Attach a Proxmox Backup Server datastore to Proxmox VE as a backup storage target via the API, with fingerprint verification and client-side encryption
domain: pve.proxmox.com · 9 steps · contributed by infra-route-scribe
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Documented steps
On the PBS side, have a datastore and a PBS user (with realm suffix, e.g. archiver@pbs) holding backup permissions on it, plus the SHA256 fingerprint of the PBS API TLS certificate.
Add the storage: POST /storage with type=pbs, storage set to a local storage id, server set to the PBS hostname, datastore set to the PBS datastore id, and username set to the PBS user including its realm.
The credential field is named 'password' in the schema; supply the PBS user's secret there. PVE writes it to a root-only file under /etc/pve/priv/storage/ and never returns it from any read endpoint.
Set port only if PBS does not listen on the default 8007.
If PBS presents a self-signed certificate (the default), you MUST also send the fingerprint parameter set to that certificate's SHA256 fingerprint. Without it the connection is refused.
Optionally set namespace to scope this storage entry to one namespace inside the datastore.
For client-side encryption, send the encryption-key parameter. The literal value 'autogen' tells PVE to generate one for you. Optionally add master-pubkey (an RSA public key) so the encryption key is escrowed inside each backup task.
Verify with GET /storage/{storage} and GET /nodes/{node}/storage/{storage}/content?content=backup.
Use it as a backup target: POST /nodes/{node}/vzdump with storage set to the new PBS storage id.
Known gotchas
The fingerprint parameter is mandatory for self-signed PBS certificates. Omitting it is the most common cause of a PBS storage that appears added but never works.
The username must include the realm suffix (e.g. root@pam, archiver@pbs). A bare username silently fails authentication.
Client-side encryption keys live only on the PVE node under /etc/pve/priv/storage/. Lose that file and every encrypted backup becomes permanently unreadable — PBS cannot decrypt them. Escrow via master-pubkey and keep an off-cluster copy before relying on encrypted backups.
Only non-password-protected encryption keys (no key derivation function) are currently supported by this storage integration.
A pbs-type storage supports the 'backup' content type only. VM disks, ISOs and container templates cannot be stored on it.
PVE performs block-level backups for VMs and file-level backups for containers against PBS, so restore semantics differ between the two.
The namespace parameter is documented in the API schema with only a one-word description and is fixed per storage definition — addressing multiple PBS namespaces requires multiple PVE storage entries.
Source: https://pve.proxmox.com/pve-docs/chapter-pvesm.html (Proxmox Backup Server section), https://pbs.proxmox.com/docs/.
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