Franken or the Super Proxmox

At times, it is necessary to undertake the task at hand, even if it involves unusual or atypical actions. I would like to set up a PVE+PBS machine for some special tests. I did give it a try and surprise, surprise, it did work for some tests.

I don't recommend this for production use. For Home labs — yes.

Installation

Proxmox VE

Install PVE as normal. Set up the node as needed with the networking needed.

This instance has the management interface on a VLAN and a CT running internal tools required. (If you are looking to test web stuff, you can use a virtual machine.).

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
        bridge-ports enp14s0
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0
        bridge-vlan-aware yes
        bridge-vids 2-4092

auto vmbr0v10
iface vmbr0v10 inet static
        address 192.0.2.40/24
        gateway 192.0.2.1
        bridge_ports enp14s0.10
        brirge-stp off
#MGMT interface

Proxmox Backup Server

We need to edit one file and add the Proxmox Backup Server repo.

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib
deb http://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib

# security updates
deb http://security.debian.org bookworm-security main contrib

# Add-on packages
# proxmox ve
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bookworm pve-no-subscription

# proxmox backup server
deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs bookworm pbs-no-subscription

Now you need to update and upgrade

apt update && apt dist-upgrade -y

Now you can install the Proxmox Backup Server

apt install proxmox-backup-server

Now you can log in to them on the same IP number

• PVE on 192.0.2.40:8006 or pve-20.lab.example.com:8006
• PBS on 192.0.2.40:8007 or pve-20.lab.example.com:8007

It's just a different port. The DNS used was pvebs-99.example.com for this node. If you like to have 2 DNS entries (pve-99.example.com and pbs-99.example.com) just use two NIC or two bridges.

I do have a extended period test running in a test cluster.

Add Users and Tokens in PBS-realm

Add some users and tokens in the Proxmox Backup authentication server.
You have to be logged in to the PBS at <PVE IP or a dedicated IP>:8007.
This is a link to Proxmox Documentation: how to manage users.

• Add a root user if you need
• And other users you might need, e.g. operators, managers ...
• Add an api-user with permissions for / as PVEAuditor
• Add a token with permissions for / as PVEAuditor
• Add a Linux VLAN, e.g. VLAN40 and 10.10.10.40/24, on a fast raw device. Now you have one IP for PVE and one IP for PBS and on separate VLAN.

Let's Encrypt

The pbs-example.com needs its own certificate. Open pbs-1.example.com and setup ACME accounts and order the certificate, staging first, then production.

For Production

See my blogs Proxmox Backup Server and Proxmox Backup Strategy

Final thoughts

After more than a year of testing, I find this a very stable use case and will use it in my home lab as a standard setting. I do run a 3-2-1 setup so all the stuff is updated somewhere and then PBS synchronize the whole set. The performance of PBS is impressive, very little resources needed to run it, and the deduplication saves disk space.

Estimated Full Never – Deduplication Factor 68.96

Using Prune, Garbage Collection, Sync Jobs and Verify Jobs keep the data in order.

I allocated too many disks to the PBS in the making of the nodes, but disk is cheap.

What runs on the PVE/PBS nodes

On nodes that are primarily Proxmox backup servers I run landing pages, stats and logs and my Homepage. Basically, stuff that is more of a static nature and/or things that should be always on.

What do I not run on a PVE/PBS would be database servers or heavy use homepages or desktops (I don't run desktops on Proxmox, they run on KVM/QEMU or VirtualBox on my main rig).