vmware vsphere and esx

8/2/2019 VMware Vsphere and ESX

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VMware ESX Server Backup

Amanda Enterprise 3.1 allows you to backup VMware ESX images to various media supported by Amanda.

The backups are performed in a file system consistent manner. These backups can be used for restoration

of guest VMs running on the ESX server and can be restored to alternate ESX server. The VMware is

backed up using VMware Virtual Disk APIs (Vstorage APIs) The incremental backups contain only the

changed data blocks.

Zmanda recommends using Amanda client to backup files from guest VM if file level backup of VMs is

needed.

Amanda Enterprise VMware ESX application supports licensed (paid) versions of Vsphere 5 and VMware

4.x (or called Vsphere) VMware ESX 3.x is not supported because Vstorage APIs are not available for ESX

3.x. If you are using ESX 3.x, please contact Zmanda support for a solution.

Amanda Enterprise VMware ESX application does not backup VMware independent disks or RDM (RawDevice Mapping) disks. According to VMware, "snapshots of raw disks, RDM physical mode disks, and

independent disks are not supported". For more information, refer to the vSphere Basic System

Administration guide, Section 17. They have to be backed up by installing Amanda client from another

machine.

Requirements for VMware Server Backup and Restore

• Amanda server must be running Linux distribution listed on the Zmanda Network SupportedPlatforms page.

• Amanda Enterprise 3.1.x (including dependencies) must be installed on the Amanda server.• Make sure Amanda Enterprise server and Zmanda Management Console is functional before

installing and configuring VMware ESX application.• Amanda VMware ESX application agent performs the backup from the Amanda server. No

additional Amanda client software is required. No software is required on the ESX server.• All guest VMs being backed up should have Change Block Tracking (CBT) enabled for all the disks.

Amanda configuration check in the ZMC Backup What page will automatically enable CBT on theguest VM disks (3.1.3.5 release and later). Please see Zmanda knowledge base article on how toenable Change Block Tracking manually.

• The guest VM vmdk files must be in the same directory as the vmx file.• The ESX server must be running on VM hardware version 7. (Other hardware levels are not

supported)• You need to install 32bit or 64bit (depending on the platform architecture) VMware vSphereVCLI (VMware-vSphere-CLI) from VMware and 32bit VMware vSphere VDDK (VMware-vix-disklib) packages only from Zmanda Network (not VMware). These packages have followingoperating system dependencies:

perl-Crypt-SSLeay

perl-URI

fuse

VMware Vsphere and ESX

VMware ESX Server Backup 1

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_admin_guide.pdf


http://www.zmanda.com/supported-platforms.html


http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Pre-Installation

http://network.zmanda.com/lore/article.php?id=532

http://network.zmanda.com/lore/article.php?id=532

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Pre-Installation







fuse-libs

curl

openssl-devel

On SLES 11, the above dependencies are required except for the openssl-devel package. Instead of

the openssl-devel package, please install the following dependencies from SLES SDK distribution

(DVD 1)

libopenssl-devel

zlib-devel

These dependencies can be installed using yum or yast or apt-get tools available in the Linux

distribution. The actual names of the packages might be different in different distributions.

On RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux systems, you can install these dependencies using:

# yum install fuse-libs fuse perl-Crypt-SSLeay perl-URI curl openssl-devel

On Ubuntu 8.04, following command can be used:

# apt-get install fuse-utils libfuse2 libcrypt-ssleay-perl liburi-perl curl

There are additional dependencies for some Ubuntu platforms. Following packages are also required:

libcrypt-ssleay-perl libclass-methodmaker-perl libxml-libxml-perl libwww-pelinux-headers-`uname -r`

VMware VCLI is available at the VMware web site. VMware VDDK package is available at Zmanda

Network Downloads page. You can install the VMware packages as follows:

# <extract from VMware-vix-disklib tar archive>

# <extract from VMware-vSphere-CLI tar archive>

# ./vmware-vix-disklib-distrib/vmware-install.pl

# ./vmware-vsphere-cli-distrib/vmware-install.pl

• Amanda VMware ESX application requires temporary space to store the backup images on theAmanda server (See Configuring VMware Server Backups section below). The space requiredshould be equal to the size of the guest VM images being backed up. This space requirement istemporary and required only during backup. The amandabackup user should be able to read andwrite to this directory on the Amanda server.

• For good backup performance, there should be no snapshots of the Guest VM being backed up.


Requirements for VMware Server Backup and Restore 2

http://www.novell.com/developer/sle_sdk.html

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

http://www.novell.com/developer/sle_sdk.html



Installation

Amanda ESX VMware application is installed as part of Amanda server. Separate software is not required.

Please install the latest Amanda VMware patch available in Zmanda network.

The application is licensed. Amanda VMware license must be part of Zmanda License file on the Amanda

server.

If the VMware commands (vmware-cmd, vmkfs, vmware-diskmanager, snapshotmanager.pl) are not

installed in default locations ( /usr/lib/vmware-vcli for VCLI and /usr/bin for vmware-diskmanager), you will

have to modify /etc/zmanda/zmc_aee/zmc_user_dumptypes to fix the application properties (VCLI-PATH,

VCLI-BIN-PATH and VDDK-BIN_PATH).

Configuring VMware Server Backups

Configuring VMware guest VM backups requires steps in both Zmanda Management Console and some

manual steps.

• Zmanda recommends creation of separate backup set for backing up guest VM images.• It is also important to change TEMP-WORKING-DIR location in the /etc/zmanda/zmc_aee/

zmc_user_dumptypes file for zmc_vmware_userapp. This location should have sufficient disk space tohold a single uncompressed copy of the largest ESX VMware image that will be backed up. Thedefault value is /tmp/amanda and should be changed because /tmp file system can become fullduring backup process.

• Create a backup set for the guest VMs in the Zmanda Management Console. Use ZMC Backup Whatpage to add DLEs for ESX servers as shown below. Click Add/Update to save the configuration.


Installation 3



ESX Host Name is the name of the ESX server whose guest VMs are being backed up or the VMware

vCenter that manages the ESX server. It can be the IP address or the IP name.

Virtual Machine Name is the name of the guest VM that should be backed up. You should not use

the IP address of the guest VM. This is the VM Display name (not the name of the data storage folder

on the ESX server) as shown in the left panel in the Vsphere Client. This value is case sensitive. If

ESX Host Name is VMware vCenter, the VM can reside on any ESX server managed by the vCenter.

Datastore Name is the name of the VMware datastore used by the guest VM. This field is mandatory.

ESX server user and password is the authentication information for the ESX server to perform

backup and restores or VMware vCenter server. The password should not contain white space

characters. The VMware user privileges that are required are described in Creating ESX Backup User

section below. The user name and password must be the same for the ESX server where the VM is

running and VMware vCenter server.

The backup data can be encrypted and/or compressed. The compression and encryption are

performed on the Amanda server and can consume significant CPU/memory resources.

It is a good idea to Disable Staging for VMware DLEs because they do not add any performance for

VMware application.

• Please resolve any configuration errors found by the ZMC Backup What page.• Change the Data Not Sent Timeout value in the Backup How page for the backup set. The value

should be increased to at least 7200 seconds. Increasing the value does not impact the backupwindow (time to complete the backup).

Scheduling backups of VMware Server

You can schedule backups using Zmanda Management Console Backup When page or run immediate

backups for the backup set from the Backup Activate page.

The status of the backup are shown in the Monitor page. Backup reports will be available under the

Report tab in the Zmanda Management Console.

Amanda ESX Server application supports only full backups (level 0 backups).

The backups of the guest VM are performed by taking snapshots of the disks associated with the guest

VMs. Snapshots are removed after the backup data is copied over. Under certain circumstances, thesnapshots are not removed. It is important to remove the backup snapshots.

Performing VMware Server Restores using ZMC

Zmanda Management Console can restore the VM directly to another or the original ESX server.

The ZMC recovery process starts at Restore What page. Enter the Backup Date - the timestamp of the

backup run. The Host Name in case of VMware is always 127.0.0.1. Enter the Alias/Directory/Path (guest


Scheduling backups of VMware Server 4

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Backup_How#Time_Outs_and_Notifications

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Backup_When

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Backup_Activation

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Monitor_Backups

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Report_Summary

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Report_Summary

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Monitor_Backups

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Backup_Activation

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Backup_When

http://docs.zmanda.com/Project:Amanda_Enterprise_3.1/ZMC_Users_Manual/Backup_How#Time_Outs_and_Notifications



VM name) in \\<esx or vCenter server name>\<datastore name>\<guest VM name> format. It should be exactly

same as what was entered in ZMC Backup What page.

In the Restore Where page, Select Destination Host as localhost . The Destination Directory can be one of

the following:

• Original Location: Backup to the original ESX server with the same guest VM name. Please makesure the guest VM no longer exists on the original ESX server. Guest VM backed up using VMwarevCenter cannot be restored to original ESX server.


Performing VMware Server Restores using ZMC 5



• Destination Directory: A directory on the Amanda server which sufficient space to store restoredimages. Only level 0 backups (full backups) can be restored to the Amanda server directory. Level 1backups contain only changed data blocks and cannot be applied without VMware. Example:

/vmware-restore• VMware: The VM to be restored to should be specified in format //<esx server name>/<datastore

name to restore to>/<guest vm name> if the VM has to be restored to the ESX server and started on theESX server. The guest VM name and ESX server can be different from the original VM name andthe ESX server. The guest VM name can only have a-zA-Z_- characters. You cannot use VMwarevCenter name and a specific ESX server must be provided.

If you are restoring to an alternate ESX server (not the original ESX server from where backup was

performed), the /etc/amanda/<backupset name>/esxpass file should contain ESX user name and

password for the ESX server being restored to.

An example esxpass file is shown below:

//esx4.company.com root%root_password

esx4.company.com is the IP address or the name of the ESX server. root is the user on the ESX server

used for the backup and restore operations and password for the user is root_password. The password

must not be encrypted.

After reviewing the entries, Click Restore button on the Restore Restore page to start the restore process

as shown below:





When errors occur, the temporary space used for restoration (Destination Directory) is not cleaned up

after restoration. This should be done manually.

The CDROM device file name on the restored VM may not be correct. It should be verified on the restoredVM.

Performing VMware Server Restores/Recovery using command line

This section describes how to use Amanda recovery command amrecover to perform ESX guest VM

recovery. This procedure can be used to restore guest VM to the original ESX server. These steps can be

used instead of the procedure described in the previous section.

1. Run amrecover command on the Amanda server as root user. You will need to provide the backupset name as a parameter. The values for options -t and -s will not change.

# amrecover -C <backup set name> -t localhost -s localhost

2. Set the host to localhost and the disk to DLE name that was used in the backup set configuration.The DLE name will have //<ESX server name>/<name of the guest VM>. The setdisk parametermust match the name (include escape characters) that was specified in the disklist.conf configuration file.

amrecover> sethost localhost





200 Dump host set to localhost.

amrecover> setdisk //192.168.1.2/rhel4-32

200 Disk set to //192.168.1.2/rhel4-32

3. To restore the VM to a different ESX server or to different VM name, user setproperty sub-command. If this property is not specified, the VM will be restored to original ESX server andoriginal VM name.

amrecover> setproperty directory //192.168.1.3/datastore2/amanda-

restore

4. You list the files in the backup using ls command. Add all the files to be restored and run extract

command to restore the files.amrecover> ls

2010-03-03-17-22-35 rhel4-32.vmx

2010-03-03-17-22-35 rhel4-32.vmdk

2010-03-03-17-22-35 .

amrecover> add *

Added file /rhel4-32.vmx

Added file /rhel4-32.vmdk

amrecover> extract

5. The VMDKs will be restored to the ESX server and the datastore.

Creating ESX User for Amanda backups

For VMware backup and restore operations, the ESX user that is specified in the ZMC Backup What pageshould have certain roles. These are minimum set of privileges required for the user. The privileges

required for backup are:

[Datastore]

Allocate space

Browse datastore

Low level file operations

[Virtual machine]


Creating ESX User for Amanda backups 8



[Configuration]

Disk change tracking

Disk lease

[Provisioning]Allow read-only disk access

Allow virtual machine download

[State]

Create snapshot

Remove snapshot

Rename snapshot

The privileges required for restoration are:

[Datastore]Allocate space

Browse datastore

Low level file operations

Update virtual machine files

[Network]

Assign Network

[Resource]

Assign virtual machine to resource pool

[Virtual Machine]

[Configuration]

Add new disk

Add or remove device

Advanced

Change resource

Disk change tracking

Disk lease

Host USB Device

Modify device settings

Settings[Inventory]

Create New

Register

[Provisioning]

Allow disk access

Allow virtual machine files upload


Creating ESX User for Amanda backups 9



Please note that the ESX user should have administrator role on the whole ESX server not just the specific

Virtual Machines being backed up.

1. Select View > Administration > Roles2. Select Add Role. Select an unique name for the role. For example: backup-role3. Select the list of privileges for this role as shown below and click OK to save the role configuration.

After creating the role, assign the role to specific user that can be used for VMware backups.1. Using VMware Vsphere Client, Log in to the ESX server.2. Select the host in the inventory and click on the Permissions tab.3. Select the user name and use the right-click menu to select Properties.4. Assign the backup role to this user.


C ti ESX U f A d b k 10

vmware vsphere and esx

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