12
12
2008
New Experiemental VMbackup 2.94 version hopefully fixes issues with VMware Server 2.0 backups
Posted by: dhubbard in VMbackup, VirtualizationI just put up an experimental release of VMBackup (2.94). This version hopefully fixes the new 2.0 support code to perform backups properly.
The new version is available on the download page
Documentation can be found on the documentation page
The changes in this version are:
- Added additional checks to several of the VM functions to pass the VM to the vmrun command with the [datastore] vmx format instead of a normal Unix path (The server 2.0 vmrun command was frequently unable to figure out the correct VM the command was reffering to when the Unix path was passed).
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January 6th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Hi Dwight,
Thanks for the wonderful script for making life easier.
I installed vmbackup_2.94_all.deb on ubuntu server Linux 2.6.27-9-server #1 SMP Thu Nov 20 22:53:41 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux. I’m using the curent release of vmware server (VMware-server-2.0.0-122956.i386.tar.gz)
I’ve tried some combinations, but can’t succeed in starting a backup. Is there a way I can troubleshoot this?
thanks!
Mike
logs –
root@psa9997f:~# vmbackup –all –lvm –format tgz –dest .
Error: No VMs specified for backup
vmbackup –user userid –password password [--all|--excludevm vm|--includevm vm] [ --lvm | --lvmsuspend | --cold ] [--format tgz | tbz2 | zip | iso | dir] [--logsyslog] [--dest directory|user@hostname:directory] [--help]
–user The vmware userid, this parameter is required
–password The vmware password, this parameter is required
-a, –all Backup all registered VMs, except VMs that have been excluded
-e, –excludevm Exclude a VM from backup
-i, –includevm Add a VM to the list of VMs to back up
-l, –lvm Perform a backup using an LVM snapshot, the VM files must be stored on an LVM
volume. This is a hot backup however it does not store cpu/memory state so
The VM will start from a powered off state when restored.
-L, –lvmsuspend Perform a backup using LVM snapshot and suspend
The VM will be pause while the LVM snapshot is created. Total downtime is
normally less than a minute (similar to a hot backup).
This is like a backup with the –lvm option but the restored VM will be able
to resume to the running state when restored to a compatible CPU.
-c, –cold Perform a cold backup (Backup using suspend)
The VM will be unavailable during the backup when this archiveformat is used.
-f, –format Choose the output archive format, available formats are:
tar – Create an uncompress tar archive of the VM
tgz – Create a gziped archive of the VM
tbz2 – Create a bzip2 archive of the VM, this option is much slower and uses
more CPU than the tgz option
dir – Create a copy of the VM in a new directory. This will overwrite the
contents of the destination directory, use with caution.
-d, –dest Specify the destination to write the backup file to, the current directory is
used if this option is not provided
Can also be a remote host Unix/Linux host via ssh the format is
user@hostname:destdir
–logsyslog Log output to syslog instead of the console
Examples:
Create a lvm backup of all registered VMs and store them in directory /backups on a remote
host named filehost
vmbackup –lvm –dest filehost:/backups
Create a cold backup of a VM named foobar.com with the maximum compression
vmbackup –includevm foobar.com –cold –format tbz2
root@psa9997f:~#
root@psa9997f:/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines# ls TestXP/*.vmx
TestXP/TestXP.vmx
root@psa9997f:/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines# vmbackup –includevm TestXP –lvm –format tgz
Error: No VMs specified for backup
vmbackup –user userid –password password [--all|--excludevm vm|--includevm vm] [ --lvm | --lvmsuspend | --cold ] [--format tgz | tbz2 | zip | iso | dir] [--logsyslog] [--dest directory|user@hostname:directory] [--help]
–user The vmware userid, this parameter is required
–password The vmware password, this parameter is required
-a, –all Backup all registered VMs, except VMs that have been excluded
-e, –excludevm Exclude a VM from backup
-i, –includevm Add a VM to the list of VMs to back up
-l, –lvm Perform a backup using an LVM snapshot, the VM files must be stored on an LVM
volume. This is a hot backup however it does not store cpu/memory state so
The VM will start from a powered off state when restored.
-L, –lvmsuspend Perform a backup using LVM snapshot and suspend
The VM will be pause while the LVM snapshot is created. Total downtime is
normally less than a minute (similar to a hot backup).
This is like a backup with the –lvm option but the restored VM will be able
to resume to the running state when restored to a compatible CPU.
-c, –cold Perform a cold backup (Backup using suspend)
The VM will be unavailable during the backup when this archiveformat is used.
-f, –format Choose the output archive format, available formats are:
tar – Create an uncompress tar archive of the VM
tgz – Create a gziped archive of the VM
tbz2 – Create a bzip2 archive of the VM, this option is much slower and uses
more CPU than the tgz option
dir – Create a copy of the VM in a new directory. This will overwrite the
contents of the destination directory, use with caution.
-d, –dest Specify the destination to write the backup file to, the current directory is
used if this option is not provided
Can also be a remote host Unix/Linux host via ssh the format is
user@hostname:destdir
–logsyslog Log output to syslog instead of the console
Examples:
Create a lvm backup of all registered VMs and store them in directory /backups on a remote
host named filehost
vmbackup –lvm –dest filehost:/backups
Create a cold backup of a VM named foobar.com with the maximum compression
vmbackup –includevm foobar.com –cold –format tbz2
root@psa9997f:/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines# vmbackup –includevm ./TestXP/TestXP.vmx –lvm –format tgz
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/vmbackup”, line 250, in
vmitems.append(vm(configfile=vmi,destdir=DESTDIR,user=USERID,password=PASSWORD))
File “/usr/lib/vmbackup/vmbackup_common.py”, line 270, in __init__
shortconfig=temp1[1].strip()
IndexError: list index out of range
root@psa9997f:/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines#
January 30th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Hi
Trying to use the script with vmware server v2.0x but every time I try and run the command (even with –all ) it always errors “No VMs specified for backup”
Any idea how I resolve this
Keith
March 20th, 2009 at 3:15 am
Hello all, I’ve just registered to this blog, however I too am developing a script to backup vmware (server only).
I was reading the last two posts, but it seems everyone is using the only one dash before the “all” parameter ( -all) , and instead in the help it specifies two dashes (–all).
Could it be the problem?
Anyway, I also have a question of my own.
I’ve installed the 2.94 version (rpm package on a CentOS 5.2 64bit with VmWare Server 2.0) and tested it on a single vm (an xppro “test subject”).
I see it works fine, however I’ve also noticed that the “hot” backup mode is somehow hidden.
I mean, in the help it’s not mentioned anymore, but it indeed works fine.
Is this a mistake or an anticipation of future removal of hot backups (the ones without LVM)?
Thank you for the script anyway
TheBlob
March 20th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Hello, try using with the –user –password options as well.
March 20th, 2009 at 5:57 am
We are running VMWare Server 2.0.0 Build 116503 on CentOS 5.2 64bit with multiple datastores.
Our /etc/vmware/hostd/NEW_datastores.xml file only contained an entry for the first datastore. The datastores.xml file contained all the datastores. I had to change line 123 in vmbackup_common.py from
file=open(’/etc/vmware/hostd/NEW_datastores.xml’)
to
file=open(’/etc/vmware/hostd/datastores.xml’)
October 12th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Hot backup doesn’t work properly with all versions of VMware Server.
In some cases hot backups can create a situation where the virtual machine is running from a snapshot that cannot be deleted, ever. It should work with VMware Server 2.0 but it hasn’t been tested that much either.