SEP sesam backup client for VMware ESX Server
(C)SEP AG
Copyright 1999-2009 by SEP AG. All Rights reserved.
Any
form of reproduction of the contents or parts of this manual is allowed
only with the express written permission from SEP AG. When compiling
and designing user documentation SEP AG uses great diligence and
attempts to deliver accurate and correct information. However, SEP AG
cannot issue a guarantee for the contents of this manual.
Contents
- 1 Introduction
- 2 System Requirements
- 3 Installation
- 4 Configuration
- 5 Remote Device Server
- 6 Restore
- 7 Further Links/Literature
if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); }
Introduction
The
SEP sesam online extension for ESX Servers provides an online backup of
Virtual Machines (VMs) running on an VMWare ESX server.Consistent
backup is achieved by creating a snapshot of the virtual machine. After
the snapshot the virtual disk (VMDK) files are transferred to Sesam backup medium. The ESX backup client will be installed directly on the ESX server.
Advantages
- No proxy server is necessary
- Virtual machines do not need to be on a SAN storage device
Disadvantages
- Higher load on the ESX server
- No filesystem backup of Windows guests
- VMware ESX server >= 3.0
- SEPSesam server >= 3.4.1.41 or greater
- Sesam Extension for ESX server
- Previous installation of the standard Sesam backup client
For Sesam RDS installation, mt-st
RPM package is needed, which is not on the ESX install medium. But you
can use RPM for RHEL 4 or Fedora 3 could be found e.g. here:
ftp://ftp.tu-ilmenau.de/Mirrors/centos/4.7/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/mt-st-0.8-1.i386.rpm
Installation
SEP sesam backup client has to be installed directly on each ESX server.
- Login as root user
- Install Sesam Linux backup client, using SEP sesam RPM package for RHEL4 (For Vsphere (ESX) 4.0 Please install the RHEL5 Package for 64 Bit Systems RHEL5)
- Install Sesam ESX Client RPM package
#> cd /tmp #> rpm -U sesam_cli-3.4.1-41.RHEL.i386.rpm #> rpm -U sesam-esx-3.4.1-41.i386.rpm
Configuration
Firewall
On
ESX server an active firewall is running by default. It's recommended
to switch it off during configuration of the Sesam ESX online module.
/etc/init.d/firewall stop
Attention
After
successfull configuration the firewall can be switched on again. Don't
forget to open the required Sesam ports by using ESX server command esxcfg-firewall.
Example:
In
this example you can see the configuration of the ESX firewall for the
ESX host and the the reachable virtual Machines. The Sesam control
communication will be processed by single port (port 11301) in the
client configuration. Besides the initial port (port 11001) you have to
configure 2 ports per simultaneous backup on the ESX firewall (e.g.
11002-11007 for 3 parallel backups).
On the ESX consle interface the configuration has to be execute line per line (or as batch):
esxcfg-firewall -o 11301,tcp,in,SesamCtrlesxcfg-firewall -o 11301,tcp,out,SesamCtrlesxcfg-firewall -o 11001,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11001,tcp,out,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11002,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11002,tcp,out,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11003,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11003,tcp,out,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11004,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11004,tcp,out,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11005,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11005,tcp,out,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11006,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11006,tcp,out,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11007,tcp,in,SesamDataesxcfg-firewall -o 11007,tcp,out,SesamData
After all ESX firewall command was executed the configuration can check by esxcfg-firewall -q.
Adoption of backup tools config
adopt VCHOST, USERNAME and PASSWORD in /etc/vmware/backuptools.conf file
... VCHOST=esix.sep.de # # Username to use for VC SDK authentication USERNAME=root # Password to user for VC SDK authentication PASSWORD=secret
Attention
Please use user and password from your own environment.
Configuration in Sesam GUI
Configure the ESX server in Sesam GUI as UNIX client. As operating system you can choose ESX-Server.
In Sesam GUI create a new backup task with task type ESX-Server. As backup source specify the display name of the virtual machine.
The VM can be selected by the client filesystem browser under VMWare.You can also get the display name from VMware Virtual Center or on the ESX-Server CLI by executing command vcbVmName -s Any:.
If backup source is set to ALL, all VMs on the ESX Server are saved. To certain exclude VMs put their names into the exclude list.
Attention: Sesam exclude list are regular expressions.
Remote Device Server
Instead of installing Sesam client you can install the Remote Device Server (RDS) package.By doing this VMDKs can be saved LAN Free to any storage device connected to the ESX server.
Restore
Restore is quite similar to a regular file system restore. In the SEPsesam restore wizard you can choose between VMWare and filesystem view.In the VMWare view files are grouped by VM even if the files belonging to a VM are on different storage locations.In filesystem view you can see all files like they are stored on disk.
Restore options
- Original tree structure
-
If set, all files are restored in the same directory hierachy as they
were saved. If not set, all files are restored into the selected target
path with directory names stripped off. This option can be useful if
you want to restore a VM spawning over several storage locations into
one place.
Attention: In this case you will need to adopt VM config file (*.vmx) before you can start it.
- Recover after restore
- Register the VM after restore on ESX Server and with it in Virtual Center
- Recover and online
- Register and start the VM and brings it online
Check the current state of VM
Before
and during restore no checks are made if an existing VM in the restore
area is online. You have to check the current state, before you start
the restore.
Further Links/Literature
