VirtualBox40 » Historie » Revision 2
Revision 1 (Jeremias Keihsler, 12.01.2017 14:33) → Revision 2/3 (Jeremias Keihsler, 12.01.2017 14:35)
h1. VirtualBox 4.0 VM disaster recovery h1. Backup (export VMs) h2. Requirements To backup the VMs you will need the following: * @root@ access to the virtualbox-host (SSH or local) * @vbox_control.sh@ script, which is not part of VirtualBox h2. Preliminary Note While a virtual machine could be imaged and restored like a phyisical machine using this method has the advantage that all meta-data like memory size, number of processors or MAC-adr of each NIC are saved as well. By restoring the virtual machine to another host you could do a perfect clone of the original machine. *The virtual machines must be powered off during the backup.* h2. Start Export The VM-Export process is a three stage process: * show the VMs currently running * read in the VM-names to be saved from config file @/etc/virtualbox/machines_enabled_export@ * stop the machines if they are running in the sequence given in the config file * export each VM with current date in the filename into the current workingdirectory * read in the VM-names to be started at boottime from config file @/etc/virtualbox/machines_enabled_start@ * start the machines in the sequence given in the config file <pre><code class="bash"> cd ~ /usr/local/bin/backup_vm.sh </code></pre> the @backup_vm.sh@ is a very simple shell-script doing: <pre> /etc/init.d/vboxcontrol status /etc/init.d/vboxcontrol export /etc/init.d/vboxcontrol start exit 0 </pre> h1. Restore (Import) If the virtual machine already exists, we have to delete it first. <pre><code class="bash"> VBoxManage unregistervm example_VM --delete </code></pre> The VM-Import process is fairly simple * goto the folder where your @.ova@ resides (@/mnt/extUSBdrive/VM_Backup@ needs to be replaced with your source-directory, @example_VM_110509.ova@ needs to be replaced with the actual backup of your VM) * import with @VBoxManage@ <pre><code class="bash"> cd /mnt/extUSBdrive/VM_Backup VBoxManage import example_VM_110509.ova </code></pre> h1. alternative ways of export/import give the VirtualBox manual a chance. It can be found at http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/UserManual.pdf