FabU: Restore a file from a vzdump/vma backup on the CLI — by UdoB on Proxmox Forum

advancedforumLink only (©)

A tutorial for pulling single files out of a Proxmox VM backup without restoring the whole VM: decompress the .vma.zst, extract the VMA to a raw image, map its partitions with kpartx, mount one and copy files out. The author skipped installing the vma tool on a non-Proxmox machine because its pve-qemu-kvm package has too many dependencies, so run that step on a PVE host.

Quick steps

  1. zstd -d the backup to get a .vma
  2. vma extract to get the raw disk and qemu-server.conf
  3. kpartx -a, mount the partition, copy files, then clean up with losetup -D

Paraphrased from the source. Menus can differ by version, so check the original for full details.

Read the full thread on forum.proxmox.com

Source: FabU: Restore a file from a vzdump/vma backup on the CLI by UdoB on Proxmox Forum. Licence: Link only (©).

Source reviewed
2026-11-02
Link checked
2026-11-02
Tested hands-on
Not by Oddbyte.Me

proxmoxvzdumpbackuprestorekpartx

More in Virtual Machines