backup free vmware

Feb 14 2009   11:22PM GMT

Configuring NFS in Windows

Posted by: Raj Perumal
Windows Services for Unix, Windows services for Unix 3.5, NFS, SFU, MMC, Mount Windows Share as NFS Share, mount windows folder as NFS share, NFS Server for Windows, Windows 2003, backups, virtual machine backups, VMware backups, backup ESXi, backups VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi, VMware ESX, backup free vmware, VCB, backup without VCB, backup script, ghettoVCB, ghetto VCB, ghettoVCB.sh, William Lam, lamw, http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760, how to implement ghettoVCB, how to backup virtual machine, how to backup ESXi, how to backup ESX, how to backup VMware, file level backup, virtual machine level backup, putty, plink, Allegro NFS, how to backup virtual machines, script to backup vmware

Hello again folks! As I had mentioned previously, I want to talk a little bit about configuring NFS in Windows. Since last we spoke I had mentioned using the Allegro NFS product and that I was considering purchasing it after my trial was over.

NFS is a great solution to use along with the ghettoVCB scripts I mentioned in my previous posts. This way you can backup your virtual machines to USB storage connected to a workstation or server.

Well my trial is over and I have now purchased it for use in my home lab. I have to say it works flawlessly. I experimented with some free NFS software that is out there but nothing seemed to work perfectly. I found that a lot of products would just stop working after a period of time and then you’d have to restart the service or program in question.

Allegro NFS is pretty easy to configure. You start the program, you specify the windows path name you want to share out via NFS, then you specify the hosts and rights you want to give to the share. Then you just go to your client computer and mount the NFS share as you normally would. Pretty straightforward, it doesn’t get any easier than this. This is a great solution for users using workstation operating systems such as Windows Vista to share out external USB drives as NAS storage.

However if you want to use a workable free solution in your server environment then I would suggest using the Windows Services for Unix download with your Windows 2003 install. To get this working please do the following:

• Download the files /etc/passwd and /etc/group from your ESX or ESXi server using WinSCP
• Create a folder on your C drive called c:\nfs and place the passwd and group files in there
• Download Windows Services for Unix 3.5 from here and install it
• Make sure you install the Server for NFS and User Mapping components during the install
• During the user mapping configuration portion of the install, choose Local User Name Mapping Server and choose Password and Group files
• In the User Name mapping screen type in the path name for the passwd and group files (c:\nfs\passwd and c:\nfs\group)
• After it’s installed, click on Start and Run then type MMC
• Add the Windows Services for Unix Snap-in to the MMC console
• Select User Name Mapping on the left hand pane and then select the MAPS section in the right hand pane
• Ensure Simple Maps is checked and then click on Show User Maps
• Then click on list Windows Users and list UNIX users
• Select Administrator from the Windows user list and select root from the UNIX users list and then click Add
• Check the Display simple maps in Mapped users list checkbox
• Click on Apply in the top right hand corner of the MMC console
• Close the MMC console
• Create a folder and right click on it and choose Sharing and Security
• Click on the NFS Sharing tab
• Click share this folder and give it a share name, in this example we’ll call it NFSBackup
• Click on permissions
• Check the Allow root access box
• Change the Type of Access drop down menu to Read-Write and then click OK and then click OK again

Now you can mount the share from VMware. When you go to add NFS storage just point it at the IP of the server and the path. So if the server’s IP address is 192.168.1.10 for example, then the serer name would be 192.168.1.10 and the NFS path would be /NFSBackup.

That’s it!

-Cheers, RP

Feb 8 2009   12:29AM GMT

Scheduling jobs in ESXi the Easy Way

Posted by: Raj Perumal
backups, virtual machine backups, VMware backups, backup ESXi, backups VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi, VMware ESX, backup free vmware, VCB, backup without VCB, backup script, ghettoVCB, ghetto VCB, ghettoVCB.sh, William Lam, lamw, http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760, how to implement ghettoVCB, how to backup virtual machine, how to backup ESXi, how to backup ESX, how to backup VMware, file level backup, virtual machine level backup, putty, plink, NFS, Windows services for Unix 3.5, Allegro NFS, schedule ESXi ghettoVCB.sh, schedule jobs in ESXi, cron, crond, crontab, cron jobs, how to backup virtual machines

So continued from my previous blogs, I wanted to discuss scheduling jobs in ESXi. Due to the way ESXi is made, you cannot edit the cron jobs and expect them to still be there with their changes past a reboot. Rebooting an ESXi server clears the cron jobs. The cron jobs reset back to their default settings.

In my last blog post I spoke of a program called Plink. Plink is a command line interface to Putty. This allows us to connect to an SSH session from the command line. This can be leveraged using batch scripting and windows scheduled tasks to schedule ESXi jobs.

For my example I will show you how to schedule the ghettoVCB.sh script I spoke about in my last blog entry. Please see my detailed instructions on how to do this in my blog post here.

-RP

Feb 7 2009   11:09PM GMT

Creating virtual machine backups in VMware continued…

Posted by: Raj Perumal
backups, virtual machine backups, VMware backups, backup ESXi, backups VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi, VMware ESX, backup free vmware, VCB, backup without VCB, backup script, ghettoVCB, ghetto VCB, ghettoVCB.sh, William Lam, lamw, http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760, how to implement ghettoVCB, how to backup virtual machine, how to backup ESXi, how to backup ESX, how to backup VMware, file level backup, virtual machine level backup, putty, plink, NFS, Windows services for Unix 3.5, Allegro NFS, how to backup virtual machines, script to backup vmware

Hello again, so here we go continued from my previous post. I am going to explain how to implement this script in VMware ESXi as this is the most likely way people will be using this script. Most peole using the full VMware ESX version will probably go with a commercial 3rd party product backup solution.

So in order to implement this script you will first have to enable SSH access to the ESXi server. You can do this by following my enable SSH instructions in my blog post here.

Then after you have enabled SSH, please follow my detailed instructions in my blog post here.

-Cheers, RP

Feb 7 2009   6:10AM GMT

Creating virtual machine backups in VMware ESXi or ESX for free with ghettoVCB

Posted by: Raj Perumal
backups, virtual machine backups, VMware backups, backup ESXi, backups VMware ESXi, VMware ESXi, VMware ESX, backup free vmware, VCB, backup without VCB, backup script, ghettoVCB, ghetto VCB, ghettoVCB.sh, William Lam, lamw, http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760, how to implement ghettoVCB, how to backup virtual machine, how to backup ESXi, how to backup ESX, how to backup VMware, file level backup, virtual machine level backup, how to backup virtual machines, script to backup vmware

Hello again folks! Today I wanted to talk a little bit about virtual machine backups. When backing up in a virtual environment there are two types of backups you are looking at. File level backups and virtual machine level backups.

File level backups are self explantory, they are the backups you run with backup software to backup the individual files, folders and system state data on a server. Everyone should already be doing these kinds of backups.

Virtual machine level backups are backups of the entire virtual machine itself. Virtual machine backups consist of the actual files that make up the entire virtual machine. For example in the case of VMware, the vmdk and vmx files for example. By backing these files up, you can restore the entire virtual machine to another location if your ESX server and the storage area that holds the virtual machine blows up. You can install a new ESX server and restore the entire virtual machine to a new storage location managed by a new ESX host.

One of my favorite products to do this is the free script from William Lam called GhettoVCB. You can read more details about it in my post here.

-RP