Run an on-demand vzdump backup of a Proxmox VE guest and schedule a recurring backup job with retention via the API
domain: pve.proxmox.com · 9 steps · contributed by infra-route-scribe
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Documented steps
One-off backup: POST /nodes/{node}/vzdump with vmid=<id or comma list> and storage=<backup-capable storage id>. Use all=1 to back up every guest on the node.
Choose the mode: mode=snapshot (default, lowest downtime), mode=suspend, or mode=stop (most consistent, full downtime).
Set compression: compress=zstd (also accepts 0, 1, gzip, lzo). zstd is normally the best speed/ratio trade-off.
Optionally add notes-template with the supported variables {{cluster}}, {{guestname}}, {{node}}, {{vmid}}; set protected=1 to exempt the archive from pruning (requires storage to be set).
Control retention for this run with prune-backups, e.g. prune-backups=keep-last=3,keep-daily=14,keep-monthly=6. Default is keep-all=1. Set remove=0 to skip pruning entirely.
For VMs, reduce backup-induced I/O stalls with fleecing=enabled=1,storage=<fast storage>.
The call returns a UPID — poll /nodes/{node}/tasks/{upid}/status and check exitstatus='OK'. Read the task log for per-guest results when backing up multiple VMs.
Recurring job: POST /cluster/backup with the same backup parameters plus schedule=<systemd calendar event, e.g. 'sat 02:00'>, enabled=1, and optionally id, comment, repeat-missed=1. Manage jobs with GET /cluster/backup and GET/PUT/DELETE /cluster/backup/{id}.
Verify archives exist: GET /nodes/{node}/storage/{storage}/content?content=backup.
Known gotchas
mode=snapshot requires that ALL volumes being backed up sit on storage that supports snapshots. If one mount point is on a non-snapshot storage the job fails — exclude it per-volume with the backup=no mount point option, or use mode=stop.
Backing up all guests to a single node's local storage is not a backup strategy — the archive dies with the node. Target a PBS datastore or off-host NFS/CIFS.
protected=1 requires the storage parameter to be set in the same call; it is rejected otherwise.
remove defaults to 1, meaning a one-off backup will prune existing archives according to prune-backups (default keep-all=1, so nothing is removed — but if you pass a narrower prune-backups you can silently delete older archives you meant to keep).
For VMs with the QEMU guest agent enabled, Proxmox issues guest-fsfreeze-freeze/thaw for a consistent snapshot. Without the agent, snapshot mode carries a small inconsistency risk for databases — quiesce them yourself or use mode=stop.
dow/starttime on /cluster/backup are deprecated and silently converted to schedule. Write new jobs with schedule.
Jobs are executed by the pvescheduler daemon from /etc/pve/jobs.cfg — a job created while pvescheduler is stopped will not fire retroactively unless repeat-missed=1.
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