Re: Backing up virtual machines



--On November 20, 2008 2:51:24 PM -0500 Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com> 
wrote:

Just dipping my toe into virtual machines and
wondering how others are doing backups of them.

I'm using VirtualBox with a host of Fedora 9.
My guest is WinXP Pro.  The objective is to
no longer need to dual-boot this machine.

The virtual guest does appear on my network as
a separate host and static IP when it is up.

I can see two ways to backup it up;

 - backup the VBox files (*.vdi and others) on
   the host Fedora file system

 - consider the virtual machine a separate host
   and amanda client

How have others dealt with this situation?
Or maybe both forms are used simultaneously?

Both have problems. Backing up the vdi's requires the machine be down.Backing up inside each VM requires you be careful not to overload the VMhost during backup windows. For me, backing up inside each VM (each VM asan amanda client) was/is the only way to go, despite the pitfall.


jl
--
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon AT jgcomp DOT com
 JG Computing
 12027 Creekbend Drive          (703) 787-0884
 Reston, VA  20194              (703) 787-0922 (fax)




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