Backup of a running container with vzdump

Vzdump

Vzdump is an utility to make consistent snapshots of running OpenVZ VEs. It basically creates a tar archive of the VE private area, which also includes the VE configuration files.

There are several ways to provide consistency:

- Stop the VE during backup (very long downtime)

- Use rsync and suspend/resume (minimal downtime)

- Use LVM2 (no downtime)

Vzdump stores the backup on the disk in a single file. This file should go to a tape backup for archiving.

Download

Download vzdump rpm or deb packages from http://download.openvz.org/contrib/utils/vzdump/

For rpm based systems:

wget http://download.openvz.org/contrib/utils/vzdump/vzdump_0.3-1_all.deb

For Debian based systems:

wget http://download.openvz.org/contrib/utils/vzdump/vzdump-0.3-1.noarch.rpm

Installation

For rpm based systems:

rpm -i vzdump-0.3-1.noarch.rpm

For Debian based systems:

dpkg -i vzdump_0.3-1_all.deb

Synopsis

vzdump OPTIONS [--all â <VEID>]

       --compress              compress dump file (gzip)

       --dumpdir DIR           store resulting files in DIR

       --xdelta                create a differential backup using xdelta

       --mailto EMAIL          send notification mail to EMAIL

       --stop                  stop/start VPS if running

       --suspend               suspend/resume VPS when running

       --snapshot              use LVM snapshot when running

       --restore FILENAME      restore FILENAME

Examples

Backup

Simply dump VE 777 - no snapshot, just archive the VE private area and configuration files to the default dump directory (usually /vz/dump/).

vzdump 777

Use rsync and suspend/resume to create a snapshot (minimal downtime).

vzdump --suspend 777

Backup all VEs and send notification mails to root.

vzdump --suspend --all --mailto root

Use LVM2 to create snapshots (no downtime).

vzdump --dumpdir /space/backup --snapshot 777

Restore

Restore above backup to VE 600

vzdump --restore /space/backup/vzdump-777.tar 600