VMware backup without downtime / shutdown

 
Our VMware “testfarm” has been running for nearly 1 month now, it’s time for backups.

The portability of VMware guests gives a great option for a full-system backup.

So, how to compress / backup the vmdk files … whithout shutting down the virtual machines ?

These files are several gigabytes big, and the compression will take some time. During the compression or copy the VMware guest is updating the files leaving the backup in an inconsistant state.

lvm snapshot is quite a nice solution to that problem.

1.) create snapshot
lvcreate -L size of volumeG -s -n snapshot name /dev/volumevg/target lv

2.) mount the snapshot
mount /snapshot /dev/volumevg/snapshot name

3.) backup files
tar -zcvf /backup/vmbackup${DATE}.tar.gz /snapshot/vmimages/target system

4.) unmount & delete
umount /snapshot
lvremove -f /dev/volumevg/snapshot name