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Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots"

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Alan Meyer wrote:
> The site where I work has some Linux servers created as virtual machines 
> (VM) using VMWare.  I'm not the systems administrator and have almost no 
> experience with VMWare, but I'm trying to satisfy myself that the 
> systems are being properly backed up.  The sys admin assures me that 
> they are, but his explanations of how it is done are confusing me.
> 
> A VMWare virtual machine appears to consist of a large .vmdk file that 
> contains the contents of the guest OS (Linus in this case) disk drive, 
> plus one or more very small files that contain some control information 
> used by VMWare.
> 
> One way to backup such a system is to shut down the VM and then copy 
> these files to another place.  That is a complete backup.  There are 
> other ways, one of which is to use what VMWare calls a "snapshot". 
> That's what our sys admin is using.  He likes it because it creates a 
> very much smaller file than copying the full .vmdk and associated files. 
>  But I'm not sure what the snapshot really is.  The VMWare documentation 
> kinda/sorta implies that it's an incremental backup of sectors in the 
> .vmdk file that changed since the last snapshot, but I haven't found any 
> specific information about how one would use snapshots to restore a VM 
> from scratch, for example after a disk failure or other error causes an 
> entire VM to be corrupted and unbootable.
> 
> There appears to be a "tree" of snapshots that includes a "parent" and 
> multiple "children", but the VMWare documentation that I've seen has 
> more "go here - click that" instructions than explanations of what's 
> happening.
> 
> Does anyone know how to use snapshots in backup and to restore after a 
> complete crash that totally hoses a system?  Has anyone restored a dead 
> system using snapshots?  Can anyone point me to a VMWare document that 
> explains this?
> 
> Thanks.

pretty sure you need the whole tree, or at least a node and the last leaf.

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Thread

Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-06 16:01 -0400
  Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2011-06-07 00:57 +0100
    Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-06 23:46 -0400
      Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" David Brown <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> - 2011-06-07 09:23 +0200
        Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-07 15:56 -0400
  Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" "F. Michael Orr" <michael_orr25@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-07 08:53 -0500
    Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-07 16:12 -0400
      Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" "F. Michael Orr" <michael_orr25@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-08 13:00 -0500
        Re: Backing up a Linux system on vmware using "snapshots" Alan Meyer <ameyer2@yahoo.com> - 2011-06-08 23:31 -0400

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