[Xen-users] Backing up "live" Xen systems?

[Steve Kemp <steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

  I've been testing Xen for a few weeks now and am just about to
 put it into production use.  (I wrote some scripts to create 
 Debian images easily; the tools are included in Debian Sid as
 "xen-tools".)

  The only thing troubling me at the moment is backing up the
 virtual instances.

  I'm looking to run about four virtual systems upon a host.  If
 the physical host dies then I'm going to be in trouble without
 backups!

  I realise I can setup traditional backups within the virtual
 instances using rsync, scp, or a backup agent.  But I'm curious
 about backing up images live.  (Primarily to avoid having to
 setup near identical scripts upon each instance and make sure
 they work correctly.)

  It strikes me that the live-migration support does a lot of the
 things that a backup of a live system should do - literally sending
 the contents of the systems image + memory to a new host.

  Would it be possible to write a simple "fake" migration server 
 to receive the image, write it to disk, and then "abort" gracefully?

  That would allow a live system to be backed up without taking
 it offline.

  Any thoughts, or suggestions, appreciated.

Steve
-- 
Debian GNU/Linux System Administration
http://www.debian-administration.org/


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