Great thought — immutable S3 backups can significantly enhance your ransomware resilience by making backups undeletable or unalterable for a fixed period. Let’s look at how this would fit into your Sage 50 Proxmox setup.
⸻
✅ What Is an Immutable S3 Backup?
It’s a backup stored in S3-compatible object storage (e.g. AWS S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, MinIO) that is:
• Write-once, read-many (WORM) protected
• Locked for a defined time window (e.g. 7–90 days)
• Immune to ransomware deletion, even if the server is compromised⸻
✅ Benefits for Your Setup
Feature Why It Matters
Immutable retention Ensures backups can’t be deleted or overwritten by malware
Offsite protection Physically isolated from your infrastructure
Fast recovery S3-based storage can be quickly re-downloaded to new hardware
Automatable Integrates with tools like restic, proxmox-backup-client, velero
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🔐 How It Works (Conceptually)
1. Your Proxmox node (or a helper VM) runs a backup tool
2. It uploads daily or weekly backups to an S3 bucket with:
• Object lock
• Retention policy
3. Even if malware encrypts or wipes local data, cloud backups remain safe⸻
🛠️ Tools You Can Use
| Tool | What It Does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) | Can push backups to S3 with encryption + pruning | S3 support is beta but maturing |
| Restic | Fast, deduplicating backup CLI tool with native S3 | Supports immutability with AWS S3 |
| Duplicacy | Commercial-grade, supports immutability on Wasabi/S3 | Excellent deduplication + encryption |
| Rclone + S3 | Low-level sync to S3, add retention policy manually | Not natively immutable without S3 settings |
✅ Practical Scenario for Your Deployment
1. Set up a Wasabi or Backblaze S3 bucket (cheaper than AWS, S3-compatible)
2. Enable Object Lock and specify retention policy (e.g. 14 days)
3. From Proxmox or a helper VM:
• Use restic or duplicacy to upload nightly VM backups or ZFS sends
4. Monitor space + retention✅ Why It Complements ZFS
| ZFS Snapshots | Immutable S3 Backups |
|---|---|
| Fast local rollback | Offsite disaster recovery |
| Requires local disk | Survives server-wide failure |
| Easy to manage in GUI | Requires config but fully automated |
✅ Summary: Should You Use It?
Yes — especially if you want true ransomware-proof, offsite recovery.
• Combine ZFS for speed + snapshots
• Use immutable S3 for offsite, undeletable backups
• Perfect for protecting Sage 50 data, server config, and even entire VM images⸻
Would you like a Markdown guide for setting up restic or duplicacy for immutable backups to Wasabi or AWS S3?