Backup to Local LVM drive

[tomc]

Hi,
Still battling my way through the Linux world, I should have started years ago.
Anyway keeps my brain working, now the problem.
At the moment I have a single HP Proliant DL 380G5 Server.
Installed are two 1TB SATA HDDrives.
On first disk installed the latest ProxMox and updates.
On that drive, I installed 2 VM's, firstly Windows Server 2008, and PCBSD as the second VM.
I have set the other drive up as an LVM, using the whole disk.
I would like to be able to do backups to this, but I cannot, all I can do is clone the VMs?

I have deleted and reconfigured at least 6 times with the same result.
ProxMox GUI sees and lets me add the space, but no backup??????

I'm sure I'm missing something simple??

I plan to add other servers at a later date including a NAS, when that is done I can do an iSCSI LVM.

 

[e100]

Backups are stored as files, files are stored on filesystems.
LVM provides dynamically allocated block devices.

So... What you could do is manually create a volume on your LVM disk, format it with a filesystem of your choice, mount it and then inform Proxmox of the backup filesystem you just created.

IMHO this is not the backup solution you are looking for, I learned this lesson the hard way.
What if hackers/virus delete all of your data including the backups?
What ya gonna do when lightening strikes and kills all the disks in your server?

That lightening problem actually happened to me long ago and is why I am writing this long ranting post so you and hopefully others do not make the same mistake I did.

What I do:
Each server has a hot swappable SATA bay specifically for backups, where I do not have a bay I use eSATA.
Each server has 4 dedicated backup disks, they are rotated weekly with the idle three stored in an offsite location.
To protect the data each disk is encrypted using LUKS with 256bit AES encryption (really easy to setup) and don't forget to backup the encryption keys and keep them protected!

Why 4 disks? Sometimes backups are bad more backups the better, if I only have two and a tornado hits the datacenter when I am swapping them... my replacement will still have two backup disks to restore things and the insurance company will replace the two I had.

If you are just playing around at home and on a budget, use a single USB or eSATA disk, hook it up to backup(when whether is good) and disconnect it once the backup is completed. If possible store it offsite. (work, friends house, safety deposit box)

Test your backups periodically. If you are not testing that your backups actually work you might as well not bother making backups.
Assumptions and backups do not mix well and will lead to disaster.

Whatever you do remember this:
If the backup is not offsite, offline and tested then you do not have a backup, you have just hope and prayers.