Re: [Xen-users] Backup running Windows machines - redundancy

[Roberto Bifulco <roberto.bifulco2@xxxxxxxx>]

Guido,
currently I'm performing a "raw" file-level backup of LV volumes.

These are the steps:

1. Pause VM
2. Snapshot LV
3. Unpause VM
4. Use kpartx to find partitions on LV-snapshot
5. Mount windows partition using ntfs-3g
6. Use rdiff-backup over the mounted partition, targeting a backup-storage
7. Umount
8. Remove snapshot


 > What about the windows
acls on those files, is rdiff able to include them in the backup?

I'm totally dependent on rdiff-backup for such things. So you can refer to rdiff-backup documentation.
In http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/features.html you can find this:

"Filesystem feature autodetection: People use rdiff-backup in many different environments. The filesystem they want to back up may be on Linux, Windows, or Mac. It may or may not be case sensitive, support characters like ":", have resource forks, extended attributes, or access control lists. Moreover, the file system they are backing up to may or may not support these features.

rdiff-backup tries to handle these situations automatically without the need for switches like --acl --ea --no-ownership, etc. When run it will run tests on both the source and destination filesystems to see what features each supports like case sensitivity, changing uid/gid ownership, resource forks, extended attributes, or access control lists. To see the results of this testing, run rdiff-backup with verbosity 4 or higher, as in -v4."

Roberto.

2011/2/2 Guido Hecken <guido.hecken@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Roberto,

could you give us some more informations concerning your backup-strategy.

I’m working on the same subject and worked out some kind of “universal backup-script” which

uses different backup-methods, like dd with gzip, partimage, and ntfsclone for different operating systems.

 

Since nearly all of our domu have their base on LVM Storage, the process of creating a snapshot

and afterwards working with different backup tools on the snapshot seems to be the right way.

For desaster recovery an image created with dd and gzip works great but as stated by Paul this

kind of backup is not the right tool for daily (file-) backup.

 

Do you use ntfs-3g for mounting the snapshot or the windows file system?

What about the windows acls on those files, is rdiff able to include them in the backup?

 

Guido

 

---

Von: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] Im Auftrag von Roberto Bifulco
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 2. Februar 2011 15:14
An: sysadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Betreff: Re: [Xen-users] Backup running Windows machines - redundancy

 

Hi Paul,

currently I'm trying to backup Windows machines using rdiff-backup for incremental backups.

I mount the Windows fs in dom0 and then rdiff-backup performs the incremental backup.

To restore a backup, just mount the Windows fs, rm all files in the mount point, and use rdiff-backup to restore an old backup to the mounted Windows fs.

 

Roberto

 

 

 

2011/2/2 Paul PISCUC <paul.piscuc@xxxxxxxxxx>

Hi,

I know that there are a lot of tools to successfully backup windows guest machine, using samba shares, dd, rsync etc. They all work, but they don't solve one problem: redundancy.

In my current setup, backups are done using LVM snapshots, and rsync over the network. The problem is that the rsync is not incremental, and every time a new copy of the entire lv is sent to the backup server. I could mount on the Dom0 the disk of the windows guest, and send the files, but the restore process doesn't work.

Do you know/use other method to do incremental backups for Windows machines, that is more reliable or safer than this one?

Thanks alot.

Paul Piscuc



_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

--
Roberto Bifulco, Ph.D. Student
robertobifulco.it
COMICS Lab - www.comics.unina.it

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users

-- 
Roberto Bifulco, Ph.D. Student
robertobifulco.it
COMICS Lab - www.comics.unina.it
_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users