In my last job I was responsible not only for for Oracle databases asd DBA but for Xen maintenance too. I was used to backuping all my VMs using
dd and
pbzip2. The main command was something like - from dom0 -
# 1. Create a LVM snapshot
lvcreate -s -n <name_of_the_snapshot> -L<size>G /dev/xenvg/<name_of_LVM>
# 2. Backuping VM
dd if=/dev/xenvg/<name_of_the_snapshot> | pbzip2 -c -z -m1024 -v -p3 > /path/to/<name_of_backup_VM>.img.bz2
Today for personal reason, I will like to test a new tool:
fsarchiver
1. fsarchiver - informations
For more details, have a look on the main Web site :
http://www.fsarchiver.org/Main_Page
2. fsarchiver - installation
- Prerequisites for Debian Squeeze
apt-get update
apt-get install zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libbz2-dev liblzo2-dev e2fslibs-dev attr-dev libssl-dev libblkid-dev uuid-dev libgcrypt11-dev
- lzma depends on xz
wget http://tukaani.org/xz/xz-5.0.3.tar.bz2
tar xjf xz-5.0.3.tar.bz2
cd xz-5.0.3/
./configure
make -j4
make check
make install && ldconfig
- farchiver
Download the last sources from http://sourceforge.net/projects/fsarchiver/files/fsarchiver-src/ then
tar xvf fsarchiver-0.6.12.tar.gz
cd fsarchiver-0.6.12/
./configure
make -j4
make install && ldconfig
3. Test for backups
I've got a domU mercury-xen01. This is a Linux PVHVM - I used it for my tests for VGA PassThrough -. This domU relies on LVM:
/dev/xenvg/mercury-xen01-disk-1
3.1 Make a snapshot before testing
lvcreate -s -n mercury-xen01-disk-1.snapshot -L30G /dev/xenvg/mercury-xen01-disk-1
- Now we can use
kpart
root@mercury:~# kpartx -va /dev/xenvg/mercury-xen01-disk-1
add map xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p1 (253:14): 0 402339840 linear /dev/xenvg/mercury-xen01-disk-1 2048
add map xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p2 (253:15): 0 17084418 linear /dev/xenvg/mercury-xen01-disk-1 402343934
add map xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p5 : 0 17084416 linear 253:15 2
3.2 Backup with default compression level (-z3 / gzip)
This is the default compression level (equivalent to gzip -6 )
First have a look
http://www.fsarchiver.org/Compression
fsarchiver savefs -j4 -v -o /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21.fsa /dev/mapper/xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p1
For information about archive
root@mercury:~# fsarchiver archinfo /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21.fsa
====================== archive information ======================
Archive type: filesystems
Filesystems count: 1
Archive id: 4f4c603b
Archive file format: FsArCh_002
Archive created with: 0.6.12
Archive creation date: 2012-02-22_01-59-35
Archive label:
Minimum fsarchiver version: 0.6.4.0
Compression level: 3 (gzip level 6)
Encryption algorithm: none
===================== filesystem information ====================
Filesystem id in archive: 0
Filesystem format: ext4
Filesystem label:
Filesystem uuid: be744358-3672-4a94-818d-c09c178b01d2
Original device: /dev/mapper/xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p1
Original filesystem size: 188.84 GB (202765496320 bytes)
Space used in filesystem: 10.05 GB (10787442688 bytes)
Archive size
root@mercury:~# du -hs /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21.fsa
4,1G /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21.fsa
3.3 Backup with high compression level (-z9 / lzma)
Keep in mind
- [+]: smaller archive, better decompression time
- [-]: takes more time to generate archive
fsarchiver savefs -j4 -v -o -z9 /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21_using_lzma.fsa /dev/mapper/xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p1
For informations about archive
root@mercury:~# fsarchiver archinfo /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21_using_lzma.fsa
====================== archive information ======================
Archive type: filesystems
Filesystems count: 1
Archive id: 4f4afe30
Archive file format: FsArCh_002
Archive created with: 0.6.12
Archive creation date: 2012-02-22_02-10-24
Archive label:
Minimum fsarchiver version: 0.6.4.0
Compression level: 9 (lzma level 9)
Encryption algorithm: none
===================== filesystem information ====================
Filesystem id in archive: 0
Filesystem format: ext4
Filesystem label:
Filesystem uuid: be744358-3672-4a94-818d-c09c178b01d2
Original device: /dev/mapper/xenvg-mercury--xen01--disk--1p1
Original filesystem size: 188.84 GB (202765496320 bytes)
Space used in filesystem: 10.05 GB (10787442688 bytes)
Archive size
root@mercury:~# du -hs /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21_using_lzma.fsa
3,3G /opt/montage/mercury-xen01-disk-1_backup_2012-02-21_using_lzma.fsa
4. Test for restore
To be completed!
. I've got one of Limelight images on my mug but not one of the following images
! 
See 