresponds to the following commands. You determine the fingerprint on the PBS server:
# on the PBS server
proxmox-backup-manager cert info | grep Fingerprint
# on the Proxmox VE node
pvesm add pbs pbs-store1 --server pbs.example.com --datastore store1
pvesm set pbs-store1 --username backup@pbs --password '<password>'
pvesm set pbs-store1 --fingerprint '<fingerprint from PBS>'
pvesm status --storage pbs-store1
The first backup run for a single guest:
vzdump 100 --storage pbs-store1 --mode snapshot
Configure and start a limited first backup job; inspect its task log and visible snapshot. Document guest scope and exclusions. If using backup encryption, secure the key independently. The PBS FAQ states encryption is not enabled automatically.
Operations and acceptance
Explicitly configure retention, prune, garbage collection, verify and notifications. Prune removes snapshot metadata; GC removes unused chunks after the applicable grace periods (maintenance tasks).
The tasks can also be set up on the command line (adjust names and schedules):
# garbage collection weekly
proxmox-backup-manager datastore update store1 --gc-schedule 'sat 03:00'
# prune job: keep 7 daily, 4 weekly and 6 monthly snapshots
proxmox-backup-manager prune-job create daily-prune --store store1 --schedule daily \
--keep-daily 7 --keep-weekly 4 --keep-monthly 6
# verify job weekly
proxmox-backup-manager verify-job create weekly-verify --store store1 --schedule weekly
Garbage collection works in two phases: it marks used chunks and then removes chunks older than a grace period of 24 hours and 5 minutes or the oldest active backup session. The documentation recommends regular re-verification, roughly monthly, to detect bit rot. Prune without garbage collection frees no space.
For acceptance, perform an isolated VM or container restore with an unused ID, checked mounts and application validation. Do not record job success alone as proof of recovery. Document responsibilities and subsequent checks.
PBS setup and operations cover deployment, backup management and explicitly agreed checks; as a hosted target there is PBS operations at a second site.
Before selecting a product, review the Proxmox backup software overview.
