Proxmox Backup Client on ARM?

- 3 mins read

Proxmox Backup Server/Client is software that helps you protect and secure your important data. It creates and manages backups of your computer systems, files, and virtual machines. It schedules regular backups, stores them safely, and allows easy restoration. It also supports virtual machine backups, making it a comprehensive backup solution.

However, you may find no ARM support for Proxmox Backup Server or Client, just like the Proxmox VE.

http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pbs-client/dists/bookworm/main, as you can see that there is only support for amd64.

In the previous post, We installed Proxmox VE on ARM machines using an open-source solution called pimox, which you can check here. Today, here is the same way to install the Backup Client on ARM. (Server might also be OK, but I never tried that.)

Before we start…

My default mirror server is https://mirror.frank-ruan.com, it is powered by Cloudflare, which is great for most of the world. But if you are in countries where Cloudflare doesn’t work well (like mainland China), you can use our alternative mirror server which is powered by CacheFly. The address is https://mirror-cdn.frank-ruan.com or https://frankmirrors.cachefly.net. They have great connectivity to China.

As always, backup everything useful. (Although we should not run into any issues.)

Getting started.

Use the following command to switch to the privileged user to finish our tutorial.

sudo -i

The pimox project is the one that also includes the ARM version of PBS/PBC, so let’s install his repository signing key.

curl https://mirror.frank-ruan.com/pimox7/KEY.gpg | apt-key add -
# If you are in China, use this one.
curl https://mirror-cdn.frank-ruan.com/pimox7/KEY.gpg | apt-key add -

Now, add the APT repository.

echo "deb https://mirror.frank-ruan.com/pimox7/ dev/" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pbs-client.list
# If you are in China, use this one.
echo "deb https://mirror-cdn.frank-ruan.com/pimox7/ dev/" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pbs-client.list

Finally, update the package list and install the software.

apt update
apt upgrade -y
apt install proxmox-backup-client -y

Woah, you may run into trouble at this point. The error message may look like this.

root@ip-172-31-31-16:~# apt install proxmox-backup-client
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 proxmox-backup-client : Depends: libssl1.1 (>= 1.1.0) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

This happens when you are running the latest version of Ubuntu or Debian (higher than 20.04/focal, or higher than 11/bullseye). The libssl1.1 is not in the mirror anymore. So we need to install it manually.

# For Ubuntu users:
wget --no-check-certificate http://ports.ubuntu.com/pool/main/o/openssl/libssl1.1_1.1.1f-1ubuntu2_arm64.deb
apt install ./libssl1.1_1.1.1f-1ubuntu2_arm64.deb

# For Debian users:
wget --no-check-certificatehttp://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/o/openssl/libssl1.1_1.1.1n-0+deb11u5_arm64.deb
apt install ./libssl1.1_1.1.1n-0+deb11u5_arm64.deb

Now you should execute the installation command again, and everything should be just fine.

There you go. It is now installed! That is very easy.

I have made a video tutorial, which you can watch and follow. Link to YouTube