Free ESXi Backup Solution for Windows

[ChrisInTexas]

I have spent the last few days trying to find a free backup solution to the newly free ESXi for windows only enviroments (in particular Windows XP). The solution for me was the following:

1. Installing Windows Services for UNIX (WSFU)

2. Copying the ESXi Server password and group files to Windows

3. Configuring WSFU for accepting ESX Server connections

4. Sharing the Windows folder for NFS compatibility

5. Configuring the ESXi Server to mount the Window NFS Share as Datastore.

6. Setup Backup Script

Attached is the complete steps.

I take NO credit for any of this. This is just a complation of others work formated to suit my needs and felt others could benift from it as I have.

by Jason Mattox from Vizioncore (direct copy of his work, I just added more information to make it work in Windows XP)

(NFS Server port information)

by robink (The backup script)

(ssh on ESXi)

[CampMin]

DSTAVERT, I was wondering what you thought of this strategy:

I would use Converter 4.0 to make occasional backups of my VMs as you suggested. I would store them on a separate server. If the server that houses my few VMs fails, I could just power on the backup VMs that I made and restore all the most current files and system state info from our Mozy backups. I don't need a high availability backup solution as we run a small company. I would only be doing this for three or four VMs.

What do you think?

Chris

[godbucket]

Thanks for your post. I have been at this for days and cannot get it to work. I have tried all the script versions in this thread (not the perl scripts) on various systems and editing them in various ways. Still receive the error message each time:

"Missing parameters (hostname username password"

Please assist if you can. All I'm looking to get out of this is a free and easy way to backup my VM's on my ESXi hosts using the snapshotting method (ie. not cold backups)

Thanks in advance!

[kchawk]

Have you tried vcbghetto?

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760

That is what we use and it works great.

[godbucket]

Yeah, that's no bueno. Thanks for the suggestion though. I really don't want to use Perl because I dont know it that well. Also, I did try that script and everytime I get the error: "The ordinal 2821 could not be located in the dynamic link library LIBEAY32.dll" I spent days reading that incredibly long thread and found no resolutions to that error. Also looked around elsewhere on line and found nothing useful. Tried on different systems, different versions of Perl installed, uninstalling/reinstalling, unregistering/re-registering the dll... everything. No dice, no worky. Please help if you can! Thanks again!

[kchawk]

Because I don't really know what you have tried or your understanding, I am going to verify.

vcbghetto.sh is a shell script that runs on the esxi server.

Did you run the script on the esxi server not from another box?

[godbucket]

No, I did not run it directly from an ESXi server, I ran it from RCLI from a Windows machine (also tried on an RCLI virtual appliance). Hope that helps, thanks again.

[kchawk]

vcbghetto is designed to be ran on the esxi server itself. You will have to use the unsupported console access to run it.

If you go thru the doc for it, it will explain how to use it.

Works great.

[natewilson]

I've seen several mentions of the same error in this thread, but I didn't see any solutions (or at least diagnosis of what the root cause is).

On one of my vCenters, I'm getting the "500" error:

GET https://10.13.19.99/folder/repo?dsName=SAN3 unsuccessful : 500 Internal Server Error

The error message is not too meaningful.. I tried all the normal steps of verifying credentials/permissions, restarting vCenter, etc. But, no luck.

Has anyone solved this in their environment? Any tips on possible causes, or debugging to better understand what the internal error is?

[jureg]

Hi sanabe,

I'm using ESXi-backup.pl on Windows. And it works well.

I make backups for free ESXi 4 server.

I'm new in vmware administration. Would you please tell me which is the easiest way to restore those snapshots/backups which are made with that script?

Can i just copy them into datastore or use Vmware converter to put them back to ESXi

Thank you for any informations...

Regards,

[Techmerlin]

Do the VM's have to be offline, or will these scripts (Pearl and / or PHP) allow to be run against an online VM?

thanks

[DSTAVERT]

It depends on the specific script but generally if the script uses snapshots it will be capable of hot or online cloning/backup.

[Techmerlin]

thanks DSTAVERT,

do you know of a specific script what can be scheduled from a Windows environment that would allow this ?

[DSTAVERT]

One I use is [GhettoVCB|http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760]. It can be triggered by a scheduled task from within Windows. You will need to look through the Doc for references. If you are using 4.1 you will need to enable SSH and disable the SSH timeout on the ESXi host. If you are using 4.0 and earlier you will need to enable ssh on the ESXi host. D a Google search for instructions on how to enable SSH. If you are using ESXi with an Essentials or better License you can use another version of the ghettoVCB script  http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-9843

[mrkelder]

If your looking for a free backup of your non productional enviorment...

And enjoy the great deduplication, instant restore.. and much more... I have been using it for years.. there is nothing like it out there..

a nice holiday gift from Veeam..

http://www.veeam.com/news/new-veeam-backup-replication-v5-is-free-to-vmware-vexperts-vmware-certifie...

[sdietz]

I have the following setup which works great, its easy and free. I have a production ESXi 4.0 and then a "backup" ESXi 4.0. All I do is run vConverter from the VM's on the production ESXi and point it at the "backup" ESXi box. You can run V2V (Virtual 2 Virtual) migration and have backups ready to go on a separate box. If need be, use your prefered client and copy the .vmdk files to save them off-site.

[emcclend]

mrkelder wrote:

If your looking for a free backup of your non productional enviorment...

And enjoy the great deduplication, instant restore.. and much more... I have been using it for years.. there is nothing like it out there..

a nice holiday gift from Veeam..

http://www.veeam.com/news/new-veeam-backup-replication-v5-is-free-to-vmware-vexperts-vmware-certifie...

mrkelder,

Thanks for the info and link.  I have been pulling my hair out trying to find a good backup solution for my lab environment using ESXi and Openfiler.  I have been trying to use ghettoVCB with no luck as I want to schedule different VMs for different time.  However, now with VEEAM Backup, not only can you schedule different time, but also it has de-duplication built in.  I haven't tried it yet, but in production we use CommVault and it de-dup works great.  If VEEAM is anything like it, which I hope it is, I think I found a winner.  Thanks for the find.

I hope you don't mind, but I shared this with my friends at VM-Help.com

http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2653

[gowdas]

can you schedule V2V  migration with vConverter? does it overwrite existing VM files or create another set?

[DSTAVERT]

Converter is strictly manual. You must step through the process every time you want to clone a VM.

Have a look at http://blog.peacon.co.uk/completely-free-backup-for-esxi/ or ghettoVCB if you want to schedule.

[Neonewbie]

this looks great but. for a non linux newbie the programming  a bit over my head.

is any of you linux gurus ever going to make a script we can just intstall and run in esxi?

I know the demand is their but have read all the posts and get a bit lost.

In the land of windows we just run a program tell it to back up these file every day or at a schedule that fits our needs.

I and many other would love the linux programmers, Gurus or windows Gurus for that matter to come up with such a programme that did not cost too much.

do let me know if there is any thing around.

Or if any one is making a programe.

or even if they could lay it out in layman,s terms please......

Regards

Neo

[DSTAVERT]

This isn't about programming. The script has all the programming done for you. Nothing to do particularly technical. You do however, need to sit down and try, ask questions when you get stuck, but make the effort. You will be rewarded with something we like to call learning and understanding. Stays with you forever.