0 downtime snapshot based XENServer 5.5 backup script.

wow !!! I've looking for a script like this for a long time. Thank you !!!!!!!!!!!

Working like a charm!

I've made some minor changes to save the file with a human readable filename instead of VM uuid.

$VMName = `xe vm-list uuid=$guest | grep name-label | cut -b24-`;
  $VMName=~ s/\n//g;
  $VMName=~ s/\r//g;
  $exportstring = $backupdir.$VMName."-xva-".$fdate"; 

Thank you very much for sharing!

Roberto Cespa

for using purgeBackup on xen host with no php installed:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use POSIX;
use warnings;

$days = 3;

@parseDir = ('/var/run/sr-mount/2df1d096-253a-c8ed-a491-49f3c0f0321a/backup/');
foreach $dir(@parseDir){
   print("purging of: ".$dir ."\n");
   @files = ();
   opendir(DIR, $dir) || die "can't opendir $dir: $!";
   while( ($filename = readdir(DIR))){
     if (index($filename,'xva') !=-1 )

Hi!

I have a question according to the backup-script. I want to migrate from VirtualIron to Xenserver, but I need the "Essentials" for HA.

In my HA Environment, I don't know, on which node, the VM is running at the moment. How can I start the backup in this case on the "right" node?

Its not clear for me, if this is possible.

Phil

Sorry for the delay.
The code:

$VMName = `xe vm-list uuid=$guest | grep name-label | cut b24`;
$VMName=~ s/\n//g;
$VMName=~ s/\r//g;
$exportstring = $backupdir.$VMName."xva".$fdate";

should be inserted somewhere around line 45.

Please consider that using this method has a big drawback due to a feature/bug of XenServer: it does not free up space in LVM shared storage (iSCSI) after deleting snapshot and VM.

More on this can be found here: http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=249121&tstart=75

I've 15 VMs with 20GB hard drive each for a total disk space of 300GB; XenServer reports more than 600GB used on the shared storage.

Ciao,
Roberto

This Code does not work if VMName has Spaces!!!

you should add: $VMName =~ s/ /_/g;

Roberto,

Is it possible to post the entire script with your modifications?

Thanks!!!

Roberto,

I too would like to see the entire script posted with your modifications.

I also saw this beta that claims to have Data Deduplication, I've downloaded it, but haven't tried it yet.

http://www.quorumsoft.com/beta/signup.php\\

Thanks,

Peter

As Paolo Nacci is writing on my blog post comment (http://www.robertocespa.com/2009/08/07/backup-di-virtual-machines-xen-senza-interruzione/423/index.html#comment-39), consider that if the VM you're backing up with this script is protected by HA, XenServer will restart it as soon as the script sets the value "is-a-template" to false.
This could lead to an unusable and unmanageable clone: no start/stop operations could be completed.

As a solution to this is Paolo suggests to change the line that reads:

$status= `xe template-param-set is-a-template=false uuid=$snapshotUUID`;

to

$status= `xe template-param-set is-a-template=false ha-always-run=false uuid=$snapshotUUID`;

Thanks to Paolo for this suggestion.

Ciao,
Roberto

Many Thanks for this excellent script, Im trying it out now but how do I locate the NFS mount in xen console?

I have the NFS share mounted and disk added but I dont see it in /mnt/ ?

Hi - Does anyone know if this script allows you to export individual drives?  For example, if we just wanted to suck out the C: drives.  We currently do this is in our Virtual Iron environment, so if in DR we can simply re-instate the O/S and program drives and then use backup software to restore data from the other drives. 

 If we migrate to Xen, then this something we want to do rather than suck out all drives associated with the virtual machine.

thanks

Hello

nice script and useful

but watch out, your VM cant have any ( ) in the name.

We are not new to XenServer, but are new to Perl scripting. This script is trying to run successfully, but is having issues moving the snapshots to our Backup directory. I think I have it configured incorrectly. We're using a CIFS share on a Windows server and I have set the variable $backupdir = "/mnt/Backups/"; ("Backups" is the name of the storage repository attached to the Xen pool).
Does this variable configuration look correct?

Awesome script, thanks for your help!

I have been using this basic approach for XenServer guest backup for a few months.  Works well with one exception.  I have orphaned space on my SRs, it seems that XenServer has a bug that does not free up space used by snapshots after they are removed.  So slowly (or fast) depending on your SR and VM size you will consume the disk space in your SR with this script.

 More info at:  http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=249121&tstart=0\\

Jeff

hi togehter,

we are very new into scripting xenserver. i read all the post above an could not find the right solution for my problem.

my question is about, we are doing backup our xenserver with bacula, it works like charm, very well. wie connect the backupstore as a nfs share with xencenter like a nfs virtual disk storage. this is to easily startup the xensnapshots, without restoring them timewasting from bacupspace.

does anybody know, how to show the xva files in xencenter? i can see the file at commandline, bit not in xencenter.

i know we can mount the xva snapshots from cli, but we have a few power user who are not able to use commandline.

gerd moser

http://datenstrom.at

I am getting an error when exporting.

 Exporting: f8a6fce8-b30a-bac4-6208-1cdc41be71ba
The server failed to handle your request, due to an internal error.  The given message may give details useful for debugging the problem.
message: End_of_file

Can someone assist?

Hi,

I am wondering if some one could explain how the script is applied to the xen server.

Right now I have two XEN servers sharing one sSCSI storage which is where the VMs reside.

My plan is to use OpenFiler with NFS configured so that I can mount it to the pool and send my snapshot there.

I just don't know how to apply the script.

Thank you.

Hi,
I'm a little new to all this, especially perl scripting. I'm trying to run the script after modifying it for my own environment, but I receive an error as follows: "Setuid/gid script is writable by world." I have chmod the backup.pl file to 700 and 755 but get the same error. Any ideas?

Got it figured out on the crontab setup. Script is running beautifully but not receiving the email notification. I'm sure I don't have it setup correctly as I'm not sure that sendmail is configured at all. I changed the to and from email addresses in the script to my own settings but did not change anything else. Some help on this would be greatly appreciated. Also a few notes for those who might find this helpful. I'm using StarWind on a Win2k3 server as my iSCSI SAN for my SR. I setup a standard Windows share on the same Windows server and used XenCenter to add that share as a CIFS ISO Library. When you run the mount command from the console it will tell you the path to the CIFS share. This is the path I used in my perl script as the backup target. Also in the crontab, the synatx for running the job is as follows: 30 22 * * * perl /usr/bin/backup.pl <maybe some other newbie like myself will find this useful >
Just noticed also that the script said sendEmail on the [$mailScript = "/usr/local/scripts/sendEmail";] line, and not sendmail. DOH!!
Here is the last few lines in the console after the backup.pl runs:
sh: command substitution: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for matching `''
sh: command substitution: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file
sh: /usr/scripts/sendEmail: No such file or directory
I had created a file named sendEmail which contains the IP address of my email server in the path above, but obviously this is wrong. HELP!!

Ok guys i modify the script and move out the config file, and added some more feature, like subfolder, versioning etc etc

U can read on my blog:

http://pipposan.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/0-downtime-snapshot-based-xenserver-5-5-backup-script/ 

Jeremy if u like u can add the modification and update this page.

Cool, I will check it out..

Anyone notice its easier to just comment anonymously then to login... lol.

ye i'm the anonymous above

Can u post error cause i try this vm name:

debian 23#! nuova_2

and script handle quiet correctly the final folder became:

debian_23#!_nuova_2

and the vm final name is:

debian_23#!_nuova_2-091214-1107.xva

Or can u post the name of your vm? so i can fix the script.

Cheers

Filippo

Would it be possible to run this from a Windows server with Perl installed? 

thanks,

Jason

Hi!

I had some problems withe the hardware and I have some backup_vms running.

The problem is that they were booted after reboot, and the boot was done before the primary VM.

So now im left with the task to get the back_up vms visible and renaming them into the production server.

How can I get them visible?

Also a "bugfix" for the script would be to remove the auto start from the backup_vm. Its a small price to pay that an imported server doesent boot automatically compared to this.

/MH

perl does not seems to be working.

If I execute perl -v nothing is returned not even an error.

Please help.

awesome, got it working on my Citrix XenServer 5.5.

however, how do I restore a backup vm from this script. the backup is stored on a NFS partition on a different server.

thank u.

Hi!

The script is working great, but if the VM has got more then one VHD, the script does not delete the snapshots of the second, third, etc. VHD.

Is there any possibility to fix that?

Phil

I've used this script without a flaw in Xenserver 5.5 and LVM SRs. However, I've found that I does not work as expected in a 5.0 machine using ext3 SR. In this special scenario, backup files are generated without problems, but when trying to restore the machine in a different server I get something like:

# xe vm-import sr-uuid=39c8e91c-9070-0499-06a1-da4e3cbaa230 filename=maquinasvirtualesbackup_WEB-200510-f6abdff9-f706-08df-3952-e4df81e09f1a.xva
The VM could not be imported because a required object could not be found.
id: OpaqueRef:f7c09729-332f-a0d2-f573-935dc405b0fa

I've looked at the OpaqueRef in the original server and it turns to be the vm that was backed up (the one that was snapshotted to make the backup). Any ideas?

Disclaimer: I am a PHD Virtual employee.
PHD Virtual Recently announced image level instant backup and recovery for VMs running on Xenserver platform.

Apart from leveraging long term storage savings with features like True deduplication users can now backup/restore their running VMs in parallel without affecting production performance, as well as schedule everything from Xencenter itself.
 
Another advantage is the Sure Restore technology, where the bad or corrupt backup blocks are self healed automatically in consecutive backup runs so admins can rely on their backups.
Product Demo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PytKoiy9PcI&feature=player_embedded
Backups and restores from XenCenter

Webinar Recording http://phdvirtual.s3.amazonaws.com/videos/PHDVBWebinar/index.html
Feature discussion with Live audience.
For more information and videos visit: www.phdvirtual.com

This is great stuff.

1, Does this script work on XenServer 5.6? Anyone tested yet?

2, With all the comments and improvements above, has anyone got a full version of the script including everything: HA support, MAC address preserved etc.

3, Notice there is another script: http://pipposan.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/xenserver-final-backup-script-with-or-without-snapshot&nbsp;

is this script same as this one? or original from the same version?

http://pipposan.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/xenserver-final-backup-script-with-or-without-snapshot/

^^ Use this script. I am glad someone took what I made and ran with it, I simply do not have the time to add features. Awesome work Filippo.

-Jeremy

but as you restore the backup?