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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/IsaiasCarrion/Homelab/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

The homelab follows a philosophy of independent, per-service backups: each category of data — Docker volumes, Compose stacks, Proxmox VM and LXC images — is backed up in isolation so that restoring one service never requires touching another. All backup data lands on a 1 TB HDD exposed to both Proxmox and the Docker VM through an NFS share, giving every node in the lab access to a single, consistent backup target.

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Backup Storage

The 1 TB HDD is mounted at /mnt/hdd-backup and shared across the infrastructure via NFS. The following table summarises what gets backed up and where each category lives on the backup volume:
CategoryDestination Path
Docker Volumes/mnt/hdd-backup/docker/volumes/
Compose Stacks/mnt/hdd-backup/docker/stacks/
Proxmox VM / LXC/mnt/hdd-backup/backups/

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Backup Directory Layout

The persistent storage tree under /mnt/hdd-backup/docker/ is organised by function, keeping each type of artefact in its own named directory: 
/mnt/hdd-backup/docker/
├── portainer/
├── stacks/
├── volumes/
├── backups/
├── git/
└── dashboards/
  • portainer/ — Portainer’s own application data and configuration
  • stacks/ — exported Compose stack definitions
  • volumes/ — data from individual Docker named volumes
  • backups/ — general-purpose backup artefacts
  • git/ — repository mirrors or bare clones (planned for Gitea)
  • dashboards/ — Dashy and Grafana dashboard JSON exports

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Running the Backup Script

The backup.sh script in the scripts/ directory automates the full backup process. Run it manually at any time with: 
bash scripts/backup.sh
Verify that /mnt/hdd-backup is mounted and writable before executing backup.sh. If the NFS share is unavailable, the script will write to the local filesystem (or fail silently), producing an incomplete or missing backup with no on-disk evidence of the problem. Run mount | grep hdd-backup to confirm the mount is active before proceeding.
For unattended operation, add backup.sh to a cron schedule on the Docker VM so it runs automatically — for example, nightly at 03:00. See the Scripts page for a sample crontab configuration.

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Proxmox Backups

Proxmox VE ships with the built-in vzdump utility for creating consistent snapshots of LXC containers and KVM virtual machines. vzdump can be configured directly in the Proxmox web UI (Datacenter → Backup) or invoked from the command line, and should be pointed at /mnt/hdd-backup so that all VM and LXC backup archives land on the same NFS-backed volume as the Docker data: 
# Example: back up LXC container ID 101 to the shared backup storage
vzdump 101 --storage hdd-backup --mode snapshot
Scheduling Proxmox backups through the web UI is the recommended approach — Proxmox will handle locking, compression, and retention automatically, and the job history is visible in the task log.
Periodically test your restore procedures end-to-end. A backup that has never been restored is an untested assumption. Spin up a throwaway LXC or restore a single Docker volume to a temporary path and verify the data is intact before you actually need it in an emergency.

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