Proxmox 3.x / Debian 7.0: Backup and Restore (Recover) Proxmox Server configuration

Situation:

I used to run a Proxmox 2.x on Debian 6.0 Dev box. I somehow sufficiently manage to corrupt the whole OS and config.

I had snapshots and backups to go back but I decided to go the big thing and install fresh Proxmox 3.x on Debian 7.0 to a newer and faster hard-drive.

If you ever decide go this path, then please consider the following:

• make backups of the following directories
  /etc
  /var/lib/pve-cluster/
• Name the host the same way as it was on the old installation. (I tried a different hostname and it didn’t work)
• Use the same IP Address and it was on the old host. (I tried a different IP and it didn’t work)

So I rebuild Proxmox 3.x from scratch and it was as expected blank.

I had my data (images, templates, kvm and openVZ data) on a ZFS disk and remounted that one to the old mount-point. So make sure your data is back where it belongs to.

once all is in place and you rebooted do the following.

service pve-cluster stop

(Yes Debian 7 has now services like a real OS (please forgive me if I offend anyone and if Debian 6 had it as well )
)

Copy the config.db from your old system to the new one under /var/lib/pve-cluster/config.db

service pve-cluster start

service pve-cluster status

And see that it hopefully works by login back to your GUI and see the objects.