How to restore a container to a specific snapshot/backup

[hisaltesse]

I have been looking everywhere but could not find how to use vzdump to restore a container to a different snapshot than the last one taken. Would anyone know?

After all the point of snapshot is incremental backup and we should be able to restore to any previous date and not just the last one.

Anyone has a clue?

Thanks.

 

[dietmar]

I have been looking everywhere but could not find how to use vzdump to restore a container to a different snapshot than the last one taken. Would anyone know?

vzdump makes full backups - incremental backup is not possible.

After all the point of snapshot is incremental backup and we should be able to restore to any previous date and not just the last one.

Normally you store vzdump backups on tapes (like any other backup data).

- Dietmar

 

[hisaltesse]

Thank you for your reply Dietmar,

1. However what happens to all the previous full backups?
Does vzdump in proxmox simply save one full backup by overwriting the previous one or does it keep previous full backups as well?

2. Also in the vzdump documentation in openvz, and from the backup log of proxmox, it is pretty clear that the command used by proxmox to backup with vzdump is the one that is supposed to do a snapshot.

Here is an extract of my log:
creating lvm snapshot of /dev/mapper/pve-data ('/dev/pve/vzsnap')

Any reason why at this point it is still not the case?

Please help me understand.
Thanks.

 

[dietmar]

1. However what happens to all the previous full backups?
Does vzdump in proxmox simply save one full backup by overwriting the previous one

yes

2. Also in the vzdump documentation in openvz, and from the backup log of proxmox, it is pretty clear that the command used by proxmox to backup with vzdump is the one that is supposed to do a snapshot.

Here is an extract of my log:
creating lvm snapshot of /dev/mapper/pve-data ('/dev/pve/vzsnap')

Any reason why at this point it is still not the case?

Sorry, I do not understand that question?

- Dietmar

 

[hisaltesse]

About my second question, maybe I got confused.

I thought the word snapshot in vzdump meant incremental snapshots a little like on VMware ESX where you can keep taking snapshots and restore back to any snapshot in the past (not necessarily the last one).

And you confirm that vzdump does not allow to restore to a snapshot of a given date in the past right?

 

[dietmar]

And you confirm that vzdump does not allow to restore to a snapshot of a given date in the past right?

I allows you to restore full backup made with vzdump.

- Dietmar

 

[blender]

I thought the word snapshot in vzdump meant incremental snapshots a little like on VMware ESX where you can keep taking snapshots and restore back to any snapshot in the past (not necessarily the last one).

I thought the same, especially since the vzdump is timestamped. Was surprised to see that the previous backup was deleted/overwritten.

Cheers

 

[screenie]

maybe it would be a good feature to select how much backups back should be stored and the oldest will be deleted when a new one is created?

 

[huedlrick]

have a look at "man vzdump"
you can configure in /etc/vzdump.conf how many backupfiles you want to keep.

 

[screenie]

ah cool - would be nice to have this in the pve-gui per vm or backup job because you probably do not want this for every test-vm or different amount of kept backups

 

[dietmar]

ah cool - would be nice to have this in the pve-gui per vm or backup job because you probably do not want this for every test-vm or different amount of kept backups

ok - added to our todo list.

 

[joolsr]

I tried /etc/vzdump but the file isnt there

 

[huedlrick]

you have to create the file '/etc/vzdump.conf'.
Do something like
'touch /etc/vzdump.conf' and then edit it
or
'vim /etc/vzdump.conf' set your parameter and write the file.