Now I tried a restore of a module (Dokuwiki).
Within the backup configuration, I defined a retention of 8 Snapshots. Apart from the fact that there is no rotation (annual, monthly, weekly, daily) I cannot select a dedicated snapshot for a restore. It’s only possible to restore the last one.
And a restore of a single file (like plugins.local.php in case of misconfiguration of AD-Integration and impossible login) is also impossible.
I don’t understand what do you mean with rotation. The frequency is configurable:
Define also snapshot retention and we obtain a rotation policy. Do I miss something?
Yes they are missing features. The actual restore implementation is for a disaster recovery scenario which has priority over the rest. As we discussed in other topics, the missing features are planned and will be added in future NS8 releases.
Filed a new card NethServer 8 · GitHub
See also NethServer 8 · GitHub
Yes, I understand. In my opinion, you can only set how often the system should create a snapshot. Rotation means how often the system should delete old snapshots and keep generations for restoring. (Retention time)
If I understand right, the system holds all daily snapshots If I decide to create such daily.
Within the docu: “setup day and time of the backup and the retention policy”
I can only see the possibility to set up the creating time, not the retention periods.
And additionally, the GUI offers only the possibility of the creation hourly, daily, weekly OR monthly snapshots. I’m searching for the possibility of:
Normally, this means that you make a daily backup and regularly delete the generations you do not need, considering the retention definition mentioned above.
To illustrate:
Proxmox also allows as many different backup shedules as you may need, and whenever you want - no limits (It’s a list of backup jobs).
PBS, in addition, allows for such retention shedules:
In Theory, Proxmox does allow this for other backups, but the storage / compression is usually the issue, as other backups do not have deduplication (Uses extremly little space for X generations, getting more efficient, the more retentions you have!) PBS includes out of the box.
As an example:
I have a client with a 1.4 TB large VM of NS7 (AD, Files, Mail, etc). This is running of a NVME on Proxmox. The PBS has a 2x4TB mirror (ZFS) using hard disks. At the moment, it has 24 generations of that NS7 VM - and also the same amount of generation for about 10 other VMs (all smaller)!
Even with extremly good compression, the NS7 would use 8TB for 10 generations, more or less!
Here, 4 TB is used for all VMs, with 24 generations!
→ Good Retention!
In other words, with PBS, you could do with Proxmox, what NS8 can’t yet do.
In this case, using a node not for load distribution, but for fine granulality for Backups of VMs…
DokuWiki runs on it’s own node in Proxmox.
Proxmox uses PBS to back that VM up, using retention as configured in PBS.
→ Solved…
My 2 cents
Andy
Thank you for the UI example 
Thank you for fully describing the usage scenario. I think now I understand it.
ATM it is not possible to configure this “advanced retention policy”. With current implementation in NS8 you have to configure distinct backup repositories with individual retentions, which is not optimal in terms of backup space usage as it does not take advantage of Restic dedup builtin capabilities. However if your backup destination provides deduplication at a lower system level (e.g. ZFS, LVM-VDO, BTRFS…) this approach can still be valid.
For the future, filed a card here: NethServer 8 · GitHub
