🧩 Short Answer
❌ Not recommended, and not supported.
Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) is officially designed to run on bare metal or virtual machines (KVM/VM) —
not inside LXC containers or Docker environments.
⚠️ Why It’s Not Recommended or Supported
1. System Service Dependencies
PBS relies heavily on systemd-managed services — including indexing, garbage collection, authentication, API, and FUSE mounting.
Containerized environments, especially Docker, have incomplete or limited support for systemd and udev.
This can cause unpredictable behavior or failed service startups.
2. Kernel-Level Requirements
PBS requires kernel features such as:
- FUSE (for PXAR browsing and mounting)
- SG devices (for tape drives like LTO)
These are often not fully available or unstable inside LXC or Docker.
Even if you force-enable them, they’re unsupported and unreliable for production.
3. Storage & Data Integrity
PBS is designed to work best with ZFS datastores, which provide checksum, scrub, and redundancy.
When PBS runs inside a container, additional layers (overlayfs, bind mounts, etc.) complicate I/O, caching, and error handling.
This results in reduced performance and potential reliability issues.
4. Supportability
Both official documentation and community support assume PBS runs on bare metal or VM.
If issues arise inside LXC or Docker, they are considered outside the supported environment,
and you’ll receive little or no official assistance.
✅ Recommended Deployment Methods
Option 1 – Bare Metal Installation (Best Practice)
Install PBS directly on a physical machine.
Use ZFS as the datastore (e.g., RAIDZ2 or mirrored setup).
→ This provides the highest performance, reliability, and integrity.
Option 2 – Virtual Machine (on Proxmox VE)
Run PBS inside a KVM virtual machine managed by PVE.
Storage options:
- Pass through an entire physical disk or ZFS volume using Virtio-SCSI.
- Mount an external NAS (NFS/SMB) as a datastore.
Although NAS-based storage may perform slightly slower,
this setup is fully supported and easy to manage.
Option 3 – Client Containers Are Fine
Running the Proxmox Backup Client (proxmox-backup-client) inside LXC or Docker
to back up data to a remote PBS server is perfectly fine and supported.
Only the server side (PBS daemon) should remain outside of containers.
⚙️ Experimental / Edge-Case Workarounds (Not Supported)
🧪 Privileged LXC + Nesting + FUSE
A few advanced users manage to make PBS run inside a privileged LXC with nesting and FUSE enabled,
but they often encounter failures related to tape devices, ZFS integration, and mount verification.
It’s unstable and not suitable for production due to high upgrade risk.
🧩 Docker with Systemd-in-Docker
While theoretically possible using “Docker-in-Docker” or “systemd-enabled base images,”
the complexity, maintenance overhead, and instability far outweigh any potential benefit.
🧭 Conclusion
Treat Proxmox Backup Server as a core infrastructure component, not an app.
It should run on bare metal or a full VM —
not inside LXC or Docker containers.
Use containers only for clients that back up data to a dedicated PBS host.
If you share your PVE or disk topology,
I can help design a minimal-change VM-based PBS setup —
including disk passthrough, network configuration, and automated scheduling.
In summary:
PBS must operate close to the hardware layer to ensure data integrity, stable performance, and reliable recovery —
all of which are compromised when containerized.
💡 PBS is not just software — it’s part of your backup infrastructure foundation.