Backing up virtual machines - opinions/suggestions needed. Post: 302258810

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Special Forums Windows & DOS: Issues & Discussions Backing up virtual machines - opinions/suggestions needed. Post 302258810 by 60doses on Sunday 16th of November 2008 04:47:27 AM

11-16-2008

Registered User

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.

60doses

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LEARN ABOUT X11R4

shutdown

asadmin-shutdown(1AS)                                              User Commands                                             asadmin-shutdown(1AS)

NAME

       asadmin-shutdown, shutdown - brings down the administration server

SYNOPSIS

       shutdown [--user admin_user][--password admin_password][--host localhost] [--port 4848][--passwordfile filename][--secure|-s]

       shutdown  gracefully brings down the administration server and all the running instances. You must manually start the administration server
       to bring it up again.

OPTIONS

       --user                  administrative user associated for the instance.

       --password              administrative password corresponding to the administrative user.

       --host                  host name of the machine hosting the administrative instance.

       --port                  administrative port number associated with the administrative host.

       --passwordfile          file containing passwords appropriate for the command (e.g., administrative instance).

       --secure                if true, uses SSL/TLS to communicate with the administrative instance.

       Example 1: Using the shutdown command

       asadmin> shutdown --user admin --password adminadmin --host bluestar --port 4848
       Waiting for admin server to shutdown...
       Admin server has been shutdown

EXIT STATUS

       0                       command executed successfully

       1                       error in executing the command

INTERFACE EQUIVALENT

       Administration Server page

       asadmin-start-instance(1AS), asadmin-stop-instance(1AS), asadmin-restart-instance(1AS)asadmin-start-domain(1AS),  asadmin-stop-domain(1AS),
       asadmin-start-appserv(1AS), asadmin-stop-appserv(1AS)

J2EE 1.4 SDK                                                        March 2004                                               asadmin-shutdown(1AS)