Backup/Restore host for convenient bare metal restore

[jhgoodwin]

Hi,

I was interested if there was a convenient way to just backup the host config. Ideally, I'd like to backup all the Storage locations, cron jobs, host settings, etc. Ideally the VM parts would be optional, but my idea is to basically allow you to reinstall, put the settings back from the backup, and if your VMs are stored on network storage, there would be no further configuration necessary to restore a crashed server.

Any thoughts?

John

 

[dietmar]

Just backup the /etc directory (on restore just copy selected files like /etc/pve/*, /etc/vz/conf/*, /etc/qemu-server/*)

 

[jhgoodwin]

Just backup the /etc directory (on restore just copy selected files like /etc/pve/*, /etc/vz/conf/*, /etc/qemu-server/*)

I don't think this really covers the entire issue, but I am glad you pointed those folders out. Some of the issues that aren't covered by this strategy:
1) Recreation of Storage locations (if local folders are used)
2) Some settings like the admin email I couldn't find in any of the /etc files. My method for searching was: grep -h 'jjgoodwin' /etc/*
The email contains: jjgoodwin

While I think your idea is close, there are a few holes, that I think can be plugged easily.

Thanks for your feedback.

John

 

[udo]

I don't think this really covers the entire issue, but I am glad you pointed those folders out. Some of the issues that aren't covered by this strategy:
1) Recreation of Storage locations (if local folders are used)
2) Some settings like the admin email I couldn't find in any of the /etc files. My method for searching was: grep -h 'jjgoodwin' /etc/*
The email contains: jjgoodwin

While I think your idea is close, there are a few holes, that I think can be plugged easily.

Thanks for your feedback.

John

Hi,
don't understand what you want... but if you use

grep -rh jjgoodwin /etc/*

you get perhaps the output of that what you mean.
Dietmar wrote to backup the /etc-directory - this means the complete directory with all subdirs - so you have all configdata you need. Plus the backup of the imagefiles and you can bring back the vm to life after a crash.

Udo

 

[jhgoodwin]

Hi,
don't understand what you want... but if you use

grep -rh jjgoodwin /etc/*

you get perhaps the output of that what you mean.
Dietmar wrote to backup the /etc-directory - this means the complete directory with all subdirs - so you have all configdata you need. Plus the backup of the imagefiles and you can bring back the vm to life after a crash.

Udo

I ran that command and still did not see the admin email address. I only saw it in the cron job for backups, but in the web interface, there's a spot for it.

Thanks,
John

 

[dietmar]

1) Recreation of Storage locations (if local folders are used)

A good documentation can help here.

2) Some settings like the admin email I couldn't find in any of the /etc files. My method for searching was: grep -h 'jjgoodwin' /etc/*
The email contains: jjgoodwin

Maybe it is in the /root directory (/root/.forward). Backup /root is also a good idea.

While I think your idea is close, there are a few holes, that I think can be plugged easily.

What you request is a full backup - there are many backup tools out there which can do that job.