RE: [Xen-users] Re: FW: Xen Backups

["James Alspach" <jalspach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Wow...nice! This sounds like it would work great for guests that have a
healthy command line (*NIX) but can you do the same thing on a Windows
guest? 
I can see connecting to a windows server and then stopping some of the
services but I am not sure how to mount or unmount a file system in
windows.
Also, forgive my ignorance but, if you had a problem could you just
reinstall the snapshot and restart it?
 
Is your script available somewhere or would you mind sharing it?

Thanks;
James
 
PS How about SAN based snapshots (on equipment other than the Netstor)?
Is this something that people expect Xensource to support in the future?
 
 
James Alspach
Systems Analyst II
Shasta County Office of Education

> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xen-users-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Joost Roeleveld
> Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 7:17 AM
> To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Re: FW: Xen Backups
> 
> On Sunday 01 June 2008 15:33:32 Christian Tramnitz wrote:
> > I guess most people would like to avoid the necessary downtime.
> > On the other hand, when doing live-snapshots (i.e. LVM snapshot
target),
> > live-data may be corrupt (open file handles, databases)...
> 
> I actually run a script on the host that does the following:
> All activities on the guest are done using SSH and shared key
> authentication
> 
> 1) Stop the service(s) on the guest
> 2) Unmount the filesystem(s) on the guest to be backed up
> 3) detach the filesystems (xm block-detach <domain> <hd??/sd??>)
> 4) create snapshots
> 5) reattach the filesystems (xm block-attach <domain> <device>
<hd??/sd??>
> w)
> 6) remount the filesystems on the guest
> 7) Restart the service(s) on the guest
> 
> I can then backup the filesystems using the snapshots and remove the
> snapshots
> when the backups are finished.
> Using this, the total 'downtime' is around 40 seconds (on my system)
to:
> - stop and start 3 services
> - backup OpenLDAP and PostgreSQL
> - unmount / mount 6 filesystems
> - detach / attach 6 filesystems
> - create 6 snapshots
> 
> The script I use also has error-handling implemented in case any
action
> fails.
> This will prevent, for example, a detach-attempt to take place on
still
> mounted filesystems.
> 
> HTH,
> 
> Joost Roeleveld
> 
> >
> > Best regards,
> >     Christian
> >
> > James Alspach wrote:
> > > How do most people backup their VM's?  I understand that the
suggested
> > > method right now is to install your backup client just as you
would if
> > > you were backing up a physical server.  It just feels like you
should
> be
> > > able to snapshot the entire VM instead of worrying about just the
> data.
> > >
> > > For instance, how difficult it would be to script taking a VM
offline,
> > > exporting it and then bringing it back online.  To me this sounds
like
> a
> > > good way to backup your VM's  (as long as you can stand them being
> > > offline for some amount of time while they export).  If you could
back
> > > up this way recovering from a disaster should be fairly painless.
Just
> > > reinstall Xensource, hook it back up to the SAN and import the
> > > VM's...done.  What am I missing? Is it the size of the VM's that
keeps
> > > this from being viable?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks for your help;
> > >
> > > James
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
> 
> 
> 
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