NAME

vzdump - openvz backup and restore utility

SYNOPSIS

vzdump OPTIONS [--all | <VEID>]

--exclude VPSID exclude VPSID (assumes --all)

--exclude-path REGEX exclude certain files/directories. Standard
exclusions are disabled in this case. You
can use this option more than once to specify
multiple exclude paths

--compress compress dump file (gzip)

--dumpdir DIR store resulting files in DIR

--xdelta create a differential backup using xdelta

--mailto EMAIL send notification mail to EMAIL. You can use
this option more than once to specify multiple
receivers

--stop stop/start VPS if running

--suspend suspend/resume VPS when running

--snapshot use LVM snapshot when running

--restore FILENAME restore FILENAME

DESCRIPTION

vzdump is an utility to make consistent snapshots of running OpenVZ VEs. It basically creates a tar archive of the VE private area, which also includes the VE configuration files.

There are several ways to provide consistency:

- stop the VE during backup (very long downtime)

- use rsync and suspend/resume (minimal downtime).

- use LVM2 (no downtime, but needs LVM2 and 500m free space on the corresponding volume group to create the LVM snapshot)

FILES

vzdump skips the following files by default

 /var/log/.+
 /tmp/.+
 /var/tmp/.+
 /var/run/.+pid

You can overwrite those exclusions by manually specifying exclude paths, for example:

> vzdump --exclude-path '/tmp/.+' --exclude-path '/var/tmp/.+' 777

(only excludes tmp directories)

OpenVZ configuration files are also stored inside the backup archive (/etc/vzdump), and will be correctly restored with --restore

EXAMPLES

Simply dump VE 777 - no snapshot, just archive the VE private area and configuration files to the default dump directory (usually /var/lib/vz/dump/).

> vzdump 777

Use rsync and suspend/resume to create an snapshot (minimal downtime).

> vzdump --suspend 777

Backup all VEs and send notification mails to root.

> vzdump --suspend --all --mailto root

Use LVM2 to create snapshots (no downtime).

> vzdump --dumpdir /space/backup --snapshot 777

Restore above backup to VE 600

> vzdump --restore /space/backup/vzdump-777.tar 600

Backup all VESs excluding VE 101 and 102

> vzdump --suspend --exclude 101 --exclude 102

AUTHOR

Dietmar Maurer <dietmar@proxmox.com>

Many thanks to Proxmox Server Solutions (www.proxmox.com) for sponsoring this work.

COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

Copyright (C) 2007 Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH

Copyright: vzdump is under GNU GPL, the GNU General Public License.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 dated June, 1991.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.