Request for Improved Compatibility of Clonezilla with LVM Partitions on Proxmox Systems

[kitopopo]

Dear Clonezilla Developers,

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction and concern regarding an issue I have encountered recently with your software. As a long-time user of Clonezilla, I have always relied on its ability to perform reliable and hassle-free backups in Windows environments. However, after migrating to a Proxmox-based system, I have faced significant challenges that compromise the software's utility in this context.

Specifically, when attempting to back up a system with LVM partitions typical of Proxmox, I received the following error:

Checking the device LV pve-data in the image "proxmox-1-2017-04-03-11-img"...
This image file for partition pve-data was not found!
Broken partition images were found, or some of them are not checkable in this image: proxmox-a-2017-04-03-11-img.

Despite multiple attempts with different versions, including the latest experimental releases, the issue persists. This leads me to conclude that Clonezilla has serious limitations when handling the LVM partitions used by Proxmox.

As an alternative, I have been forced to physically remove the NVMe drive, connect it to a dock station on a PC, and use another software, Macrium Reflect, which has proven capable of accurately cloning the disk, including its LVM partitions.

It is disappointing that such a renowned tool as Clonezilla cannot offer an equivalent solution. To my understanding, Clonezilla is designed to perform sector-by-sector backups, which should be sufficient to manage any type of partition, including LVM.

Therefore, I respectfully request that this issue be reviewed and addressed in future updates. Having to physically remove the NVMe drive every time I need to perform a backup is highly inconvenient and contrary to the efficiency principles that Clonezilla should uphold.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter. I look forward to hearing about any possible advancements on this issue.

Sincerely,

[stevenshiau]

Thanks for your feedback.
Please make sure if thin provisioning LVM is used in your Proxmox or not?
If it is, due to some required tools are sill unavailable, Clonezilla does not support that. For more info, please check:
jthornber/thin-provisioning-tools#126

Steven

[kitopopo]

Dear @stevenshiau ,

Thank you for your response. I confirm that my system uses LVM with thin provisioning.

I would like to know if there are any plans to include support for efficiently cloning thin-provisioned LVM in the future, similar to how Macrium Reflect handles it. This feature would be highly valuable for users working with Proxmox-based systems and other environments utilizing this type of partitioning.

Thank you in advance for your attention, and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

[stevenshiau]

Absolutely we will try to support the thin provisioning LVM. However, this really depends on the upstream since we do not have the manpower to do that, and it needs some knowledge which we do not have ATM.
If you can, maybe you can help to ask in the upstream forum so that it can get more attention from the upstream developers.

Steven