On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 01:44:02PM -0500, Timothy J Massey wrote:
> John Moorhouse <john.moorhouse AT 3jays.me DOT uk> wrote on 02/19/2010 
> 12:11:45 
> PM:
> 
> > I'm happily using backupPC to backup a number of machine within our 
> > home network, I'm wondering what will happen if I use it to backup 
> > the file on the host machine that is the virtual disc for a number 
> > of virtual box VM, will it have to backup the whole file each run 
> > (they are rather large) or is it capable of only copying those bits 
> > of the file that have changed ?
> > 
> > Basically I'm after suggestions of 'best practice' in this situation
> 
> First of all, backing up VM files directly without coordination from the 
> VM system (e.g. snapshots, etc.) is highly likely to end up with corrupted 
> VM files.  I leave determining the correct way of doing this up to you.

Been there done that, had 3 non-restorable backups in a
row. Fortunately I caught them during test restores and not when we
had to have the file back. The best thing to do is to shut down the vm
before backing it up. You can do this with vmware at least using a
BackupPC pre share command that executes something like:

  vmrun -u master -p passwd -h https://localhost:8333/sdk suspend 'machine
    name here.vmx'

you can also stop/start the system. I am not sure if you can trigger a
snapshot, but that may be a good solution if you can't take the
virtual system down.

The command may change depending on what vmware product you are using,
but there should be a cli somewhere.
 
-- 
                                -- rouilj

John Rouillard       System Administrator
Renesys Corporation  603-244-9084 (cell)  603-643-9300 x 111

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Download Intel&#174; Parallel Studio Eval
Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs
proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance.
See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev
_______________________________________________
BackupPC-users mailing list
BackupPC-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
List:    https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users
Wiki:    http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net
Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/