pbs-plus

README

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) Plus

A Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) "overlay" proxy server designed to add advanced backup features, positioning PBS as a robust alternative to Veeam.

[!WARNING]
This repo is currently in heavy development. Expect major changes on every release until the first stable release, 1.0.0. Do not expect it to work perfectly (or at all) in your specific setup as I have yet to build any tests for this project yet. However, feel free to post issues if you think it will be helpful for the development of this project.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Contributing
• License

Introduction

PBS Plus is a project focused on extending Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) with advanced features to create a more competitive backup solution, aiming to make PBS a viable alternative to Veeam. Among these enhancements is remote file-level backup, integrated directly within the PBS Web UI, allowing for streamlined configuration and management of backups of bare-metal workstations without requiring external cron jobs or additional scripts.

Planned Features/Roadmap

• Execute remote backups directly from Proxmox Backup Server Web UI
• File backup from bare-metal workstations with agent
• File restore to bare-metal workstations with agent
• File-level exclusions for backups with agent
• Windows agent support for workstations
• Linux agent support for workstations
• Containerized agent support for Docker/Kubernetes
• Mac agent support for workstations
• MySQL database backup/restore support
• PostgreSQL database backup/restore support
• Active Directory/LDAP backup/restore support

Installation

To install PBS Plus:

PBS Plus

• Install the .deb package in the release and install it in your Proxmox Backup Server machine.
• This will "mount" a new self-signed certificate (and custom JS files) on top of the current one. It gets "unmounted" whenever pbs-plus service is stopped.
• When upgrading your proxmox-backup-server, don't forget to stop the pbs-plus service first before doing so.
• You should see a modified Web UI on https://<pbs>:8007 if installation was successful.

Windows Agent

• In the Agent Bootstrap menu under Disk Backup, click on an existing valid token or generate a new one.
• Click on Deploy With Token while the valid token is selected. That should give you a Powershell command. Executing that command in an elevated Powershell should install the agent properly.
• If you're not seeing the Deploy With Token button, try doing hard refresh (shift + refresh button on Chromium-based browsers) as it's probably using a cached version of the page.
• As soon as the script finishes, you should be able to see the client as "Reachable" in the Targets tab. If so, then you should be good to go.

Usage

PBS Plus currently consists of two main components: the server and the agent. The server should be installed on the PBS machine, while agents are installed on client workstations.

Server

• The server hosts an API server for its services on port 8008 to enable enhanced functionality.
• All new features, including remote file-level backups, can be managed through the "Disk Backup" page.

Agent

• Currently, only Windows agents are supported.
• The agent registers with the server on initialization, exchanging public keys for communication.
• The agent acts as a service, using a custom RPC (aRPC/Agent RPC) using smux with mTLS to communicate with the server. For backups, the server communicates with the agent over aRPC to deploy a FUSE-based filesystem, mounts the volume to PBS, and runs proxmox-backup-client on the server side to perform the actual backup.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please fork the repository and create a pull request with your changes. Ensure code style consistency and include tests for any new features or bug fixes.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more details.