How to Set Up Proxmox Backup Server

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is the native backup target for Proxmox VE — block-level deduplication, incremental backups, encrypted at rest, and a UI of its own. This guide installs it on a dedicated VM (or bare metal) and wires up nightly backups from one PVE host.

Prerequisites

• A target host with ≥ 4 GiB RAM and a dedicated backup disk (much bigger than your VMs in aggregate — dedup helps, but plan generously).
• The PBS ISO from proxmox.com/en/downloads.
• Network reachability between PVE and PBS.

Step 1: Install PBS

Boot the PBS ISO same as PVE — Debian-based installer with the same flow:

• Disk: ZFS RAID-1 if you have two disks (recommended for the backup repo itself), else ext4
• Country/timezone/admin password
• Hostname/IP

After reboot, reach https://10.0.10.10:8007/ and log in as root@pam.

Step 2: Set the no-subscription repo

ssh root@10.0.10.10

sed -i 's/^deb/# deb/' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pbs-enterprise.list

echo 'deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs bookworm pbs-no-subscription' \
  > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pbs-no-subscription.list

apt update && apt full-upgrade -y

Step 3: Create a datastore

A datastore is where backups live. On the PBS UI:

• Datastore → Add Datastore
• Name: vault01
• Backing path: /mnt/datastore/vault01 (the directory you want to write to)

Or via CLI:

proxmox-backup-manager datastore create vault01 /mnt/datastore/vault01
proxmox-backup-manager datastore list

For ZFS-backed datastores, create the dataset first:

zfs create -o compression=lz4 -o atime=off tank/backups
proxmox-backup-manager datastore create vault01 /tank/backups

Step 4: Create a backup user + API token

Doing backups as root@pam is a smell. Make a service user:

PBS UI → Configuration → Access Control → User Management:

• Add user pve-backup@pbs, password
• Permissions → Add → Path /datastore/vault01, Role DatastoreBackup

Then an API token for that user:

• Token Management → Add → User pve-backup@pbs, Name pve01
• Copy the secret that appears once (you cannot read it again)

Step 5: Add PBS as storage on the PVE side

On the PVE host:

proxmox-backup-client benchmark --repository pve-backup@pbs!pve01:secret-here@10.0.10.10:vault01

Use the UI for the persistent config — Datacenter → Storage → Add → Proxmox Backup Server:

• ID: pbs01
• Server: 10.0.10.10
• User: pve-backup@pbs
• Token name: pve01
• Secret: (paste)
• Fingerprint: get it from PBS UI → Certificates → expand → SHA-256 fingerprint
• Datastore: vault01

Test:

pvesm status                # pbs01 should be active
proxmox-backup-client status

Step 6: Schedule the backups

PVE UI → Datacenter → Backup → Add:

• Storage: pbs01
• Schedule: 02:30, Selection mode Include selected VMs
• Compression: zstd
• Mode: snapshot
• Mail to: ops@example.sa
• Retention: 7 daily, 4 weekly, 6 monthly

Or via CLI:

echo "vzdump 101 102 103 --mode snapshot --compress zstd \
       --storage pbs01 --mailto ops@example.sa" > /etc/cron.d/pve-backup

Force a backup right now to confirm it works:

vzdump 101 --storage pbs01 --mode snapshot --compress zstd

Step 7: Test restore — the backup you cannot restore is not a backup

# List backups for VM 101
proxmox-backup-client snapshot list vm/101 \
  --repository pve-backup@pbs!pve01:SECRET@10.0.10.10:vault01

# Restore as a new VM ID
qmrestore /mnt/pve/pbs01/dump/vzdump-qemu-101-2026_05_27-02_30_00.vma.zst 201

If qmrestore succeeds and the restored VM boots, you have a working backup chain.

Verify

proxmox-backup-manager datastore list
proxmox-backup-manager garbage-collection status vault01
pvesm status
journalctl -u vzdump.service --since '1 day ago' | tail -30

Conclusion

PBS gives PVE deduplicated, incremental, encrypted backups in one network hop. The only mandatory ongoing tasks are weekly garbage collection and monthly verify — both schedulable from the PBS UI.

Next steps

• Install PVE first if you skipped ahead — Install Proxmox VE 8.
• Tune storage for production via Configure storage on Proxmox.
• Create the VMs you are protecting with Create your first VM.