Create an AppImage for the Proxmox Backup Client

The proxmox-backup-client is only available for Debian users. Although it is possible to install it into some Ubuntu releases and other derivatives of Debian as well, it sometimes require some adjustments. And for some releases, it is completely impossible to install due to dependency restrictions.

I was in need of the client for systems running Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic). Furthermore, the client should support namespaces, ruling out the Buster-related release(s). Thus I started fiddling around with AppImage files. While the one created with pkg2appimage did not work due to relying on the libc provided by the host system, and that version not matching the requirements of the packaged binaries, appimage-builder promises to package the glibc as well. I tried it and it seems to work at least with the Bullseye version (2.x). The AppImage created with the Bookworm version (3.x), unfortunately, fails with a segmentation fault.

To build the AppImage file, get the appimage-builder binary (an AppImage itself). Then build it via:

./appimage-builder-1.1.0-x86_64.AppImage --recipe proxmox-backup-client.bullseye.yml --skip-tests

USAGE

Download the appimage file, put it into /usr/local/sbin/, and make it executable. Then use it as you would use the binaries provided via the Debian package:

apt-get update && apt-get install libfuse2
wget -O /usr/local/sbin/proxmox-backup-client https://github.com/dleidert/proxmox-backup-client.appimage/releases/download/Continuous/proxmox-backup-client-2-x86_64.AppImage
chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/proxmox-backup-client
proxmox-backup-client version

Please note that an AppImage requires FUSE to be present and usable. All supported (and even current) releases of Debian and Ubuntu provide FUSE and libfuse2. Don't replace fuse3 by fuse, though, on recent distributions, where you shouldn't require the AppImage anyway!

LICENSE

The files are released into the public domain. Please note that the image (pkg2appimage requires an image) has been taken from the Proxmox website in good faith and is not subject to the license terms mentioned here.