Starting from version 2.2, Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) has introduced a namespace feature. This function greatly facilitates multi-Proxmox VE clusters or single node backups. In previous versions of PBS, if there were multiple Proxmox VE nodes or clusters, the virtual machines created on them could likely have the same “VM ID”. To fully utilize resources, these “VM IDs” would need to be backed up to the same PBS storage. The solution to this problem was to create different directories on the PBS and back up virtual machines with the same “VM ID” to their respective directories to avoid conflicts.

With the namespace feature now available in PBS, there is no longer a need to add storage and grant permissions in two steps.

Next, let’s take two independent Proxmox VE nodes as an example to perform backup operations on their virtual machines in the form of namespaces.

Creating a Namespace in PBS

After creating a data storage location in PBS and authorizing it, click the “Add NS” button at the top of the PBS Web management interface.

Fill in the name in the edit box. For instance, if there are two nodes, name them “pve165” and “pve169” respectively.

After creating the necessary namespaces, they will be displayed under the “Content” menu of the specified storage node.

Since the namespaces are under the same “data storage” and have been authorized, there is no need to authorize each “namespace” separately as in the old version.

Adding PBS as External Storage in Proxmox VE

Log in to the Proxmox VE Web management interface. At the data center level, go to the storage menu and add PBS as external storage. Compared to the old version, you need to fill in the “Namespace” field, which must be consistent with the definition on PBS.

Add the external PBS storage to another node in the same way, the only difference being the namespace (pve169). If PBS is correctly added to Proxmox VE, it will be visible in its Web management interface; otherwise, it will be displayed with a question mark icon.

After adding PBS as external storage, log in to the Proxmox VE Web management interface of both nodes, select the virtual machines that need to be backed up, and use the added PBS as the backup facility. Then manually start the backup jobs.

Verifying the Isolation Function of PBS Namespace

When the Proxmox VE virtual machines are backed up to a certain extent, check the backup status in the PBS management interface. Click the folder icon on the right side of the namespace.

You can see the backed-up data, which is no different from the backup structure of the old version of PBS.

Switch to the PBS host system Debian, check the backup storage path, and understand the detailed directory structure. Open the file “/etc/proxmox-backup/datastore.cfg” and confirm that the storage location is “/mnt/datastore/pvedata”.

Enter the directory “/mnt/datastore/pvedata”, where a subdirectory “ns” is automatically generated. Continue to enter the subdirectory “ns”, and there are two subdirectories “pve165” and “pve169”, which are exactly the namespace strings we created in the PBS Web management interface.