11-16-2008
Backing up virtual machines - opinions/suggestions needed.
Hi,
I was required to do a backup of a virtual machine that runs on vmware. The guest operating system is windows, and the host is windows too. I have to backup the whole directory of the virtual machine (say in linux it'll be in /var/lib/vmware/virtual machines/) to a linux server.
Initially I had done something like this:
- Schedule the windows on vm to shutdown (I use pstools with force flag) say at 1am.
- A backup script will run on the linux backup server at around 2am that will mount the directory on windows where the vm resides, tar it straight to the linux server and umount it.
- Schedule the vm to start at 5am.
While it works, am having a bad feeling running a force shutdown on the vm every single week for the backup. I can schedule a normal shutdown of course, but I don't think tthis will gurantee that the windows will eventually shutdown? Will it be safe enough if I use vmrun stop soft to shutdown the windows?
So, besides doing snapshot, what would be a better way to backup the virtual machine files (all the vmdk, vmx, etc.etc.)?
Any advice offered is appreciated. Thanks.
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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN
svn-fast-backup
svn-fast-backup(1) General Commands Manual svn-fast-backup(1)
NAME
svn-fast-backup - very fast backup for Subversion fsfs repositories.
SYNOPSIS
svn-fast-backup [-q] [-k{N|all}] [-f] [-t] [-s] repos_path backup_dir
DESCRIPTION
svn-fast-backup uses rsync snapshots for very fast backup of a Subversion fsfs repository at repos_path to backup_dir/repos-rev, the latest
revision number in the repository. Multiple fsfs backups share data via hardlinks, so old backups are almost free, since a newer revision
of a repository is almost a complete superset of an older revision.
This is good for replacing incremental log-dump+restore-style backups because it is just as space-conserving and even faster; there is no
inter-backup state (old backups are essentially caches); each backup directory is self-contained. It has the same command-line interface
as svn-hot-backup(1) (if you use --force), but only works for fsfs repositories.
svn-fast-backup keeps 64 backups by default and deletes backups older than these; this can be adjusted with the -k option.
OPTIONS
-h, --help
Shows some brief help text.
-q, --quiet
Quieter-than-usual operation.
-k, --keep=N
Keep a specified number of backups; the default is to keep 64.
-k, --keep=all
Do not delete any old backups at all.
-f, --force
Make a new backup even if one with the current revision exists.
-t, --trace
Show actions.
-s, --simulate
Don't perform actions.
AUTHOR
Voluntary contributions made by many individuals. Copyright (C) 2006 CollabNet.
2006-11-09 svn-fast-backup(1)