backup vmware hosts

[siad]

Hye,

We have an VMWare cluster of 2x VMWare 4.0 host machines.

If the host1 machine goes down the host2 will run all VMs.

Can we somehow backup the vmware host machines included the configuration?

Of course we can re-install VMWare 4.0 and configure verything again on host1 but this will take some time.

Is there an simple way to do this?

Thanks

[arturka]

Hi

Do you have ESX or ESX(i) version ?

BTW, I haven't heard about full backup of ESX servers

In my case for ESX servers always reinstalling server and after reinstallation starting PCLI script which is setting up back all necessary configuration (networking, datastore, NTP, everything)

Regarding ESXi - I'm using vMA4.1 and from there every day I'm backing up configuration from all serves. In case of problems I'm just reinstalling server with old name and IP and restore configuration from vMA, reboot and DONE. Remember that newly installed host has to be in this same build like it was during firmware backup.

visit my blog

if my answer it's useful click some stars

[siad]

Hi

Do you have ESX or ESX(i) version ?

We are using ESX 4.0 U1 at this time.

BTW, I haven't heard about full backup of ESX servers

In my case for ESX servers always reinstalling server and after reinstallation starting PCLI script which is setting up back all necessary configuration (networking, datastore, NTP, everything)

Can you send me the PCLI script you use voor backup and restore of the configuration?

And some instructions how to use it?

Thanks.

[petedr]

Most people just do a reinstall for the ESX host itself, setting up a kickstart script may help. We have also just saved the entire /etc folder for reference if needed.

www.phdvirtual.com, makers of PHD Virtual Backup for Vmware and Xen Server, formally esXpress

[wayne7215]

I'm also interested in a better and faster solution for our ESX 4.1 servers.

Has no one experiences with a Linux Image tool like http://g4l.sourceforge.net/ as example?

[siad]

thanks