Back Up LVM XEN Guest Containing LVs

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Feb 19, 2009

[ Thanks to Falko
Timme
for this link. ]

“Within these VMs the DomU OS is once again using LVM
for various reasons. This does create some headaches for taking the
backup.

“The basic idea is:
Create a snapshot Logical Volume
Allow the Dom0 to see the Logical Volumes within the Logical Volume
(phew).
Mount the newly discovered Logical Volumes.
Take backup
Tidy up

“There are couple of assumptions that I have made. I have
assumed that you have used custom names for the Volume Groups in
either (or both) the Dom0 (host) or DomU (guest). Personally, I
always use a kickstart file to create my DomUs, so I have the main
VG set to XenVG00. All my DomU’s are all in a VG on the Dom0 called
vg_xen – this is not essential though.

“The second assumption is that you have some spare space in the
Volume Group holding the DomU images. It does not need to be much,
as we will be removing the snapshot volume when we have finished
with it.”

Complete
Story

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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