Re: [PVE-User] Proxmox Backup Server (beta)

[Wolfgang Bumiller <w.bumiller@proxmox.com>]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 05:36:56PM -0400, Daniel Bayerdorffer via pve-user wrote:
> Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2020 17:36:56 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Daniel Bayerdorffer <danielb@numberall.com>
> To: Proxmox VE user list <pve-user@lists.proxmox.com>
> Subject: Re: [PVE-User] Proxmox Backup Server (beta)
> X-Mailer: Zimbra 8.8.15_GA_3955 (ZimbraWebClient - FF78
>  (Win)/8.8.15_GA_3953)
> 
> >> 
> >> Is it possible to read files inside a vm backup, without restoring it first ?
> >> (Don't have check vma format recently, but I think it was not possible because of out of orders blocks)
> >
> >There's support for block and file level backup, CTs are using a file level
> >backup, you can then even browse the backup on the server (if it's not encrypted)
> >
> >As said, there's a block backend driver for it in QEMU, Stefan made it with
> >Dietmar's libproxmox-backup-qemu0 library. So you should be able to get a backup
> >as block device over NBD and mount it, I guess. (did not tried that yet fully
> >myself).
> 
> 
> I'm still wrapping my head around some of the concepts here. So sorry for the simple questions.
> 
> The above is not quite clear. Can we do file by file restore from the backups and/or archives?
> If so, will that work on a Windows VM backup? I.E. Can I restore a file in a Windows VM?

You have

a) file-based backups
  - containers on PVE
  - 'host'-type backups (which are really just "arbitrary file backups")
      (by running
        $ proxmox-backup-client backup content.pxar:/directory/to/backup \
             --backup-type host \
             --backup-id my-important-data \
             --repository user@pbs@host:datastore
      )
  - 'host' backups made manually from *within* a running VM (contrary to
    popular belief, guest machines can make their own backups, too :-P)

  This stores a file archive on the server which can be extracted
  directly, mounted via fuse, or, on the GUI you can open the file
  browser in your web browser and download individual files.

b) block-based backups
  - VMs on PVE

  This stores whole disks, and we include a way to "attach" a disk from
  a backup to a VM (may even be hotplugged). Just imagine this like
  using a .raw disk image from any other remote storage such as NFS. If
  your guest operating system can read it, you can do whatever from
  inside the guest.

  There's no *direct* support for extracting files from a block device.
  There *may* at some point be some way to do this, but we cannot make
  any promises there, and it may well just be some predefined VM template
  auto-logging into an xfce or gnome session with a file browser open
  ready to mount any attached disk ;-)