--On November 20, 2008 4:40:28 PM -0500 Jon LaBadie <jon AT jgcomp DOT com> 
wrote:

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 01:04:33PM -0700, Michael Loftis wrote:

--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.

Why is this a requirement Michael?  Is it because the
VDI is changing while being backed up?  Currently the
VDI is not on a FS that can be snapshot'ted.  If it was,
for example an LVM file system on Linux, would the VDI
of a running virtual machine be suitable for backup if
taken from a snapshot (snapshot from the FS, not VBox).

To my thinking, another major problem is the lack of
access to individual files within the VDI file.

Backing up inside each VM requires you be careful not to overload the VM
host during backup windows.  For me, backing up inside each VM (each VM
as  an amanda client) was/is the only way to go, despite the pitfall.

That is what I expect to do.  I just hate windows backups with
all the hassle over "can't backup system and any in-use files".

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

--
"Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors
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