Re: [Xen-users] Backing up "live" Xen systems?

[Tim Freeman <tfreeman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 4 Jan 2006 17:50:30 +0000
Steve Kemp <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 04, 2006 at 09:39:52AM -0800, Ram wrote:
> 
> > >  I think that will be the thing to try working with next.  I
> > > assume that pausing the image then doing a local rsync will
> > > be reasonably quick.  But I will need to test it.
> > 
> > Thinking a bit more, you might be better off doing the following:
> > - Pause the virtual system
> > - backup from the physical system
> > - restart the virtual system
> 
>   Thats pretty much how I took your suggestion :)
> 
> > Also, if you are already backing up your physical, extending it to do
> > this above might be less work.
> 
>   Yes, indeed.
> 
>   The physical host will be backed up - so adding the "copied" virtual
>  images is the obvious thing to do.  I can't backup the live systems
>  directly is the problem.

Because the kernel buffers might not be flushed to disk, you may either want to
save/restore (instead of pause/unpause, and include RAM as part of backup) or
sync the disks from inside the VM before backing up.  

Also, instead of straight rsync, check out rdiff-backup for incremental backups
based on rsync, I really like this program:
http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/

Tim 


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