SEP sesam backup client for VMware ESX Server
From SEPsesam
SEP sesam Extension for VMWare ESX Server
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Copyright 1999-2009 by SEP AG. All Rights reserved.
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Contents |
Introduction
The SEP sesam online extension for ESX Servers provides an online backup of Virtual Machines (VMs) running on an VMware ESX server. Consistent backup is achieved by creating a snapshot of the virtual machine. After the snapshot the virtual disk (VMDK) files are transferred to Sesam backup medium. The ESX backup client will be installed directly on the ESX server.
Advantages
- No proxy server is necessary
- Virtual machines do not need to be on a SAN storage device
Disadvantages
- Higher load on the ESX server
- No file system backup of Windows guests
System Requirements
- VMware ESX server >= 3.0
- SEP sesam server >= 3.4.1.41 or greater
- Sesam Extension for ESX server
- Previous installation of the standard Sesam backup client
For Sesam RDS installation the mt-st RPM package is required. This is not on the ESX install medium. But you can use RPM for RHEL 4 or Fedora 3 and can be found e.g. here:
ftp://ftp.tu-ilmenau.de/Mirrors/centos/4.7/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/mt-st-0.8-1.i386.rpm
Installation
SEP sesam backup client must be installed directly on each ESX server.
- Login as root user
- Install Sesam Linux backup client, using SEP sesam RPM package for RHEL4 (For Vsphere (ESX) 4.0 Please install the RHEL5 Package for 64 Bit Systems RHEL5)
- Install Sesam ESX Client RPM package
#> cd /tmp #> rpm -U sesam_cli-3.4.1-41.RHEL.i386.rpm #> rpm -U sesam-esx-3.4.1-41.i386.rpm
Configuration
Firewall
On each ESX server an active firewall is running by default. It's recommended that it is switched off during configuration of the Sesam ESX online module.
/etc/init.d/firewall stop
| Attention |
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After successful configuration the firewall can be switched on again. Don't forget to open the required sesam ports by using the ESX server command esxcfg-firewall. |
Example:
In this example you can see the configuration of the ESX firewall for the ESX host and the the available Virtual Machines. The sesam control communication will be processed by a single port (port 11301) in the client configuration. Besides the initial port (port 11001) you must configure 2 ports per simultaneous backup on the ESX firewall (e.g. 11002-11007 for 3 parallel backups).
On the ESX console interface the configuration has to execute line per line (or as a batch):
esxcfg-firewall -o 11301,tcp,in,SesamCtrl esxcfg-firewall -o 11301,tcp,out,SesamCtrl esxcfg-firewall -o 11001,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11001,tcp,out,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11002,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11002,tcp,out,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11003,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11003,tcp,out,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11004,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11004,tcp,out,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11005,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11005,tcp,out,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11006,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11006,tcp,out,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11007,tcp,in,SesamData esxcfg-firewall -o 11007,tcp,out,SesamData
After all ESX firewall commands are executed the configuration can be checked by esxcfg-firewall -q.
Adoption of backup tools config
adopt VCHOST, USERNAME and PASSWORD in /etc/vmware/backuptools.conf file
... VCHOST=esix.sep.de # # Username to use for VC SDK authentication USERNAME=root # Password to user for VC SDK authentication PASSWORD=secret
| Attention |
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Please use user and password from your own environment. |
Configuration in Sesam GUI
Configure the ESX server in Sesam GUI as UNIX client. As operating system you can choose ESX-Server.
In Sesam GUI create a new backup task with task type ESX-Server. As backup source specify the display name of the virtual machine.
The VM can be selected by the client file system browser under VMware. You can also get the display name from VMware Virtual Center or on the ESX-Server CLI by executing command vcbVmName -s Any:.
If the backup source is set to ALL, all VMs on the ESX Server are saved. To exclude specific VMs put their names into the exclude list.
Attention: Sesam exclude list are regular expressions.
Remote Device Server
Instead of installing a sesam client you can install the Remote Device Server (RDS) package. By doing this VMDKs can be saved LAN Free to any storage device connected to the ESX server.
Restore
Restore is quite similar to a regular file system restore. In the SEP sesam restore wizard you can choose between VMware and file system view. In the VMware view files are grouped by VM even if the files belonging to a VM are on different storage locations. In file system view you can see all files as they are stored on disk.
Restore options
- Original tree structure
- If set, all files are restored in the same directory hierarchy as they were saved. If not set, all files are restored into the selected target path with directory names stripped off. This option can be useful if you want to restore a VM spanning several storage locations into one place.
Attention: In this case you will need to adopt VM config file (*.vmx) before you can start the restore.
- Recover after restore
- Register the VM after restore on ESX Server and with it in Virtual Center
- Recover and online
- Register and start the VM and brings it online
| Check the current state of VM |
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Before and during restore no checks are made if an existing VM in the restore area is online. You have to check the current state, before you start the restore. |
