How to restore citrix-xen vms for free with xen-phoenix (bash)

Applicable Products

• XenDesktop
• XenApp 7.5

Objective

This article describes how to back up and restore a XenDesktop database on Microsoft SQL Server.

Requirements

This article assumes you are an SQL administrator with basic knowledge of SQL Server or appropriate resources to assist with the execution of the SQL statement command.

Background

When using Microsoft SQL Server, consult the Database Server product documentation for scheduling automated backups of the data store. In most cases, daily backup is sufficient to prevent loss of farm data.

Instructions

Backup

The following process describes how to perform a one-time, manual backup. It does not prevent the need to perform scheduled backups of the database. This backup captures a snapshot of the database at that time it is performed. It is recommended that no administrative changes be performed while the backup is in progress.

Complete the following procedure:

Verify the name of the database and database server that is currently used by starting PowerShell from the Desktop Studio Console.

Run the following command: Get-BrokerDBConnection to get the name of the database server/Data Source and the Database/Initial Catalog name.
Example 1
PS C:\> Get-BrokerDBConnection
Server= sqlserver.training.local;Database= CitrixXenDesktopDB ;Trusted_Connection=True”

Example 2
PS C:\> Get-BrokerDBConnection
Data Source=SQLServer; Failover Partner=SQLServer2; Initial Catalog=CitrixXenDesktopDB; Integrated Security=True; Network=dbmssocn

Connect to the SQL server and open the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.

Connect to the Database Engine.

Expand the Databases node for your server and navigate to the database identified in Step 2.

Right-click database, select Tasks > Back Up.

Verify that the backup type is set to Full and verify the information listed. There is an option you can leverage to verify the backup when finished.

Cick OK and ensure that the backup completed successfully.

Restore

Important

Remove any hotfixes applied after the backup before performing the restore.

As a precaution, back up the present database before the restore.

The following process describes how to perform a restore from the backup done in the previous section. This process returns the database to the point in time when the backup was performed. Any changes made after that point in time will be lost.

Complete the following procedure:

Connect to the Database Engine.

Expand the Databases node for your server and navigate to the name of your XenDesktop database.

Right-click database, select Tasks > Restore > Database.

Select the backup set that you want to restore from the list or go to the next step on how to select a file.

The source can be changed to From device then select the browse “…” icon

Select Add to locate the backup file from its folder.

Ensure the correct backup set is selected then click Options.

From Options , click Overwrite the existing database and Restore with recovery.

Click OK.

Restart Each Broker.

From each broker, open a PowerShell prompt and run the following commands to verify the status of each service:

Add-PSSnapin Citrix.*
Get-AcctServiceStatus
Get-BrokerServiceStatus
Get-ConfigServiceStatus
Get-HypServiceStatus
Get-LicServiceStatus
Get-ProvServiceStatus
Get-PvsVmServiceStatus

Note: Verify that all preceding commands have returned a result of OK. If a result other than OK is returned for any of these commands, it might be necessary to enable logging or tracing to determine the cause of the connection failure.

Use the XDDBDiag utility – CTX128075 – XDDBDiag for XenDesktop to verify the consistency of the database after the restore. If any Virtual Desktop Agents were running when the DDC services were shut down in Step 1, it could take up to 10 minutes before the Virtual Desktop Agents reregister. No other action is required.

Read to the Desktop groups all changes including catalogs, hosts, or assignments made after the backup date.

您是否曾需要为灾难恢复（DR）解决方案批量恢复Citrix-Xen VM，或仅测试备份是否正常工作？ HTG解释如何使用Xen-Phoenix，一个免费的bash脚本，用于VM恢复。

就像我们在“已经提到如何备份思杰的Xen虚拟机免费使用Xen的pocalypse ”，在思杰的Xen漂亮的事情之一是，它的许多功能都是免费的。 话虽如此，如果您想要“自动VM保护和恢复”功能，您必须开始支付“高级”许可证。 再次，这不是我们在HTG正在消除真正的备份解决方案的价值，但如果你在一个紧张的预算，已经得到虚拟机映像从管理程序，并需要一种方法来自动化您的“测试恢复“/”DR刷新“过程，您可能会发现Xen-Phoenix在作出预算承诺之前是一个完全合理的解决方案。

“用例”：您有几个需要恢复的VM。 使用右键单击在“Xen Center”中导入可以很好，但是您希望此过程自动按计划进行。 此Bash脚本使用“XE”命令来执行其职责。 XE是Xen命令行界面（CLI），自动等效于在“Xen Center”中发出“右键单击”。 我们将调用从脚本的Cron这将提供“计划”的一部分。 在其最简单的形式中，恢复流程是：

• 删除服务器上的所有*先前存在的虚拟机
• 从备份位置的文件导入VM。
• 通过逐个激活它们并查找guest虚拟机工具心跳，验证所有虚拟机是否可操作。
• 在发现心跳或已达到超时后关闭VM。

Xen的凤凰可以自如地获得从GitHub ，使用常规的git的方法。 随着中说，如果你没有在Git中精通的是，你可以抓住的zip文件此链接 。 由于脚本需要在其中一个Xen服务器上运行，因此应该将其解压缩，以便保留执行权限。

wget
unzip master

虽然思杰的Xen随意闲逛，我发现了存储库 （SR）的可供下使用“/ var / run中/ SR-安装/％UUID％”，其中UUID是SR的唯一标识符，它可以是从GUI获得。

这意味着我们可以使用常规的“下一步- >下一步- >完成”向导创建的“摩的”到所需的备份位置，然后让脚本中使用该路径（如并列与安装搞乱命令行是超出本指南的范围）。

获取SR的UUID

配置设置文件

• 源导出的位置 – 如果您已遵循指南到这一点，您只需要将％UUID％替换为从上面获取的SR。
• SendEmail的位置 – 如果您已选择启用电子邮件，则需要在此处输入您已提取perl可执行文件的位置。
• 验证器 – 这控制后恢复验证过程。 这是默认启用的，因为成功的“文件级恢复”不一定意味着功能虚拟机。
• Server_prep -它控制所有虚拟机的容灾服务器上恢复前删除 。 默认情况下启用此选项，因为假定DR服务器是用于此目的的专用服务器。 如果需要在此服务器上运行的VM不能被删除，请将其配置为排除。 如果此行为不适合您的情况，请完全禁用它。
• 电子邮件的详细信息-同样，如果你启用了电子邮件，您需要定义细节，例如：收件人，发件人，服务器名/ IP和等“。
• 调试 -默认为已经调试关闭，其值为“0”（零）。 你不需要打开这个，但如果你这样做，更多的信息在故障排除分段。

该脚本的设置文件作为其第一个参数，任何其他参数为“ V形 ”搜索（用空格隔开）。 Chevrons是“字符串”，它支持表示VM导出的所需文件名的至少一部分的正则表达式。

./Xen-phoenix.sh settings.cfg [Aa][Dd] [Bb][iI] [Dd]ev[Tt]ools

如上所述，我们将使用的Cron调度的执行。 我们进入配置之前， 强烈建议您配置已安装ssmtp中包的Xen的服务器上。 虽然这是一个可选的步骤，这样做会给你一个“反洗”收集器。 有这样的“反洗收集器”可以提醒你脚本不能的东西。

31 01 * * sun /root/Xen-phoenix-master/Xen-phoenix.sh /root/Xen-phoenix-master/settings.cfg [Aa][Dd] DB [Bb][iI] [Dd]ev[Tt]ools

以上是正确的假设你的脚本和设置文件都在“/ root / Xen-phoenix-master /”下。

获取SendEmail（可选）

• 当它开始并完成运行时通知您。
• 提醒您能够检测和处理的任何错误。

wget
tar xvzhf sendEmail-v1.56.tar.gz

定义“删除异常”标记（可选）

记录

调试

如设置文件段中所述，有一个指令启用调试。 启用调试将导致脚本向控制台输出详细日志记录，并阉割它发送电子邮件并实际执行导入，除非相关标志也被设置。 可能的标志在设置文件模板中注明，它们使您能够精确地定义要调试的内容。

您是否曾經需要為災難恢復 (DR) 解決方案批量恢復您的 Citrix-Xen VM，或者只是為了測試您的備份是否正常工作？ HTG 解釋瞭如何使用 Xen-Phoenix（一個免費的 bash 腳本）進行 VMrestore。

圖片來源：Ryan McCurdy 通過 Compfight cc

就像我們在“如何使用 Xen-pocalypse 免費備份 Citrix Xen VM”中提到的那樣，Citrix Xen 的一個好處是它的許多功能是自由收費。 話雖如此，如果您想要淎自動的 VM 保護和恢復功能，您將不得不開始為淎dvance 許可證付費。 再說一次，並不是我們 HTG 忽視了真正備份解決方案的價值，但如果您預算緊張，已經從管理程序中獲取 VM 映像，並且需要一種方法來自動化您的“測試恢復”/在“DR 刷新”過程中，您可能會在做出預算承諾之前發現 Xen-Phoenix 是一個非常合理的解決方案。

渦se 案例滫 您有幾個需要恢復的虛擬機。 使用右鍵單擊在淴en Center 中導入工作正常，但您希望此過程自動發生並按計劃進行。 這個 Bash 腳本使用淴E 命令來執行它的職責。 XE 是 Xen 命令行界面 (CLI)，自動等效於在淴en 中心發出渞ight 點擊？ 我們將從 Cron 調用腳本，它將提供渟調度部分。 最簡單的恢復流程是：

• 刪除 服務器上所有*以前存在的虛擬機
• 從備份位置的文件導入 VM。
• 通過一一激活所有 VM 並查找來賓工具心跳來驗證所有 VM 是否可運行。
• 當檢測到心跳或超時時關閉 VM。

Xen-phoenix 可以從 github 上免費獲得，使用常規的 git 方法。 話雖如此，如果您不熟悉 gityet，您可以通過此鏈接獲取 zip 文件。 由於腳本需要在您的一台 Xen 服務器上運行，您應該將其解壓縮到那裡，以便保留執行權限。

wget
unzip master

雖然上述方法可行，但建議您使用 GIT 方法，以便您可以從未來的更新中受益。

我們需要配置從何處獲取 VM 導出。

在Citrix Xen 中隨機探索時，我發現StorageRepositories(SR) 可在?var/run/sr-mount/%UUID% 下使用，其中UUID 是SR 的唯一標識符，可以從GUI 獲取。

這意味著我們可以使用常規的 淣ext -> Next -> Finish 嚮導來創建“掛載”到所需的備份位置，然後讓腳本使用該路徑（這可能會導致從命令行進行掛載，這超出了本指南的範圍）。

創建一個新的渕數？ 右鍵單擊服務器名稱並選擇新建 SR。

獲取SR檚 UUID

要獲得 SR檚 UUID，只需在 Xen 中心單擊其名稱，然後轉到淕常規選項卡。

配置設置文件

Xen-phoenix 項目捆綁了一個渟ettings 文件模板。這個模板應該被編輯以反映你的設置並作為第一個參數傳遞給腳本。

• sources 的位置 如果您已經按照指南進行到這一點，您只需要將 %UUID% 替換為從上面獲得的 SR檚。
• SendEmail 的位置 如果您選擇啟用電子郵件，則需要在此處輸入您提取 perl 可執行文件的位置。
• 驗證程序 — 控制恢復後的驗證程序。 這是默認啟用的，因為成功的“文件級還原”並不一定意味著功能正常的 VM。
• Server_prep — 控制預還原 刪除DR 服務器上的所有 VM。 這是默認啟用的，因為假定 DR 服務器是用於此目的的專用服務器。 如果您需要不刪除在此服務器上運行的 VM，請將其配置為排除。 如果此行為不適合您的情況，只需將其完全禁用即可。
• 電子郵件詳情——同樣，如果您啟用了電子郵件，您需要定義詳細信息，例如：收件人、發件人、服務器名稱/IP 等？
• 調試 默認值是使用值 ? （零）。 您應該不需要打開此功能，但如果您打開了，更多信息會在故障排除部分中註明。

此腳本將設置文件作為其第一個參數，並將任何其他參數作為“Chevrons”進行搜索（以空格分隔）。Chevrons 是“字符串”，支持正則表達式，這些表達式至少代表 VM 導出所需文件名的一部分.

也就是說，以最簡單的形式，對 Xen-phoenix 的調用如下所示：

在上述情況下，我們位於保存腳本和設置文件的目錄中，腳本將查找的淐hevron 是淒evTools？ 這將導致導出目錄中名稱中帶有字符串“DevTools”的所有文件都將被導入。

如上所述，我們將使用 Cronto 安排執行。 在我們進入配置之前，它是強烈推薦您在 Xen 服務器上配置已安裝的 SSMTP 包。 雖然這是一個可選步驟，但這樣做會給你一個“反沖洗”收集器。 擁有這樣一個 渂ackwash 收集器可能會提醒您注意腳本無法處理的內容。

通過發出以下命令進入 cron檚 編輯模式：

如果您已按照上述說明操作，並且希望在周日 01:31（凌晨 1:31）添加計劃備份，請輸入以下內容：

31 01 * * sun /root/Xen-phoenix-master/Xen-phoenix.sh /root/Xen-phoenix-master/settings.cfg [Aa][Dd] DB [Bb][iI] [Dd]ev[Tt]ools

假設您的腳本和設置文件都在 ?root/Xen-phoenix-master/? 下，則上述內容是正確的。

獲取 SendEmail（可選）

我們以前寫過SendEmail perl 程序，這裡就不再贅述了。 可以這麼說，它在 Linux 上的工作方式與在 Windows 上的工作方式相同。

• 通知您它何時開始和完成運行。
• 提醒您它能夠檢測和處理的任何錯誤。

將其下載到 Xen 服務器並解壓縮。

wget
tar xvzhf sendEmail-v1.56.tar.gz

請注意您將edit 提取到的位置。 您將需要它作為設置文件。

定義“DeleteException”標籤（可選）

Xen-Phoenix 從其祖先 (Xen-Pocalypse) 獲取一個頁面，並讓您能夠使用控制 TAG 從系統範圍的刪除中精細地排除 VM。 為此，您需要定義一個新的“自定義字段”。

為此，請打開服務器檚或什至 VM檚 屬性。 在導航窗格中，選擇淐自定義字段？

如果這是您第一次定義“自定義字段”（如上例所示），您將沒有“Phoenix_keeper”字段可以輸入數據，因此您需要創建它。 為此，在彈出的對話框中點擊淓dit Custom Fields，然後點擊淎dd︹€滭/p>

關閉窗口。 您現在應該可以填寫淧hoenix_keeper 字段，如下圖所示。

現在，您所要做的就是用註釋填充此字段（任何註釋都可以），這將導致 Xen-phoenix 在刪除時跳過它。

日誌記錄

所有的日誌都是由Xen 主機在syslog 機制中運行腳本收集的。 當然，可以通過以下方式查看：

注意：Citrix 為其服務器的系統日誌設置了兩 (2) 天的保留政策。 您可能希望在事後分析中記住這一點。

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I have 2 disks one with XenServer and the other for VM storage.

After an energy fault the Disk with XenServer broke and i installed a new XenServer in another.

I add the old VM disk as a new localstorage but the VMs are not showing.

How can i make XenServer see te VMs again ?

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© 1999 – 2022 Citrix Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Applicable Products

• XenServer

Objective

When migrating a set of Virtual Machines (VMs) from one XenServer host or pool to another, it is necessary to back up and then restore the Virtual Machine Metadata.

It is recommended that the Virtual Machine Metadata be stored on the same Storage Repository as the Virtual Machines. But, it is also possible to store this metadata on a USB mass storage device such as a thumb drive or portable hard disk.

This article describes how to create a Virtual Machine Metadata backup to a USB storage device by creating a Storage Repository on the USB storage device and using xsconsole to perform the backup.

Instructions

Following are the requirements:

USB mass storage device such as a USB flash drive or portable hard disk. Please note that all data will be destroyed on this device and will need to be reformatted if used later.

Complete the following procedure:

Determine the device file needed for the USB storage device. To do this, list all block devices and their partitions by executing the following command, as shown in the following screen shot:
fdisk –l

Create the storage repository on the USB storage device.

By examining the output of fdisk –l (as shown in step 1), identify the partition on the USB storage device. Create an ext3-based storage repository on the USB storage device by executing:
xe sr-create host-uuid= content-type=user \
name-label=”Metadata Backup SR ” shared=false \
device-config:device= type=lvm

Refer to the reference guide for further details on creating Ext3 storage repositories:
CTX118447 ‑ XenServer Administrator’s Guide

A successful completion of the command returns the UUID of the new SR.

Example:
xe sr-create name-label=”My thumb drive” content-type=user type=lvm device-config:device=/dev/sdb1

In the XenServer console (accessible with xsconsole using the command line interface in the XenCenter), select Backup, Restore and Update:

Select Backup Virtual Machine Metadata:

Select the new storage repository created earlier using the xe sr-create command:

Proceed with VM backup using your thumb drive or other USB drive.

I’m trying to do a lab on azure cloud , could you help to do it?

I need a steps to create VMs :

Windows server 2012

Citri xenapp and desktop

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© 1999 – 2022 Citrix Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A guide to install XenServer tools into your VMs.

Olivier Lambert

This blog post is for people discovering XenServer, and wonder about how to install XenServer tools (or xen tools) in their VMs. And also what are those tools.

It’s also a guide to install xentools for both Linux and Windows VMs.

First, we’ll see how to check if tools are installed, and then, install those if necessary, on both Linux and Windows.

Are tools installed?

It’s really easy to check this with Xen Orchestra: in the home view, a running VM without any operating system icon don’t have tools:

See the difference with a “correct” VM (Debian logo):

You can also display all running VMs without tools thanks to the following search: power_state:running !xenTools:””

Here, two running VMs are without tools

In the VM view, you can also read “No Xen tools detected.”:

Install XenServer tools

Next step is to install those tools. Also I’ll give you some tips.

For any VM, go in the console view on your VM, and insert the appropriate ISO:

• xs-tools.iso for XenServer 6 and older
• guest-tools.iso for XenServer 7 and high

Then, each system is a bit different.

For Linux VMs

Debian, Ubuntu (deb based)

For a Debian VM, it’s pretty simple, as root :

• mount /dev/cdrom /mnt
• bash /mnt/Linux/install.sh
• umount /dev/cdrom

In a real example:

That’s all! You can eject the ISO now.

As soon the .deb is installed, tools will report their info: no need to reboot!

CentOS, RHEL (rpm based)

Same principle, almost same procedure than on a Deb based distro:

Nope, rebooting is not mandatory.

For Windows VMs

After loading the appropriate ISO, you should see a CD with tools:

Start the setup.exe :

This time, you must reboot.

After the initial reboot, your Windows OS has tools but also extra drivers for Xen (better perfs), eg in your device manager:

Windows quiesce snapshots

You have the agent management, but that’s not enough if you want to take quiesced snapshots!

You can read mon on quiesce snapshots on our previous blog post: XenServer quiesce snapshots

What those tools are doing?

Basically, goals of those tools are:

• to report extra VM info (that only the Operating system can know, not your underlying hypervisor), like VM IP address, kernel version etc.
• communicate with the OS in case of quiesce snapshots (Windows and its VSS)
• allow sending signals to the OS (clean reboot, hotplug hardware etc.)

Update tools

You want to update tools? Just do the same procedure than for installing them.

XenServer Enterprise users can enjoy Windows Update doing the work of updating those tools too (but sadly, it’s not in the free edition of XenServer).

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Xen Orchestra 5.70

XO 5.70 is now available! OVA export, restore check and much more on the program. Discover this great release now.

Xen Orchestra 5.69

Xen Orchestra 5.69 is now available on the latest branch. In this release, we make significant improvements to one of the update features available in Xen Orchestra.

Xen Orchestra 5.68

Xen Orchestra 5.68 is now available. While our teams continue to work on the implementation of Xen Orchestra Lite, we are also making progress on projects that will come to fruition with the release of Xen Orchestra 6, such as the creation of a new public REST API.

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If you need to migrate a Citrix XenServer VM to VMware vSphere platform, there is a specific procedure to follow since a direct migration is not supported.

The migration procedure is composed by three steps: export, disk conversion, finalization.

Export XenServer VM to VMware

To export a XenServer virtual machine, login to the XenCenter and locate the cluster to process.

Search for the VM to export.

To finalize the export, the VM must be powered off. Right click the desired VM and select Shut Down.

Click Yes to confirm.

The VM is being powered off.

When the shutdown operation has been completed, right click the powered off VM and select Export. Keep in mind that XenServer cannot export VMs bigger than 2 TB. The source VM is not deleted.

This article has been written for StarWind blog and can be found in this page. It covers the full procedure to migrate a Citrix XenServer VM to VMware.

Finalize the conversion

Open the vSphere Client, right click the just created VM and select Edit Settings.

Click Add New Device and select CD/DVD Drive to install the device since VMware Tools installation will require it. Keep in mind the Network adapter configured after the creation is set to E1000 type.

Power on the virtual machine to check if everything works as expected.

The virtual machine is now running on the vSphere platform. Make sure the source virtual machine on XenServer is not powered on to avoid IP address conflict.

I reinstalled a XenServer and now I want to restore the old volume group which contains the old VMs.

I did following steps:

Step 1:
[[email protected] /]# pvscan
PV /dev/sdc3 VG VG_XenStorage-22ee7866-35e9-e46a-e709-8258c7e59425 lvm2 [224.88 GB / 208.83 GB free]
PV /dev/sda3 VG XSLocalEXT-43d6cf1c-3b86-dd4f-8afc-9dcf2688082c lvm2 [923.50 GB / 0 free]
PV /dev/sdb VG XSLocalEXT-43d6cf1c-3b86-dd4f-8afc-9dcf2688082c lvm2 [931.50 GB / 8.00 GB free]
Total: 3 [2.03 TB] / in use: 3 [2.03 TB] / in no VG: 0 [0 ]

/dev/sda3/ (uuid = 43d6cf1c-3b86-dd4f-8afc-9dcf2688082c) is the physical volume I want to associate with the XenServer.

Step 2:
[[email protected] /]# xe sr-introduce uuid=43d6cf1c-3b86-dd4f-8afc-9dcf2688082c type=lvm name-label=”Local storage” content-type=user

Step 3:
[[email protected] /]# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/

Result:
scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1003FBYX-_WD-WCAW32343844-part3

Step 4:
[[email protected] /]# xe host-list
uuid ( RO) : c4a99ae3-bccd-4a97-a158-51ba2739cca8
name-label ( RW): xenserver
name-description ( RW): Default install of XenServer

Step 5:
[[email protected] /]# xe pbd-create sr-uuid=43d6cf1c-3b86-dd4f-8afc-9dcf2688082c device-config:device=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD1003FBYX-_WD-WCAW32343844-part3 host-uuid=c4a99ae3-bccd-4a97-a158-51ba2739cca8
db64f801-ab84-80e9-c39b-367f87615c6c

Step 6:
[[email protected] /]# [[email protected] /]# xe pbd-plug uuid=db64f801-ab84-80e9-c39b-367f87615c6c
-bash: [[email protected]: command not found
[[email protected] /]# xe pbd-plug uuid=db64f801-ab84-80e9-c39b-367f87615c6c
The server failed to handle your request, due to an internal error. The given message may give details useful for debugging the problem.
message: Failure(“Storage_access failed with: SR_BACKEND_FAILURE_47: [ ; The SR is not available [opterr=no such volume group: VG_XenStorage-43d6cf1c-3b86-dd4f-8afc-9dcf2688082c]; ]”)

Thursday, 14 February 2013

How To Backup & Restore Free ESXi Host Configuration

ESXi host configurations can easily be backed up and restored using either the vCLI’s vicfg-cfgbackup or PowerCLI’s Get-VMHostFirmware cmdlet. These commands along with others that perform “write” operations are only supported when you have a (paid) licensed version of ESXi. If you are using free ESXi, the remote commands are only available for “read-only” operations.
Note: In my personal opinion, it is much quicker and more efficient to re-install ESXi and apply your configurations using either a scripted deployment such as kickstart or a combination along with post configuration scripts. Re-installs become extremely trivial when you centralize your ESXi host configurations, even for small setups.

Having said that, if you are running free ESXi in a small shop or in a home lab and wish to backup your ESXi host configurations, you can still do so by leveraging a neat little tool called vim-cmd found within the ESXi Shell. There is a section under hostsvc/firmware which manages the ESXi host configuration which also uses the same vSphere APIs that both vicfg-cfgbackup & Get-VMHostFirmeware command uses.

Under this section of vim-cmd, there are four commands:

• backup_config
• reset_config
• restore_config
• sync_config

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/sync_config

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/restore_config /tmp/configBundle.tgz

Note: Upon completing the restore, it will automatically reboot your ESXi host.

Here is a screenshot using the above commands to backup and then restore ESXi host:

Thursday, 14 February 2013

How To Backup & Restore Free ESXi Host Configuration

ESXi host configurations can easily be backed up and restored using either the vCLI’s vicfg-cfgbackup or PowerCLI’s Get-VMHostFirmware cmdlet. These commands along with others that perform “write” operations are only supported when you have a (paid) licensed version of ESXi. If you are using free ESXi, the remote commands are only available for “read-only” operations.
Note: In my personal opinion, it is much quicker and more efficient to re-install ESXi and apply your configurations using either a scripted deployment such as kickstart or a combination along with post configuration scripts. Re-installs become extremely trivial when you centralize your ESXi host configurations, even for small setups.

Having said that, if you are running free ESXi in a small shop or in a home lab and wish to backup your ESXi host configurations, you can still do so by leveraging a neat little tool called vim-cmd found within the ESXi Shell. There is a section under hostsvc/firmware which manages the ESXi host configuration which also uses the same vSphere APIs that both vicfg-cfgbackup & Get-VMHostFirmeware command uses.

Under this section of vim-cmd, there are four commands:

• backup_config
• reset_config
• restore_config
• sync_config

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/sync_config

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/backup_config

vim-cmd hostsvc/maintenance_mode_enter

vim-cmd hostsvc/firmware/restore_config /tmp/configBundle.tgz

Note: Upon completing the restore, it will automatically reboot your ESXi host.

Here is a screenshot using the above commands to backup and then restore ESXi host:

How do you back xen vm when its still on

I know with vmware I can use veeam but I don’t think it will work with xen

Regardless we are looking for and open source method to backup

Popular Topics in Citrix

3 Replies

Snapshots exported to BackBlaze b2 or similar service.

I have been using XenOrchestra Community edition and the installer here

I also moved my Xenservers to XCP-ng

I also did a script on setting up my own XOCE in Debian 9

you can use the veeam agent for your guest o/s’s as well, same stuff, just not native to the hypervisor. i didn’t go with nutanix years ago b/c they had 1 backup vendor and it was questionable at best from the people i spoke with, well that and a bunch of other reasons, so i stuck with vmware.

• local_offer Tagged Items
• Nutanix star 4.7

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It Comes Down to This.

32+ years in IT at all levels, and the job search returns this as my best matchJust wow. Way to validate my existence.

Snap! Microsoft Build, DuckDuckGo, Windows File Explorer, happy Geek Pride Day!

Your daily dose of tech news, in brief. Happy Geek Pride, Towel, & Lilac Day! Not sure what that is? Then make sure to read the last story on here! You need to hear this. Microsoft shows off Windows updates at Build dev event Microsoft Bui.

Broadcom buying Vmware?

If this happens how will it affect us users?

Spark! Pro series 25th May 2022

Today in History: 1945 Arthur C. Clark proposes relay satellites in geosynchronous orbitArthur Charles Clarke was born on 16 December 1917 in Minehead, Somerset, United Kingdom. During the Second World War he was involved in developing the new technology .

Published by Stephan on May 10, 2019 May 10, 2019

At our school we use Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer) (soon xcp-ng) to virtualize our school server and other applications. Citrix provides XenCenter, a management tool for Windows. With it you can easily manage all virtual machines and make settings on the Citrix Hypervisor. Another possibility is Xen Orchestra. It is a web-based tool that can do much more than XenCenter. On the website you can download a completely configured appliance. This is however strongly limited by the features (you have approx. 2 weeks time to test all features). Therefore I would like to give you a little tip how to install Xen Orchestra – with all features of the Enterprice and Premium Edition.

Install Xen Orchestra

Xen Orchestra is an open source project, so you can take the source code and install it yourself. You can find the instructions in the official documentation. On Github you will also find an installation script which performs the installation automatically. With this you can install Xen Orchestra in a few steps. On a fresh Ubuntu LTS server you only have to execute the following commands:

That was it already 🙂 You can access Xen Orchestra now with IP of the server. The default username is [email protected], the password is admin.

Update Xen Orchestra

When you’ve finished setting up Xen Orchestra and you should of course keep it up to date to get all security updates and new features. Actually every version brings some new features, which extend or facilitate the work with the XenServer (or xcp-ng). The author of the installation script provides another script for the updates. It can also be found on Github.

The update script offers several options. The following call is sufficient for a basic update:

After a few minutes Xen Orchestra is up to date again!

If you feel uncomfortable running a script from the net as root, you can of course take a look at the script to see exactly what it does or doesn’t do 🙂

Bottom line

Xen Orchestra is a great project. Our XenServer is easy to manage. Backups are quickly created (recently also backups of the configuration of Xen Orchestra) including notifications (eMail or Slack / Mattermost). These two scripts made our lives a lot easier. A big thank you to Jarli01!

As my fellow CTP Carl Webster writes about in his last blog post A Look Inside Webster’s Lab Phase 2 I’m also moving away from XenServer.

The reason? The need for speed. SMB 3 is fantastic and even with SMB 2 it puts XenServer back to the stone ages in terms of network performance, read more about it in this post Make your network 10x faster.

With the same hardware, the VM’s on SSD boot and perform faster on Hyper-V 2012 than on XenServer 6.1

My newest lab server is based upon this awesome blog post by MVP Jeff Guillet Blistering Fast Hyper-V 2012 Server – Parts List and Video!

Most of the new VM’s was rebuilt with MDT 2012 as shown inside my new free Citrix XenDesktop 7 Automation Boot Camp.

If you’re running on Hypervisor you don’t need the System Reserved partition of 350MB that Windows creates automatically when you install. It’s very easy to disable that from being created by adding DoNotCreateExtraPartition=YES to the CustomSettings.ini file. The size is not big, but multiply it with 20 VM’s running on expensive SSD disks!

For the other VM’s like SCCM, SQL, Exchange and File Server I first tried to migrate them with System Center Virtual Machine Manager based on this blog post XenServer Management on Steriods with SCVMM 2012.

Since that didn’t work and I wasn’t interested in wasting my weekend, I just exported them to XVA, converted to OVF, copied the VHD’s to Hyper-V 2012 and converted them to VHDX.

Yes I know, you can export them to OVF directly from XenCenter and then you’ll find the VHD disk inside.

Guess what, that didn’t work either and when the export failed, the VM’s wouldn’t start anymore so the only fix was to reboot my XenServer lab.

Enough time wasted. First I started with the latest and greatest Citrix XenConvert 2.5 – Well that feature has been removed so I uninstall and went with Citrix XenConvert 2.31!

To convert from VHD to VHDX select Edit Disk inside the Hyper-V 2012 Manager.

So now my lab is lightning fast and with my MDT 2012 framework and SSD disks it takes me very little time and efforts to build and test various scenarios with all the different OS’s with Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services.

The next step is to automate my lab further with SCVMM 2012 and Hyper-V 2012. Instead of dumping custom images to WIM files within MDT 2012 you can use the VDA as your template. When booting of that VDA the Task Sequences kick off.

All this reminds my of the good old days when we were PXE booting Windows 3.11 and running applications from the network shares. The same is happening today with App-V 5. Simply because it’s free and awesome. Learn more about App-V 5 inside my members area.

NVIDIA vGPU for XenServer is premium Citrix-licensed feature

Citrix XenServer editions have changed. In earlier versions of XenServer vGPU was included in all editions. Now Citrix does not include NVIDIA vGPU in Standard Editions and customers wishing to use the vGPU feature must purchase an Enterprise edition.

Customers who have purchased XenApp or XenDesktop continue to have an entitlement to XenServer, which includes all the features contained within the Standard edition and many of those in the Enterprise edition, including NVIDIA vGPU support.

This is most likely to be encountered by customers not using Citrix for VDI ( XenDesktop / XenApp ) but for commodity workloads e.g. hosting environment looking to use VM’s for video encode / transcode.

Open source XenServer does not include support for NVIDIA vGPU.

Symptom/Error

Symptoms are reported to vary, but those reported include:

not seeing profiles

being unable to start the VM (even at the CLI)

GPU tab may be missing in XenCenter

device is listed as something like “NVIDIA Corporation Unknown (13f2) GPUs”

Solution

Customers should consult the licensing documentation for the appropriate version of XenServer. E.g. for XenServer 6.5: CTX141511 – “XenServer 6.5 Licensing FAQ” and will need to license an appropriate version for their needs.

Applicable Products

NVIDIA GRID vGPU

Citrix XenServer Open Source/Free/Standard Editions

By:

Issue:

Solution:

First review specifications and requirements for Citrix-ready software, including using a supported version of Citrix XenApp (both server and client). Review the following requirements: Citrix Compatible Products from Autodesk.

Note for Installing Revit

1. If installing Revit, a defect in Windows Server 2008 R2 is triggered when Citrix XenApp 6.0 is installed and a critical component for VISTA is skipped during the installation.
2. To do a successful installation of Revit, download the registry files from \Utilities\Citrix folder to your desired location.
3. Then run VSTA-Fix.reg; now it is safe to install Revit.
4. Once the Revit installation is completed, run VSTA-Restore.reg to undo the changes to the registry.

Note for Installing AutoCAD

1. With the installation on the server complete, set up some data to be copied into each user’s Windows profile when they sign in to their local workstation.
2. This is because AutoCAD requires numerous local support files: Information from fonts and linetypes to customization files and plotter support files.
3. It is possible to manually copy all appropriate support files in each user’s Windows profile, or run a script to automate the process. See AutoCAD Map 3D Citrix Post Install Script.

Note: The above-mentioned scripts automate registry and user profile changes after AutoCAD Map 3D 2012 installation. Even though they were written for AutoCAD Map 3D, they can be used successfully to support other Citrix-ready Autodesk software should it be needed.

Finally, as with all Citrix applications, publish the application so that users can access it. Sharing the application only or the entire desktop is both supported for Autodesk software.

Note: Not all Autodesk product offerings may be virtualized. Virtualize a product only if the applicable terms and conditions governing its access to and use of that offering expressly permit virtualization. Where virtualization is authorized, all conditions and limitations specified in the applicable terms and conditions apply. Autodesk may make available information regarding the use of products in virtualized environments. Such information is offered solely for convenience, on an “as is” basis, and may contain errors, inaccuracies, or may be incomplete. Autodesk makes no representations, warranties, or other promises related to the use of any product in any virtualization environment or with any virtualization technology. If authorized to virtualize and elect to do so, you assume all risks associated with such use, including, but not limited to, incompatibility between the product and third-party virtualization technology or the virtualization environment. Read our Virtual Installation Guidelines and Terms of Use for more information.

It has always been critical to the mission of the XCP-ng project that the system and its components be free and open. As an open source project, we often collide with other worlds with other licensing arrangements.

XenServer / Citrix Hypervisor systems support Guest UEFI Secure Boot using a package that could be legally distributed, but the source code itself was never released. In order to support UEFI Secure Boot for guest VMs in XCP-ng, as well as maintain a free code base with freely available source code, we set out to rewrite this component of XCP-ng.

UEFI Secure Boot for guests allows you to control what system software gets executed in your guest VMs. By enabling secure boot from dom0 for a guest domain, the firmware implementation in that guest domain will only execute signed binaries and the kernel will only allow signed kernel modules. This means that by following the secure boot instructions for your guest VM distribution and enabling secure boot from dom0 (using `xe`), the effect will be the same as on hardware: only software signed by the distribution will execute.

This feature works for both Windows and Linux.

Why it matters

UEFI Secure Boot prevents a class of attacks in which the attacker modifies the system software, rendering it untrustworthy. In the case of the LoJax vulnerability, the attackers gained system control by writing a malicious firmware module to SPI flash that gets executed on boot. Secure Boot prevents this type of attack because when Secure Boot is enabled, the firmware refuses to execute any system software (firmware modules, bootloaders, kernels, etc. ) that is not signed by an authorized signer. In the LoJax case, the malicious module would be unsigned and the attacker would not be able to sign it with out access to the secret keys of the platform owners, and therefore the firmware would reject the malicious module and prevent the attack. It’s this exact type of attack that Secure Boot is meant to neutralize.

Trusting your system

Secure boot exists to give users assurance that their system is in a state they expect it to be and will behave how they expect it to behave. On XCP-ng, this feature offers assurance that the system software running as guests is authentic and not compromised. You can trust that your guests are what you expect them to be.

What it gives users

The way this feature is implemented in XCP-ng gives the administrator full control of secure boot in guests, allowing admins to whitelist and blacklist what may/may not execute on their platforms, even in guest context. They may also enable/disable secure boot on a per-vm basis.

How it works

UEFI Secure Boot stores are all keys as UEFI variables accessed via the variables runtime service. The UEFI implementation for XCP-ng guests (OVMF) support the variables service as port IO requests to dom0 in the same way that device emulation works (the low-level infrastructure is described here). This protects secure boot keys by placing them in a memory space that cannot be directly accessed from the guest domain (similar to SMRAM in non-virtualized systems).

Upon boot, if Secure Boot is enabled, OVMF will verify the second stage bootloader (often shim or the windows loader) against the db and dbx database UEFI variables that are stored in dom0. If verification passes, OVMF will launch the bootloader. If verification fails, OVMF will drop into the UEFI shell. On XCP-ng, a secure boot failure triggers a XAPI message that can be read from the XAPI DB.

On a Linux-based system, the typical boot flow is from the UEFI implementation, which verifies and starts shim, which verifies and starts grub2, which verifies and starts the Linux kernel. Furthermore, the kernel will verify kernel modules and should have lockdown enabled.

Future Work

The next step would be to deepen the system’s guarantee of integrity by implementing secure boot for dom0 and the host, as well as implementing something akin to Linux’s lockdown LSM to prevent dom0 modification of Xen.

We’ve already began the work of supporting Secure Boot for the XCP-ng host platform itself, which requires modification to Xen itself. We will write about that in a future blog.

we are using the free XenServer from Citrix for Virtualization. For linux guest Citrix provides XenServer Tools. Without these tools it is not possible to safe shutdown or reboot a linux guest. The management interface only supports ‘force shutdown’ which is like an instant poweroff. Citrix provides packages for Redhat and Debian. I think the tools should work under Gentoo. Has anyone tried to install the XenServer Tools?

If you want live migration/reporting/alerting/etc to work you need the tools installed.

Here are some good instructions (written for 5.5 but i have used the same process in 5.6 and its working fine for me):

Nothing’s wrong on your system. I must’ve forgotten to save as Unix format (lines ending in LF) and mistakenly saved in Windows format (lines ending in CRLF).

How to fix: emerge app-text/tofrodos, and use the ‘fromdos’ utility to convert the .sh file into a new, Unix-encoded .sh file (don’t worry, the script is not name-sensitive. you can name it abracadabra.sh if you wish). For more information, ‘man fromdos’.

(I haven’t used tofrodos package before, so the utility’s name will either be ‘fromdos’ or ‘dos2unix’)

Apologies all around. Come Monday I’ll re-upload a script that’s properly encoded.

I always had to do an ‘info sed’ before writing any sed program, that’s why I didn’t offer a sed-based solution

Anyways, I am *really* familiar with your problem.

Short version: By default, the Xen paravirt options are hidden in x86 / i686 kernel.

To ‘unhide’ them (I’m trying to recall from memory here; the names will be approximations):

The key is in the “Processor” page. There’s a set of options under “Paravirtualization”. If there are no “Xen support” under the “Paravirtualization” menu, go back to the “Processor” page, scroll down until you see “Memory space”(?). By default in i686, it is set to ‘4 GB’ (and an option below it, “PAE” is locked to enabled).

Change the “Memory space” option to 1 GB or 16 GB (*anything* but 4GB), and turn off the “PAE” option. Go back to “Paravirtualization”, and enable the “Xen Paravirtualization Support” (no need to enable the “Xen debug support”).

This will cause a cascade of LOTS of previously hidden Xen settings to pop up *all over* the config tree.

Now you should be able to enable XEN_COMPAT_XENFS

Hope this helps

#menu-scheme=Wb
prompt
timeout = 40
vga = normal
default=Gentoo2

image = /boot/bzImage
#here problem (kernel setup stack overlaps lilo)
root = /dev/hda1
label = Gentoo2
# read-only

* Searching for i386 .rpm files
* Extracting xe-guest-utilities-5.6.0-578.i386.rpm
* Extracting xe-guest-utilities-xenstore-5.6.0-578.i386.rpm
* Processing xe-guest-utilities
* Processing xe-guest-utilities-xenstore
* Remaking xenstore symbolic links
* Creating initscript
* Patching /usr/sbin/xe-linux-distribution
* Cleaning up

Successfully installed xe-guest-utilities.
You can start the xe-daemon by entering /etc/init.d/xe-daemon start

If you want xe-daemon to automatically run on boot, enter the command:
rc-update add xe-daemon default

(Verify that xe-daemon indeed starts on boot by rebooting afterwards and
check the daemon’s status using pgrep xe-daemon)

Symbol: XEN_COMPAT_XENFS [=y]
Type : boolean
Prompt: Create compatibility mount point /proc/xen
Defined at drivers/xen/Kconfig:50
Depends on: XEN [=y] && XENFS [=y]
Location:
-> Device Drivers
-> Xen driver support
-> Xen filesystem (XENFS [=y])

Symbol: XEN_COMPAT_XENFS [=y]
Type : boolean
Prompt: Create compatibility mount point /proc/xen
Defined at drivers/xen/Kconfig:50
Depends on: XEN [=y] && XENFS [=y]
Location:
-> Device Drivers
-> Xen driver support
-> Xen filesystem (XENFS [=y])

Oookay. That’s strange. Can you post me here the results of ls -lda /proc/xen and mount | grep xen ?

# ls -lda /proc/xen
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 8 12:27 /proc/xen

# ls -lda /proc/xen
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Jul 8 12:27 /proc/xen

# echo xenfs /proc/xen xenfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0 >> /etc/mtab
localhost

# cat /etc/mtab
rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0
/dev/root / ext2 rw,noatime,user_xattr,barrier=1,data=ordered 0 0
devtmpfs /dev devtmpfs rw,relatime,size=252724k,nr_inodes=63181,mode=755 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
rc-svcdir /lib/rc/init.d tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1024k,mode=755 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs rw,noexec,nosuid,devmode=0664,devgid=85 0 0
binfmt_misc /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc binfmt_misc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
xenfs /proc/xen xenfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0

Broadcast message from [email protected] (pts/0) (Mon Jul 11 13:19:19 2011):

The system is going down for reboot NOW!
.

# mount | grep xen
localhost

/dev/hda1 / ext4 noatime 0 1
xenfs /proc/xen xenfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
localhost

# mount | grep xen
localhost

/dev/hda1 / ext4 noatime 0 1
xenfs /proc/xen xenfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime 0 0
localhost

# mount | grep xen
localhost

default 0
timeout 2
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda1

Citrix XenApp, now part of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, was a product that extends Microsoft Remote Desktop Session Host (formerly known as Terminal Services ) desktop sessions and applications to users through the Citrix HDX protocol.

XenApp and Remote Desktop Services allowed IT departments to centrally manage Windows applications and computing resources in a secure data center. Users could access the Citrix XenApp applications from anywhere and from non-Windows clients.

A XenApp environment consisted of three parts:

• A multiuser operating system: Microsoft Windows Server with the Remote Desktop Session Host feature allowed multiple users to independently access a server. Users could connect to individual Citrix XenApp applications or session-based desktops.
• XenApp software: XenApp extended the Remote Desktop Services applications and desktops to client devices via the HDX protocol. HDX provided remote display capabilities, multimedia redirection, USB redirection and a variety of other capabilities, depending on the client device.
• Client devices: Citrix XenApp applications and sessions could be accessed by endpoint devices using a software client called Citrix Receiver. Receiver was available for a very large array of client form factors and operating systems.

Beginning with the XenApp 7 release, XenApp was renamed Citrix Virtual Apps.

Previous Citrix XenApp versions went by the names MetaFrame, MetaFrame XP, MetaFrame Presentation Server and Presentation Server. MetaFrame hit the market in 1998; its predecessor, WinFrame, debuted in 1995.

The product received the name XenApp following Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource. Edition names included Citrix XenApp Fundamentals, XenApp Advanced, XenApp Enterprise and XenApp Platinum.

There are several different reasons organizations chose to deploy XenApp, including the following:

• Security: Citrix XenApp applications live in the data center, where IT can better protect them. Because the applications don’t live on the endpoint, no data is at risk when a device is lost or stolen.
• Support for remote and mobile workers: IT can centrally manage Citrix XenApp applications, even when workers are distributed.
• PC refreshes and operating system upgrades: Users can continue to access their Citrix XenApp applications as usual when they get new PCs or migrate OSes. Previously, IT had to reconfigure and redeploy the applications to each new or updated machine.

• End of life for Citrix XenApp 6.5 prompts IT to rethink app delivery

• Do you need Citrix or is Microsoft Remote Desktop enough?

• Get to know Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops LTSR and CR

• Learn more about XenApp and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops licensing by visiting the Citrix website.

Related Terms

Citrix HDX 3D Pro

Virtual application delivery methods to know

How desktop and app virtualization vendors handle mobile devices

Citrix XenDesktop

• What Work 2035 Will Look Like –Citrix
• Why the Citrix-Microsoft Relationship Will Enhance Digital Workspace Solutions . –Citrix
• See More

• Xenapp Essentials Total Cost Of Ownership (TCO) Analysis –Citrix

Organizations that support both Windows and Mac desktops must approach them differently, but there is plenty of overlap with the .

Organizations that need desktop management software should survey a variety of platform types. UEM can often provide the most .

Organizations with both Mac and Windows devices can use some of their Windows-focused AD setup to address macOS management tasks.

TechTarget hosts its Best of VMworld Awards to recognize outstanding products that help organizations create infrastructure that .

Consider sizing, security and hardware, as well as developing technologies such as hyper-convergence, hybrid cloud and containers.

Selecting the best hardware for virtualization is the foundation of maintaining or designing a robust, reliable and scalable data.

Experts at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium described the advantages that justify the high cost of moving to the cloud while .

At Dell Technologies World, multi-cloud was a popular topic, especially how it can happen by accident. However, it seems to be .

Organizations have plenty of options for data integration tools, some on premises and others in the cloud. Find out which type is.

NUMA Observer from VMware Labs helps admins identify VMs that have overlapping NUMA nodes and storage problems. Learn how the .

Data-at-rest encryption secures data all the way down to the storage level. Increase VM security in a couple of steps and .

VRealize Automation offers Custom Resources to enable a vRA user to create a variety of user objects to simplify management of .

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Damn Small Linux is a very versatile 50MB mini desktop oriented Linux distribution.

Damn Small is small enough and smart enough to do the following things:

• Boot from a business card CD as a live linux distribution (LiveCD)
• Boot from a USB pen drive
• Boot from within a host operating system (that’s right, it can run *inside* Windows)
• Run very nicely from an IDE Compact Flash drive via a method we call “frugal install”
• Transform into a Debian OS with a traditional hard drive install
• Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram
• Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)
• Modularly grow — DSL is highly extendable without the need to customize

DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications can fit inside a 50MB live CD. It was at first just a personal tool/toy. But over time Damn Small Linux grew into a community project with thousands of development hours put into refinements including a fully automated remote and local application installation system and a very versatile backup and restore system which may be used with any writable media including a USB device, floppy disk, or a hard drive.

DSL has a nearly complete desktop, and a tiny core of command line tools. All applications have been chosen for the best balance of functionality, size and speed. Damn Small also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off of a live CD. In our quest to save space and have a fully functional desktop we’ve made many GUI administration tools which are fast yet still easy to use. What does DSL have?

XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, Netrik web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (Ted), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox and JWM window managers, games, system monitoring apps, a host of command line tools, USB support, and pcmcia support, some wireless support.

Curious about who we are? Check out the contributors page.

3.x Supports Application launching from limited icons. Application centric. Menu driven.
Current 3.x version 3.4.12, screenshots: 1 2 Older Screenshots

4.x Supports Drag-N-Drop, Folder/Document centric. Many icons. Can be run menuless.
Current 4.x version: 4.4.10, screenshots: 1 2
Current Release Candidate: 4.11.RC2,

To keep this project alive and funded we sell merchandise which we think the average geek will appreciate.

You may want to support us by buying DSL on a CD, we sell them in full and mini sizes.

Another great way to support our project is to buy a Bootable USB pen which is capable of booting inside Windows.

Are you a gadget-geek? Check out the DSL Mini-ITX and Small Computer Store.
Also, be sure to chech out our Damn Small Machine.
Other languages: es,it,de Ideas on fundraising Thank you Jen of Jens Sterling Silver & Gold Filled Jewelry Findings for the simple and clean site design.

Some of my friends must want to know the steps to restart or shutdown the server remotely. It is very simple and in this Post I am going to explain the same.

1. Open command prompt, and type “shutdown /m \\RemoteServerName /r /c “Comments”“. I used multiple switches in this command e.g. /m is for remote Server. RemoteServerName needs to be replaced by the name of Server which you are planning to restart remotely, /r is for restart it can be replaced by /s if you want to shutdown the server. To add the comments add switch /c.

Shutdown or Restart Remotely

2. Another command to restart or shutdown the Server remotely is Shutdown /i. Type Shutdown /i on the command prompt and it will open another dialogue box.

Restart or Shutdown Remotely

3. Click on Add to mention list of Server that you are planning to restart or shutdown remotely.

Restart or Shutdown Remotely

4. On the Remote Shutdown Dialogue page, select Restart or Shutdown options.

Restart or Shutdown Remotely

5. On the same page, change the Display warning time and select the Option. Click OK to restart or Shutdown the Server.

Restart or Shutdown Remotely

6. Please feel free to contact us in case of any questions and don’t forget to like out Facebook Page and this post if you like it.

Many users have been experiencing problems in XenServer, Basically Used Space and Allocated space does not match, I too have encountered this issue, It is to do with the snapshotting feature,
When a snapshot is deleted , Citrix XenServer should automatically reclaim the disk space by un allocating data which had been used by the snapshot, The process known as coalescing. XenServer coalesces the disk space while the vm’s remain running (online coalescing).
However, a bug in XenServer 5.5 and coalescing implementation has a been giving users a lot of grief. . After deleting all the snapshots for a VM’s disks, some or all of the disk space will probably remain allocated to these snapshots, however you can not see these snapshots anymore.
In my case we lost 300gb, 30% of the storage on the server,

A manual workaround has been issued, to address this problem, XenServer 5.5 Update 1 includes an Off-line Coalesce tool. This tool reclaims all disk space previously allocated to deleted snapshots while the VM is temporarily shut down or suspended.

Proceed with Caution!

• Before running the Coalesce tool, all snapshots associated with the VM must be deleted,
  It is important to remove the snapshots before running the tool otherwise the process will fail

How to

Reclaiming your disk space

Citrix recommends that you back up the VM on which you will run the space reclamation tool. You can use the XenCenter export option for this purpose.
You will need to know your VM’s UUID.

To retrieve the UUID

1. In XenCenter, enable hidden objects (View menu > Hidden Objects).

2. In the Resource pane, select the VM for which you want to obtain the UUID. The UUID appears in the General tab.

If you are working from the CLI of the Xenserver run xe vm-list, then copy the UUID of the VM you want.
EX xe vm-list

uuid ( RO) : 28c26191-3657-77a4-452d-709893b90315
name-label ( RW): Test1
power-state ( RO): running

uuid ( RO) : c77336ed-eee2-4cb7-9b61-2b717d251946
name-label ( RW): Control domain on host: Xen1
power-state ( RO): running

uuid ( RO) : 427472f3-43ac-772f-2e65-3ed58c9f3ba3
name-label ( RW): Test2
power-state ( RO): running

uuid ( RO) : 7947cfbc-d5fd-ea22-3bde-4383b2e15f66
name-label ( RW): Test3
power-state ( RO): running

To run the tool use

coalesce-leaf –u 7947cfbc-d5fd-ea22-3bde-4383b2e15f66

after the –u enter the UUID of the VM of which you took a snapshot and want to recover the data,

Ideally you backup your vm before running this tool, and under no circumstance are you to start the vm while the tool is running and this can cause severe damage to your data.
Run this tool on each vm where you had snapshots and have been deleted,

This process should reclaim your data.

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This is the section dedicated to all XOA details and how to get support on it.

As a XOA user, you can open tickets in your support panel:

# Technical Support

XOA is the only way to get our pro support, which is available remotely via SSH and a special tunnel.

# XOA Check

XOA check is a way to test if you XOA is correctly configured. It should be the first thing to do if you have any problem!

To run this check, in the web UI, you can access the support section in the XOA menu. In this section you can launch an xoa check command:

# Support tunnel

Open a secure support tunnel so our team can remotely investigate on your XOA. For that, we need to get the “support ID”. See below:

If your web UI is not working, you can also open the secure support tunnel from the CLI. To open a private tunnel (we are the only one with the private key), you can use the command xoa support tunnel like below:

Give us this number, and we’ll be able to access your XOA in a secure manner. Then, close the tunnel with Ctrl+C after your issue has been solved by support.

The user xoa-support is used by the tunnel. If you want to deactivate this bundled user, you can run chage -E 0 xoa-support . To re-activate this account, you must run chage -E 1 xoa-support .

# XOA VM Specifications

By default, the VM is configured with:

• 2 vCPUs
• 2GiB of RAM
• 20GiB of free SR space (2GiB on thin pro SR)

For use on huge infrastructure (more than 500+ VMs), feel free to increase the RAM.

# Alternative install

Please only use this if you have issues with the default way to deploy XOA.

# Via a bash script

Alternatively, you can deploy it by connecting to your XenServer host and executing the following:

This won’t write or modify anything on your XenServer host: it will just import the XOA VM into your default storage repository.

If you are using an old XenServer version, you may get a curl error:

It means that the secure HTTPS protocol is not supported, you can bypass this using the unsecure command instead:

Follow the instructions:

• Your IP configuration will be requested: it’s set to DHCP by default, otherwise you can enter a fixed IP address (eg 192.168.0.10 )
• If DHCP is selected, the script will continue automatically. Otherwise a netmask, gateway, and DNS server should be provided.
• XOA will be deployed on your default storage repository. You can move it elsewhere anytime after.

# Via a manual XVA download

You can also download XOA from xen-orchestra.com in an XVA file. Once you’ve got the XVA file, you can import it with xe vm-import filename=xoa_unified.xva or via XenCenter.

After the VM is imported, you just need to start it with xe vm-start vm=”XOA” or with XenCenter.

# First console connection

# Deployed with the web deploy form

In that case, you already set the password for xoa user. If you forgot it, see below.

# Manually deployed

If you connect via SSH or console for the first time without using our web deploy form

(opens new window) , be aware there is NO default password set for security reasons. To set it, you need to connect to your host to find the XOA VM UUID (eg via xe vm-list ).

Next, you can replace with the UUID you found previously, and

with your password:

Don’t forget to use quotes for your password, eg: xenstore-data:vm-data/system-account-xoa-password=’MyPassW0rd!’

Finally, you must reboot the VM to implement the changes.

You can now connect with the xoa username and password you defined in the previous command, eg with ssh [email protected] .

# Using sudo

To avoid typing sudo for any admin command, you can have a root shell with sudo -s :

# Network configuration

XOA uses DHCP by default, so if you need to configure the IP address, please run the command xoa network static . It will ask you network details:

Xen Orchestra is now accessible in your browser at .

You can access the VM console through XenCenter or using VNC through a SSH tunnel.

If you want to go back in DHCP, just run xoa network dhcp

# Other interfaces

If you need to configure other interfaces than eth0 , you can use the same commands with the name of the interface to configure as supplementary argument:

# Firewall

By default XOA is firewalled, with only ports 22, 80 and 443 opened. You can see the current status of the firewall using the sudo ufw status verbose command:

If you want to open or close ports, please check the documentation of UFW

# Default XO account

Default user is [email protected] with admin as a password.

If you are using the default credentials, please create a new admin account and remove this one.

In any case, if you lose your password, you can reset the database and get the default credentials back.

# Timezone

You can verify that your time is correctly set with the date command. To set XOA to your current timezone, use sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata .

# Restart the service

You can restart Xen Orchestra by accessing XOA via SSH (or console) and running systemctl restart xo-server.service .

To check the status of xo-server , use systemctl status xo-server.service , it should display something like this:

# Migrate from an older XOA

If you still use the first XOA (which was not the “unified” version), you can easily migrate all your settings (ACLs, users, servers, etc) to the new version painlessly.

This guide explains how to setup a FreeBSD Dom0 for testing purposes. In order to set it up a box with an Intel CPU that supports EPT and has a IOMMU is needed. This guide assumes that the user has already installed a plain version of FreeBSD amd64 into the box (either a RELEASE or a snapshot of HEAD or STABLE branches). In my specific case I’m using a stable/10 snapshot and the install has been done using ZFS-on-Root.

Booting from UEFI is not yet supported, only legacy BIOS boot is supported at the moment.

Contents

• 1 FreeBSD version
• 2 Installing Xen
• 3 Creating your first PV guest
• 4 Creating your first HVM guest
• 5 External Articles
• 6 Shortcomings

FreeBSD version

Basic FreeBSD Dom0 support has been merged into FreeBSD HEAD. In order to follow this tutorial you need to be running HEAD revision r280954 or any later version.

Installing Xen

Before installing Xen we need to install the following dependencies:

Then the Xen source should be fetched using git:

And finally we compile the Xen hypervisor and install the toolstack:

In order to have a working Xen host, the xencommons rc.d script has to be started, we are going to add it to /etc/rc.conf. We will also setup a bridge so our guests can have network and enable the Xen console in order to get a login prompt:

A new loader(8) option has been added in order to pass the boot parameters to the Xen kernel. In the following example Xen is setup to boot to the serial console, and Dom0 is limited to 4 vCPUs and 2G of RAM:

If you are using Xen 4.6 or greater the following should also be added to /boot/loader.conf:

Now we are ready to reboot into the newly installed FreeBSD Xen Dom0.

Creating your first PV guest

In this example we will show how to create a Debian PV guest, first we need to fetch the Debian kernel, initramfs and config file:

For the disk we are going to use a ZFS ZVOL:

And the edited configuration file:

Launch the guest and attach to the console:

After the install has finished, destroy the guest:

And edit the configuration file, so it looks like:

Creating your first HVM guest

In this example we will see how to create a FreeBSD PVHVM guest running 10.0-RELEASE. The first step is to download the ISO image and create a zvol that will be used as the disk:

The following configuration file will be used:

In order to run HVM guests the if_tap module has to be loaded. Then we can launch the guest and attach to it using vncviewer:

When the install has finished the second disk device (hdc) can be removed from the configuration file.

– ubuntu 14.04 （trusty）

安装xen vm (PV) 的本质是:

2. 配置虚拟机的参数包括：通知启动程序kernel和RAM disk的位置，分配的存储空间，网络配置等

1. /etc/fstab – This file contains the mappings between physical and network devices and filesystems. This will need to be changed to reflect the disk configuration used by the guest system.

2. /etc/passwd – Contains password information for all user and application accounts on the host system. It is important to remove the entries for any accounts which will not be required on the guest system.

3. /etc/group – This file contains information about user and application groups and, as with the passwd file, should be modified to remove any groups not required in the guest system.

4. /etc/hosts – Contains information about the local host and other hosts on the network. Be sure to change the name of the local host to match the name to be used by the guest operating system.

5. /etc/sysconfig/network or /etc/network/interfaces – Depending on which Linux distribution you are using, one of these files will contain networking information such as the host name and possibly a static IP address. Be sure to modify this file to remove any conflicts between the host and guest operating systems.

6. /etc/exports – Contains information about any filesystems local to the host operating system which are exported for NFS access to remote systems. This should be modified to reflect any exports needed for the guest OS.

1. 关掉正在运行的虚拟机。也有建议使用lvcreate – s先生成一个快照。然后使用其生成新的虚拟机。两种方法都行。后一种方法需要多一个安装完删除快照的步骤。

2. 将vm_orig的LV mount到一个目录：

sudo mount /dev/my_vg/vm_orig-disk /mnt/vm_template

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I would like to setup a backup of my Citrix Xenserver (6.0.2) environment with an LTO5 Tape Drive. As I understand for now (please correct me if I am wrong) backups of Xenserver does not work the way as backups of Hyper-V hosts work.
When I understand correctly, I have to install a agent into each virtual machine.

So my question is where to place the LTO drive. I would like to build the drive into the Xenserver host. Is this possible or do I have to use a seperate physical windows machine for this?

The second question is regarding this discussion:
When I need to install a agent into each virtual machine why should I compile the SNAPAPI module for the Xenserver host?

Yes, your understanding is correct – there should be an agent installed inside each VM on XenServer. It’s the same approach as in our products for RHEV/KVM or Oracle VM (see details in ).

Therefore there is no need to install anything on the XenServer host itself and in order to enable backup to tape you should install Acronis Storage Node (available for Windows only) onto the machine which has the tape drive connected to it. The backups from the agents will be sent to Acronis Storage Node (to centralized vault) and written to tape. Attaching tape directly to XenServer host makes sense only if you can passthrough the tape to the guest OS of the VM running on the host where you install Acronis Storage Node. Otherwise it’s better to set up a spare physical machine where you attach the tape drive to.

Thank you.
—
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis Virtualization Program Manager

• Log in to post comments

Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis Virtualization Program Manager

Information provided AS-IS with no warranty of any kind.

Jokes aside, backup is not rocket science!

Visit the Storware Academy – the place where we solve interesting problems from the data backup and recovery area. Our experts share their knowledge, “know-how” on topics related to modern data protection, focus on solutions, or answer questions asked by users.

Most of all, we want the Storware Academy to be a useful knowledge base for the community.

How to backup and restore XCP-ng and Citrix hypervisor (XenServer)

Speakers:

Paweł Mączka, CTO at Storware

Storware vProtect provides a crash-consistent backup of VMs running in Citrix Hypervisor environments and open-source XCP-ng. With an easy management interface, you are able to quickly set up protection and store backups in several different backup providers.

Microsoft 365 backup and recovery with KODO for Cloud

Speakers:

Paweł Mączka, CTO at Storware

KODO for CLOUD provides smart backup solutions and recovery services for Microsoft 365: Exchange, OneDrive. KODO protects your critical data from loss due to ransomware, malware, expired licenses, cloud infrastructure outage or just simple user errors. It is a SaaS-ready solution. KODO is intuitive and easy to configure with a user friendly interface.

Backup and recovery for Nutanix Acropolis AHV

Speakers:

Paweł Mączka, CTO at Storware

vProtect is a stable, agent-less, Nutanix Ready certified solution, providing data protection services for virtual machines running on Nutanix AHV. With vProtect you can backup your VMs or applications running on AHV to any file system or integrate with your existing enterprise backup software.

Protect the OpenStack environment in an agentless way

Speakers:

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Storware vProtect provides a crash-consistent backup of instances running in OpenStack environment. If your hypervisor is KVM and you’re running on QCOW2-based storage, vProtect is able to backup both metadata and its volumes. With an easy management interface, you are able to quickly set up protection and store backups in several different backup providers. It also provides incremental backup capability and option to exclude specific disks from backup.

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Storware vProtect overview: architecture and functionalities

Speakers:

Paweł Mączka, CTO at Storware

A quick overview of vProtect features to answer the question: what we mean by freedom of choice from hypervisor to backup destination? Nowadays more and more companies are using more than one virtualization platform or are likely to switch to different one. Will such changes force us to find new backup software? Well, not necessarily.

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What’s bothering you?

If you have any questions or some backup/restore strategies require further clarification – drop us a line.

The Storware team will be happy to answer all your concerns or we will record a special episode of the Storware Academy for more complex issues.

There are a couple of methods to take a backup based on your settings from Single to multiple Azure VM. Here we can see how to backup Azure VM.

Whether to install a VM agent?

Azure Backup installs an extension on the VM agent, and this depends on your VM. You need to install the agent manually if the VM is custom created or migrated machine from on-premises, and if VM was created from an Azure Marketplace image, then the agent will be running.

If you need assistance in installing the VM agent manually, we can help you.

Once you finish installing the agent, you need to enable the backup. Azure Backup will install the backup extension to the agent, and it updates and patches the extension without any user intervention.

Azure VM – Backup settings

1. To back up first, you want to sign in to the Azure Portal.
2. Select All services > Filter > type Virtual machines > select Virtual machines.
3. Choose the VM you want to back up from the list of VMs.
4. Select Backup from the VM menu.
5. Implement the following steps in the Recovery Services vault:
   i) If you already have a vault, click Select existing and then choose a vault.
   ii) If you don’t have a vault, click Create new. Provide a name for the vault. It is built in the same area and resource community as the virtual machine (VM). When you allow backup directly from the VM settings, you can’t change these settings.
6. Pick one of the following from the Choose backup policy,
   i) Enable the default policy. This policy will back up the VM at the specified time in a day, and it stores the backup in the vault for 30 days.
   ii) If you have any existing backup policy, you can choose that policy.
   iii) Select create a new policy and describe the policy settings.
7. Once you finished setting the service and policy, then click Enable backup. It connects the backup policy to the VM.
8. The configuration progress can track and monitored using the portal alerts.
9. Once the process complete, go to the VM menu > click Backup. The page displays the VM’s backup status, as well as information about recovery points, the process that is working, and warning notifications.
10. An initial backup will perform after activating the backup. You may begin the original backup immediately or wait for it to start according to the backup plan.
    i) The Last backup status show as Warning (Initial backup pending). Until the initial backup process complete.
    ii) Select the backup policy name and see when the next planned backup will run.

Quickly Run a Backup:

• You can simply select Backup -> Backup now from the VM menu on the left.
• In the calendar, you can set until the recovery point will be retained, and then enter OK.
• Select View all jobs, where you can monitor your backup progress.
• Portal notifications will let you know when the backup job is triggered.

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Xen-Orchestra (Community Edition) Installer

Xen-Orchestra (Community Edition) allows you to administer Citrix Hypervisor (aka XenServer) and XCP-ng as well as backup any VM’s running on these systems. The single line installation script allows you to go from a bare-minimal installation of Ubuntu or Debian (Server) to fully operational XOCE server.

System Minimum Requirements for installation

• 1 vCPU
• 3 GiB RAM
• 10 GiB disk space

System recommendations for operation

• 2 vCPU recommended
• 3 GiB of RAM (for environments containing 500+ VMs increase the amount RAM)
• 20 GiB disk space (for system updates)

• We assume you have a Virtual or physical server running a currently supported Ubuntu or Debian server installation with internet connectivity
• You’ve read this community and understand what installation entails and does on your soon to be XOCE server

Run the following steps from a root shell on your Ubuntu or Debian host.

The default username and password are applied, [email protected] and admin for the password

If you don’t want NFS capabilities run sudo apt-get remove nfs-common .

• Do not use LAMP
• SSH Access is optional, but highly recommended

To maintain your installation from Source or from this repo. (either prepackaged or scripted installation) we recommend using the update script which this community maintains. This can be found here and doesn’t require you to download or install a separate package to your XOCE installation. Simply run it via shell session of your XOCE host.

This script automates the manual process which can be found here as well as removes a few feature restrictions that otherwise would need to be changed manually if following the manual installation process. This script is not officially supported by the Vates team, but is supported by this community.

Prepackaged Installation temporarily disabled while I sort out the credentials issue.

If you are running this internally and need SSL (recommended) follow the below steps to create a self-signed SSL key and certificate; while browsers will still say the connection is unsecured, this is because the certificate isn’t from a public authority and is on your LAN. You can add this cert to your systems root authority if it want to to remove the warning. Alternatively a reverse proxy can be used for public facing installations.

Generate your key and cert from your XOCE installation

Now edit the xo-server.toml file

Comment-out or edit the port from 80 to 443 and add the cert and key to the appropriate locations within this file.

Reload your XOCE website using SSL ()

Goals/Backstory for this script

I’m often asked “why can’t this be run on CentOS or Fedora” to which my only reply is and has ever been: The goal was to be the XCP-ng of XS. Which means I wanted a solution that offered as much as XOA offers, while using what is available freely and from open sources. Without restrictions.

That isn’t to say that this installation script won’t work on other distributions, please contribute and help us to spread XOCE to other platforms.

Initially my goal was to simply setup and start using XOCE for a tiny production shop to be able to use an open source hypervisor (Citrix XenServer at the time) and have a management tool/backup solution. Which was initially NAUBackup and XenCenter, when I found XOA and that there was an open source management solution and backup solution that wasn’t script based I jumped for it, taking the manual installation process provided by Olivier and his team and automating it.

That goal transformed into the desire to assist the developers of XOA by using and hopefully finding any bugs or quirks that needed to be worked out while staying in line with the original goal of being as nearly compatibile as possible to XOA.

While the goal initially was to have a solution as close to XOA as possible, with the script came the ability and goal to automate the installation. This is a big deal for these scripts today, while providing an as near-match solution to XOA as possible.

Based on XenServer, XCP-ng is the result of massive cooperation between individuals and companies, to deliver a product without limits. No restrictions on features and every bit available on GitHub!

Turnkey Server Virtualization

Modern Web UI

Live migration

Scale

Secure

Use the powerful, web based, Xen Orchestra to manage your hosts

Live migrate your VMs all around the world, without interruption

Grow your own Cloud with more hosts when needed

Control your VMs on your own baremetal, no neighbors

With Xen Orchestra Web UI

A glance on your whole XCP-ng infrastructure on a dashboard page!

With Xen Orchestra Web UI

List your VMs with statistics, IP addresses, CPU/RAM count…

Join our fast growing community

Where the community is the most active! Tons of good advice, use cases and people to help you.

GitHub is the place to report issues and contribute to the project. PRs are very welcome!

Spread the word by checking our store for XCP-ng swag: shirts, stickers, mugs and so on.

Easy To Install

Grab the latest 8.2 ISO here, then create your bootable USB key with:

Then just boot on it!

On Windows, you can use Rufus to create the bootable USB stick.

Download the Net install ISO (150MiB), then create your bootable USB key:

Then just boot on it!

On Windows, you can use Rufus to create the bootable USB stick.

Just insert the ISO and follow instructions. You’ll have an upgrade panel, just select it and that’s it!

After a reboot, you’ll be on XCP-ng while keeping all your previous settings (Storage, VMs…)

No physical access to the XenServer host?

Please check our documentation for advanced upgrade cases.

Security matters: all our repositories, ISOs and packages are signed with a GPG key. This key is available here:

Then, you can follow our guide on how to check authenticity of our ISO, and even any XCP-ng RPM repository or mirror.

Found a security problem in XCP-ng? Please email us on security at xcp-ng dot org

We strongly suggest to download only the current release. This is only for historical purpose.

You can find all previous XCP-ng releases here:

Just go on this web page and follow instructions:

This will deploy a small VM doing all the management and backup for your XCP-ng. Follow instructions given on the screen, and you’re up and running!

If you want to learn more about Xen Orchestra, please visit the official website.

XCP-ng is a Xen Project incubation project

XCP-ng virtualization platform is a Xen Project incubation project hosted in the Linux Foundation.XCP-ng aims to be the bridge between the users community and the developers and is the default entry point for any user.

Success Story: From Kickstarter to Datacenter

Initially a fork of XenServer, XCP-ng made something some people thought would be impossible: gathering a large community around a new virtualization platform in those modern days.

Commercial Support

Vates is the main company that supports the development of XCP-ng. They provide professional service to assure that businesses get the most out of the solution.

For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our Trademark Usage page.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

oVirt VMs backup strategies may be more or less effective depending on the customer’s IT infrastructure. The choice between various backup strategies:

• Export Storage Domain,
• Disk Attachment with Proxy VM
• Disk Image Transfer API
• SSH Transfer
• Change Block Tracking

depends on the technical capabilities, the size of the organization, or the specific needs and requirements of a client. However, both small businesses and enterprise clients should strive for efficient use of resources with the guarantee of data recovery when necessary. Please take into account that the above list applies to the possibilities offered by Storware vProtect – agentless VM backup solution.

Introduction to oVirt – open source virtualization solution

“oVirt is an open-source distributed virtualization solution, designed to manage your entire enterprise infrastructure. oVirt uses the trusted KVM hypervisor and is built upon several other community projects, including libvirt, Gluster, PatternFly, and Ansible.” [source]

At the outset, it is worth noting that the oVirt project was initiated by Red Hat and is the foundation on which the Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization system was built. Moreover, Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) and Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM) derive from oVirt in the straight line. Just for the clarification – oVirt can be implemented independently.

And it is worth noting that the change of server virtualization platform from commercial solutions to oVirt is nowadays so much easier. System architects took care of the convenient way of transferring existing virtual machines from VMware, Microsoft, and Xen environments.

However, virtual machines are still prone to corruption due to many reasons. That’s why it’s crucial for maintaining business continuity for the organization to use reliable data backup and recovery solutions. The second step is to choose the best backup strategy for your data center.

Backup and recovery strategies for oVirt based virtual machines VMs:

Backup strategy 1 | Export storage domain

This is an example of the snapshot-based backup strategy. However, oVirt doesn’t allow snapshots to be exported directly but cloned to created storage domain (to the vProtect Node staging for instance). Once the snapshot was created you had to clone the VM and later export it. Keep in mind that such additional cloning requires resources (storage space and time) and the whole VM is exported, without disk exclusion.

You also are limited to 1 export storage domain in the cluster and you need to specify which hypervisor is responsible for such export. These limitations led to deprecation of this method and it is subject for future removal.

Backup strategy 2 | Disk attachment: Proxy VM

The strategy that eliminates ‘Export storage domain’ pains like no disk exclusion ability or additional cloning. By installing the vProtect Node as Proxy VM on the cluster one can forward snapshots to a backup destination, exclude drives from a backup, and read data directly from the storage.

The drawback is that you need to install Proxy VMs (at least 1 per cluster) and that it doesn’t support incremental backups.

Backup strategy 3 | Disk Image Transfer API

This option appeared with the oVirt 4.2 release. This backup strategy is easy to set up, with an incremental backup option and disk exclusion available. There is no need to install multiple Proxy VMs. It’s the single, external Node which invokes API. However, it’s worth noting that data transfer passes via the manager, which may result in a bottleneck.

Backup strategy 4 | SSH Transfer

Since this strategy backup is done over SSH directly from the hypervisor backup transfer is vastly boosted. What’s more, there is no need to install a Node on the oVirt environment. Simply speaking SSH Transfer is an improvement to the disk image transfer API backup strategy. Actual transfer may also happen using netcat, which may further improve performance.

Backup strategy 5 | Change Block Tracking

This strategy supports incremental backups. The application of this method became possible thanks to changes in oVirt 4.4. Changed Block Tracking (CBT) uses information about zeroed and changed blocks to reduce data size and speed up the backup process. Each incremental backup uses a checkpoint which is a point in time created after the previous backup. Thus, this strategy does not require taking snapshots. Currently it is a Technical Preview, and there are still some issues waiting to be addressed in oVirt, but this strategy is going to be recommended one in the future.

oVirt VM Backup: Summary

Virtualization has become easily accessible and therefore popular and profitable also for smaller businesses. Previously, usually, only enterprise-grade companies saw its use and financial benefits.

However, virtualization alone does not solve the problems faced by modern data center architects. Infrastructure, which often consists of hundreds or thousands of virtual machines, must be properly protected so that data lost as a result of an accident or error can be easily restored.

As in industry, in the IT sector, downtime generates financial losses and often has a negative impact on the company’s image. Therefore, backup solutions are becoming a standard and integral part of the IT infrastructure.

Finally, it is worth adding that Storware has created an add-on that allows the integration of our backup solution with the native oVirt UI. The project is available on GitHub. Want to know more – click the [LINK].