Back up and restore guests with vzdump, backup jobs and Proxmox Backup Server

Proxmox VE has backup built in. vzdump writes a full backup of a guest, including its configuration, to any storage that allows the backup content type. You can run it by hand, schedule it as a backup job, and restore from the web UI or the command line. A backup on the same disk as the guest is not a real backup, so use a separate storage such as an NFS share or a Proxmox Backup Server.

Backup modes

• snapshot (default): lowest downtime. For VMs, Proxmox VE’s live backup copies data while the VM runs. If the QEMU guest agent is enabled and running, file systems are frozen briefly for better consistency. For containers, it needs storage that supports snapshots.
• suspend: for VMs, kept for compatibility; it suspends the VM and does not usually improve consistency over snapshot mode. For containers, it rsyncs the data, suspends briefly and rsyncs the changes.
• stop: shuts the guest down for the most consistent backup. VMs restart right after the backup begins; containers stay stopped for the whole backup.

Manual backups

vzdump 110 --storage nas-backup --mode snapshot --compress zstd
vzdump 110 111 200 --storage nas-backup
vzdump --all --storage nas-backup --exclude 9000
vzdump 110 --storage nas-backup --notes-template '{{guestname}} before upgrade'

zstd is the fastest of the built-in compressors and uses several threads. Backup file names start with vzdump-qemu- or vzdump-lxc-, followed by the ID and a timestamp; the extension shows the compression (.zst, .gz or .lzo). With no --storage or --dumpdir, files go to the default dump directory, usually /var/lib/vz/dump/.

Scheduled backup jobs

Create jobs in the web UI under Datacenter → Backup. Each job selects guests (all, some, or by pool), a target storage, mode, compression and a schedule. The schedule uses a format similar to systemd calendar events, and the UI’s drop-down offers examples. Jobs are saved in /etc/pve/jobs.cfg and run by the pvescheduler daemon. Enable Repeat missed in the advanced options if a job should catch up after the host was off.

Retention

Retention is set with prune-backups on the storage, on the job, or per command. When a backup runs with a retention policy, vzdump prunes older backups that fall outside it (the --remove option, on by default).

vzdump 110 --storage nas-backup --prune-backups keep-last=3,keep-daily=7,keep-weekly=4,keep-monthly=6

keep-last keeps the newest N backups; the other options keep one backup per hour, day, week, month or year for the given number of periods.

Restore

In the web UI, select the backup on its storage (or in the guest’s Backup tab) and click Restore. On the command line, use qmrestore for VMs and pct restore for containers. Restoring to a new ID is the safe way to test a backup.

pvesm list nas-backup --content backup
qmrestore /mnt/pve/nas-backup/dump/vzdump-qemu-110-2026_10_01-02_00_01.vma.zst 410 --storage local-lvm
pct restore 420 /mnt/pve/nas-backup/dump/vzdump-lxc-200-2026_10_01-02_10_05.tar.zst --storage local-lvm

Warning: restoring over an existing ID replaces that guest and its disks with the backup content. Check the target ID with qm config or pct config first; overwriting an existing guest requires the --force option on purpose.

Test restores regularly. A backup you have never restored is only a hope.

Proxmox Backup Server

Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is a separate product for storing backups of VMs, containers and physical hosts. Compared with plain vzdump files it adds incremental backups (only changes are sent), deduplication across all backups, zstd compression, optional client-side encryption and verification. You install it on its own machine, reach its web UI on port 8007, create a datastore, and then add it to Proxmox VE as a storage of type pbs (Datacenter → Storage → Add → Proxmox Backup Server). Backup jobs then target it like any other storage. With PBS you can also restore single files from a backup and use live-restore, which starts a VM while its data is still being copied.

Official documentation

• vzdump(1): Backup and Restore
• qmrestore(1)
• Proxmox Backup Server: Introduction