[CentOS-virt] Backing up a running KVM guest
Julian Price
centos.org at jul17pri.co.uk
Fri Mar 27 18:10:11 UTC 2009
Kai Schaetzl wrote:
> I'm not sure what you mean....
>
I mean that I am backing up one 32GB virtual disk in one file called
vm.img or vm.qcow or vm.vhd depending on the virtual disk format.
The advantage is that
- we don't care which operating system is inside the virtual disk file
- We can use the LVM snapshot to ensure that the virtual disk file
represents a moment in time, and doesn't change during the backup, so it
is consistent.
- There is no need to hold the database lock during the backup - only at
the moment the snapshot is started.
The answer to whether this technique works with Xen is answered 'Yes' on
this page:
http://wiki.sepsoftware.com/wiki/index.php/Online_backup_of_virtual_XEN_machines
They are using their proprietary backup software instead of rsync but
the technique is essentially the same.
Thanks,
Julian
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