Re: [Xen-users] newbie questions: copying and cloning xen vm

[Andrea Monti <ilsuonogiallo@xxxxxxxxx>]

2011/8/12 Fajar A. Nugraha <list@xxxxxxxxx>

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Andrea Monti <ilsuonogiallo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Diedo,
>
> thank you for your input.
> Unfortunatly xen-create-image is part of xen tools, so it is only available
> on Debian.
> I am using Xen 3.4 on Oracle VM, so I don't have xen-tools available :
> that's why I am looking for "native" xen tools to copy / clone / backup my
> vms.

"native" is somewhat tricky. The only common part in XenServer/XCP and
xen (the hypervisor used by linux distros) is basically just the
hypervisor. Even the userland tools can be different (xe vs xm/xl).

The hypervisor by itself doesn't really have anything to do with
"hot-clone" or "hot-backup". That functionality is implemented in:
- OS driver/additions (if any) id domU, that would ensure all data is
flushed to disk before the snapshot
- domU backing storage that is capable of doing snapshot/clone (e.g.
LVM, VHD image)

So the short version to your question, the closest thing to what you
want is to probably do a LVM-snapshot on dom0, use the snapshot data
to create a clone, then delete the snapshot afterwards. If your
backing storage is capable of creating "good" clones (e.g. zfs,
netapp) then you could use that directly.

--
Fajar

Hi Fajar,
Thanks for your explanations!

I managed to use logical volumes as guests partition, so I can use LVM-snapshot on dom0 to do hot-backups of my VMs and I use nested lvm on domU to manage disks and partitions.

Andrea

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