Backup/Restore ESX configuration

[larry]

New feature request.
Have Veeam backup the ESX files themselves. With ESX 3 installs only took 5 minutes but now with 4 and all the options like 10 nics, lots of luns, multi paths doing all the configuring takes a while. If Veeam could just backup all the configs and restore to a basic install of esx would be great.

[Gostev]

We had exactly such product a few years ago (Configurator), but it did not take off so we shut it down. We found that small customers just configured the hosts manually, while larger customers used kick-start autodeploy scripts.

Since then, VMware added host profiles feature, which covered our former product's functionality. And nowadays, VMware's recommended way to deploy vSphere are stateless ESXi autoconfigured as a part of PXE boot. And for small deployments, you can simply boot ESXi from USB stick (and just plug the stick to another host, should the original host fail). All of these features render such solution unneeded.

[larry]

My vm license dosn't allow me to use there tool. We are a in betwwen size. Now we just document every thing for the rebuild.

[gerdawg]

Larry,

I don't know if this helps you but we were in the same boat as I have 2 Essentials bundles for 2 sites that we own for different business units so we cannot use profiles as well due to using Essentials packages. What I wound up doing was installing the VMware CLI package directly from VMWare to backup my ESXi server configurations. I then drop that configuration directly on a file server so that it get's backed up every night.

You can find the VMware CLI interface here -http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vcli/

From there I created a text file on one of my files servers with the command (below) to backup my ESXi server files (Just so I have it documented for others on how to backup the ESXi servers).

The command is vicfg-cfgbackup.pl --server HOSTNAME --username root -s c:\temp\FILENAME.txt

This will backup all of the firmware files for ESXi. Per my understand this houses your entire configuration on the ESXi Host and you can use this to restore your configurations on the ESXi servers in case of a disaster.

[larry]

thanks will test.

Will need to setup a server somewhere to test restore.

[gerdawg]

Just to further the conversation, I've actually used this to restore to a USB stick and boot from that for my VMware host, so that might also be a good test scenario for your to work from in the event of a HDD crashing that takes out one of your VMware hosts. This way you can have a few USB sticks waiting around to bring backup a host in a hurry.

Basically you would do an install to USB and then restore your configuration to that USB stick and volia! You should be able to boot from any system using that USB stick holding your configurations.


Thanks!

[Vitaliy S.]

I run all my ESXi hosts from USB sticks, like it so far...

[larry]

I like the spare USB stick, easy to test and store. thanks

[jeancharles]

Hello,

I am using VEEAM Backup & Replication for different clients, and am satistfied with it. I just happened to see the new Acronis VMProtect beta program, and a functionnality included is the backup of the ESXi configuration, and ability to bare metal restore an ESXi with its configuration.

Wouldn't it be possible to see to include it ?

We could use VMware PowerCLI to backup ESXi configuration, and after... well maybe it is another story.

Thank you for your replies and if it could be interesting, or ... not!

Jean-Charles

[jeancharles]

Here is the PowerCLI command :

Code: Select all

Get-VMHost MyESXiHost | Set-VMHostFirmware -BackupConfiguration -DestinationPath C:\Temp

source: http://www.virtu-al.net/2010/01/15/powe ... ting-esxi/

2nd shot :

Code: Select all

    $RootFolder = "C:\Support\"
    Get-VMHost | Foreach {
    Write-Host "Backing up state for $($_.Name)"
    $Date = Get-Date -f yyyy-MM-dd
    $Folder = $RootFolder + $Date + "\$($_.Name)\"
    If (-not (Test-Path $Folder)) {
        MD $Folder | Out-Null
    }
    $_ | Get-VMHostFirmware -BackupConfiguration -DestinationPath $RootFolder
    # Next line is a workaround for -DestinationPath not working correctly
    # with folder names with a - in them.
    MV ($RootFolder + "*") $Folder -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}

Source :
http://www.virtu-al.net/2011/02/23/back ... tem-image/

[Gostev]

Thanks for the script, might be useful for some future readers!

As Vitaly noted, these days bare metal ESXi restore for SMB begins and ends with pulling USB stick from the failed host, and plugging it into the new host. And larger deployments typically use stateless ESXi and PXE boot, since this is what VMware recommends. As such, any functionality around bare metal ESXi restores has very little value - while we at Veeam prefer to focus on features that add much value to the product. Life is too short to be spending time on questionable features

[jbrullemans]

Can Veeam also backup the ESX server itself? so incase of disaster i can recover an esx server?

[csharney]

Has VEEAM ever considered managing hypervisors?
You can backup and restore them all.

[cda]

Hi all,
I've just search in forum posts and FAQ but I can't find an answer.

Is it possible to add an option for backing up ESXi configurations (network, datastore, and all other preferences of ESXi host) within Veaam B&R?

In case of phisical host fault it would be very useful to restore entire configuration without using scripts/CLI, just set a management IP and restore whole ESXi configuration with a click.
If you're inside a real disaster this will help a lot reducing recovery time.

This could be a good feature for this great virtual backup software.

Best regards
Thanks a lot
CDA

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

[veremin]

Hi.

If you really want to backup and restore your ESXi configuration, the easiest way to backup ESXi configuration is doing it via vMA (Management Assistant) or vCLi, as mentioned above.

Backup procedure in case of vMA should look like this:

1. Open a console session on vMA with vi-admin
2. Add the host as target to the vMA: vifp addserver <FQDN or IP Address>
3. Enter password.
4. Set the server as target: vifptarget –s <FQDN or IP Address>
5. Save the configuration with: vicfg-cfgbackup –s /tmp/<Config_file_name>

Restore:

1.Add the host and set it as target in the vMA, just like in step 1 to 3 in the back-up procedure.
2.Restore the configuration with: vicfg-cfgbackup -f -l /tmp/<Config_File_Name>
3.Type Yes to start the restore procedure.
4.When the procedure is finished, the host will reboot with the new settings.

Hope this helps.

Thanks.

[cda]

Thanks a lot.
I'll try it.
Best regards

[Doug.Butler]

Sorry for jump-starting an old thread, but I am currently wasting my time fiddling around with setting up vCLI and a nightly script to perform host backups as well. Add my name to the list of people who would like to see this feature added / returned to the B&R product.

Thanks!

[veremin]

Hi, Douglas.

I’ve merged you to the existing topic regarding the process of backing up and restoring ESXI configuration. As mentioned previously, you can easily backup your ESXi configuration either via vMA (Management Assistant) or via vCLI. Both of the methods are described above.

Hope this helps.
Thanks.

[howartp]

Hi,

I've been on the VMware ICM 5.5 course this week which has been a very interesting week and I've learnt a lot.

One though occurred to me though - Veeam is backing up all my VMs and I can restore any one/all of them very easily - but what happens regarding Host backup?

Is the host config (networking, storage, HA, alerts...) backed up anywhere/anytime?

And how do I restore it? If I have a Host failure and have to replace it completely, do I install ESX onto it manually then restore the config, or is there any bare-metal restore of ESX hosts in Veeam?

Peter

[VladV]

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=2042141

[howartp]

Thanks; we didn't cover vSphere CLI or PowerCLI other than that it exists and is good to learn, but I'm into Powershell myself so I'll look that up.

Cheers,

Peter

[VladV]

It would be extremely helpful if Veeam would backup and restore ESXi configurations, but I don't know of a backup software that can. Anyway, the CLI should do it.

[lp@albersdruck.de]

It would be extremely helpful if Veeam would backup and restore ESXi configurations, but I don't know of a backup software that can. Anyway, the CLI should do it.

Acronis Backup for VMware does backup ESXi servers and configuration.
That is about the only thing that it does better than Veeam though

[dellock6]

How often do you change a configuration in an ESXi host?
If it's only to have a restorable configuration, you can use vicfg-cfgbackup.pl (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2042141) and same the tgz file out of the ESXi server. Not saying is the proper solution, but if the only need to look somewhere else of Veeam, run this on a script and keep using Veeam

[haslund]

It could be a cool feature if VBR supported backup and restore of hypervisor configuration.
I am not sure how easy it would be for Hyper-V, but ESXi has commands for export/import of configuration files.

Thank you for your kind consideration.

[veremin]

You can schedule the VMware-specific commands as a post-job activity and select a day when post-job activity should take place. Say, once a week, as it doesn't make a lot of sense to backup configuration more frequently.

The resulting files can be copied to whatever location you want via file copy job.

Thanks.

[josecastro]

Hello Veeam Team.

Part our disaster recover model include backing up and restoring (in case necessary) ESXi configuration

We do this using vSphere Coommand Line Interface and vSphere Power CLI.

Could you create a feature where we can backup or restore this important part of VMWare please?

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=2042141



Additional Information

Note: The information about virtual machines is not stored in the config backup and the virtual machines must be re-inventoried from the datastore browser after a config backup restore. Also, bootbank information is not stored in a config backup. If needed, this must be backed up and downloaded separately in a compressed tar file.

[foggy]

Jose, thanks for the feedback. You can find some additional considerations regarding this request in the thread above. Thanks.