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Proxmox Backup Server

At the end of this page Ferrule will be reading your backup server: how full each datastore is and when it will fill, every job's last result, and how long since each machine was last backed up.

In PBS

Go to Configuration → Access Control:

  1. User Management → Add: user telemetry, realm pbs.
  2. API Token → Add: user telemetry@pbs, token name ro. Copy the secret now.
  3. Permissions → Add → User Permission: path /, user telemetry@pbs, role Audit, Propagate ticked.
  4. Permissions → Add → API Token Permission: path /, token telemetry@pbs!ro, role Audit, Propagate ticked.

Do both step 3 and step 4

With only the token's permission, PBS shows its version and nothing else: no datastores, jobs or backups. The panel says which user needs the role.

In Ferrule

  1. Click Settings ⚙ and find Add a source.
  2. Kind: Proxmox Backup Server. Fill in Name (anything you'll recognise), Address and API token ID.
  3. Ferrule writes two lines, such as SOURCE_1=... and SOURCE_1_SECRET=.... Click Copy.
  4. Add both lines to your settings, and replace the placeholder in the _SECRET line with the token secret:
  1. Open the ferrule stack and find Environment variables.
  2. Add or change the lines. In Advanced mode you can paste several at once.
  3. Click Pull and redeploy.
  1. Open .env in the folder where you cloned ferrule-deploy.
  2. Add or change the lines.
  3. Run docker compose up -d in that folder.

Ferrule never asks for the token secret

It only goes into your settings. The Settings page shows whether it's set, never what it is.

  • Address: https://<pbs>:8007
  • API token ID: telemetry@pbs!ro

How to know it worked

  • Settings → Sources lists it, with the state polling. Right after an update it says waiting for first poll for up to a minute.
  • It appears on the Virtualization tab.

What it alerts on

A job whose last run failed (bad) or finished with warnings, a datastore PBS can't read, or one nearly full. Each clears when the job next runs clean.

A machine that hasn't backed up for 26 hours is highlighted, not alerted, because a machine you've deleted keeps its old backups forever. Change the 26 hours under Settings → Display, Hours since a backup (this setting is kept in your browser only).