Proxmox is an open source operating system that allows us to virtualize other operating systems. If we install Proxmox on a server, we can manage all the virtual machines of Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and any operating system that we want. Now Proxmox has launched the Proxmox Backup Server operating system, an all-in-one solution specifically geared towards professional and highly advanced backups where information integrity is paramount. Do you want to know all the details about Proxmox Backup Server ?
Main features
Proxmox Backup Server will allow us to make backup copies and restoration of virtual machines, containers, and even physical hosts. Backup systems allow incremental backups, deduplication to save a lot of space in the different backup copies, it also supports compression to save disk space, and even supports encryption so that all information is stored safely and that nobody can read the information without the decryption key.
Easy to use graphical user interface
In order to increase productivity, the Proxmox backup server is very easy to use, with a very complete web-based user interface, reducing work hours because it is really intuitive. Via the web, we can carry out any type of configuration, such as creating and managing backup stores, browsing and restoring copies, and even configuring everything at the network level, viewing usage statistics, etc.
Some of the key features of Proxmox Backup Server 1.0 are that it is based on the Debian Buster 10.6 operating system, uses a Linux kernel version 5.4. The most important thing about this backup server is the ZFS 0.8.4 file system that it incorporates, in this article we have already talked many times about the ZFS file system, one of the most advanced and that is specifically oriented to protect integrity of the information.
Encryption, compression and deduplication of backups
All backups are encrypted from the client to the server, when we are transferring all the data from the client to the server, the encryption used is based on TLS, but the information is already encrypted before leaving the client. Proxmox Backup Server is capable of encrypting information with AES-256-GCM on the client side for the best possible performance. We must bear in mind that AES-256-GCM is authenticated encryption (AEAD), it is also very important to indicate that a master key (RSA-based public / private key pair) is used to store an encrypted version of the AES encryption key. Along with each backup, to be recovered later, this is ideal in case the original key is lost. This master key can be kept in another place that is “safe” to avoid any type of disaster in the system, and to be able to recover the information correctly.
Along with encryption, we also have data integrity. Thanks to the use of the SHA2-256 hashing algorithm, the server itself will verify the integrity and consistency of all data, we must bear in mind that ZFS has this type of checksum to verify the integrity of all data. Thanks to this check, it will be able to detect if a bit of the backup has been changed, in this way, we will not only be storing the information safely (with encryption), but we will also make sure that it is written correctly on disk.
Thanks to the ZSTD compression, we will be able to compress many GB of data per second, this encryption algorithm is characterized by having a very good compression ratio and being really fast. In this way, we can compress the backup copies before storing them on disk, ideal to save space. Deduplication is a very important aspect when we are making backups, thanks to this function, we will save a large amount of space in the storage, and also at the network level if we have to transfer the data. Along with compression, we will save a lot of disk space so that backups are much more efficient.
Other features
Other characteristics of this operating system is that it will allow us to recover the backup copies in a granular way, we can recover only what we want and not everything. It also supports remote synchronization to have redundancy in backups, in this way, if we have two Proxmox Backup Servers, we can “synchronize” them so that they have exactly the same information.
Finally, we have the ability to configure email notifications, view advanced records of all the actions performed, and we can even create several users with different permissions to perform different actions.
Proxmox Backup Server Download
We can download this new all-in-one operating system for backup copies directly from the official website , we can download the ISO image to install it on a server or computer, with the aim of making it the center of all backups. We recommend you access the official website of the Proxmox Backup Server where you will have a video where they will show you the main configuration options.