Backing Up ESX Guest Images

Download WinSCP. WinSCP is a great GUI utility for moving files from Windows to ESX Host (and Linux) Servers. It can be downloaded from http://winscp.net/eng/index.php.

Download Putty. Putty is a GUI Telnet/SSH client for Windows. It allows you to have console access to the ESX host. You can download it from http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html.

Download Symantec’s Remote Agent for Linux and Unix Servers (Ralus). You must purchase the Ralus Agent for Linux from Symantec. You must also have a copy of Backup Exec for Windows. Ideally Backup Exec should run with a tape drive on a non-virtualized server. It's possible to run Backup Exec from a virtualized guest, but it complicates the restore process.

Start Backup Exec and select Tools, Options, Network and Security. Click the Enable tcp dynamic port range and enter the range of ports you just opened on the ESX host (8192 – 8199).

Edit the /etc/bkupexec/agent.cfg file. This file should have the following entries at the bottom of the file:

name force_address export / as roottell tell_interval 30exclude_dir /devexclude_dir /procexclude_dir /tmpexclude_dir /var/run/vmware

Restart the Linux Remote Agent. Run the commands:/etc/init.d/VRTSralus.init stop /etc/init.d/VRTSralus.init start

Create an ESX host backup job and select the virtual guests you want to back up. Make sure to note the machine names (including case) of the *.vmx files.

Create a prebackup.sh script in the root folder on the ESX host. The script file will create a snapshot for every virtual guest that you want to back up. In this example, the virtual guest servers are named vs1 and vs2. This file should contain the following commands:

#!/bin/bashvmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/storage1/vs1/vs1.vmx createsnapshot vs1_snapvmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/storage1/vs2/vs2.vmx createsnapshot vs2_snap

Note that the *.vmx files are case sensitive.

Create a postbackup.sh script to delete the snapshot files that were created in the prebackup.sh script file. The postbackup.sh should contain the following commands:

#!/bin/bashvmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/storage1/vs1/vs1.vmx removesnapshotsvmware-cmd /vmfs/volumes/storage1/vs2/vs2.vmx removesnapshots

Test the scripts. Test each script by executing the command ./prebackup.shStart the Virtual Infrastructure Client and verify that the snapshots were properly taken for every running virtual machine that you want to backup. Then execute the command:./postbackup.shNow verify that all of the snapshots were deleted on every running virtual machine.

Edit the ESX backup job in Backup Exec. After you've tested the scripts, edit the ESX backup job and enter the pre and post commands by entering /root/./prebackup.sh and /root/./postbackup.sh respectively in the pre and post fields. Check the options:Run Job only if pre-command is successful.
Run post-command only if pre-command is successful.
Run post-command even if job fails.

Run the ESX backup job and verify that the virtual guest files were properly backed up.

I typically run this backup job over the weekend to get images of all of virtual guests running on the ESX host. During the week, I run a “traditional” backup using Backup Exec. In a worst case scenario, I would need to restore the guest image files on a new ESX host, start the guest and then restore the latest full backup from Backup Exec. You can also pre-stage the virtual guest image files on a remote ESX host, and leave them turned off until they're required.