An office I'm checking in on is using an old server as a backup host for their VMs. Currently the way they've set up the backups is with a cron executed shell script on the host that every month:
1: Backs up the VMs on the main server
2: Boots the Backup server
3: Once booted, detaches and moves the data drives from the VMs with extra drives (the data is backed up separately) (note these VMs have the same IP and MAC addresses, but are never to be turned on unless the main server is down)
4: Runs qm destroy for each VM!
5: Restores each VM with qmrestore and the new backups
6: Shuts down the backup host
My question is, is this really the best (or an acceptable) way of doing this? It just seems hacky and dangerous to me, but it seems to be working fine (and if it does break the backup server it's not the end of the world).
1: Backs up the VMs on the main server
2: Boots the Backup server
3: Once booted, detaches and moves the data drives from the VMs with extra drives (the data is backed up separately) (note these VMs have the same IP and MAC addresses, but are never to be turned on unless the main server is down)
4: Runs qm destroy for each VM!
5: Restores each VM with qmrestore and the new backups
6: Shuts down the backup host
My question is, is this really the best (or an acceptable) way of doing this? It just seems hacky and dangerous to me, but it seems to be working fine (and if it does break the backup server it's not the end of the world).