The ovm_vmdisks
utility is designed to help the
administrator make backups of virtual machines, particularly when
the VM's virtual disks are files in a storage repository on a
remote NFS storage server.
The ovm_vmdisks
utility takes a virtual
machine name or UUID and lists out every virtual disk file for
that VM, as well as the virtual machine configuration
(vm.cfg
) file. This allows you to take the
file listings from the output of the utility and back them up to
a server or tape.
The ovm_vmdisks
utility has the following
command line options:
-u user name of an Oracle VM Manager admin user (required)
-p password corresponding with the admin user name (required)
-h host name of the server running Oracle VM Manager (required)
-X use SSL to connect to Oracle VM Manager
-v virtual machine name
-U virtual machine UUID
If the virtual disks are actual physical devices directly attached to the VM, the utility lists the device mapper entry on the Oracle VM Server to which the VM is assigned. In case the virtual disks are files on an NFS server, the utility lists the NFS server name, mount point and file name/location.
Below is an example of ovm_vmdisk
usage. It
shows a virtual machine with three disks, each attached in a
different way:
# ./ovm_vmdisks -u admin -p password
-h localhost -v MyVM01
Oracle VM Retrieve Disk utility 0.5.2.
Connected.
Virtual Machine : 'MyVM01' status : 'Running'.
Assigned Server : OVS_01
Virtual Disk : 'MyVM01_bootdisk' size : 20GB
file=/OVS/Repositories/0004fb0000030000b0272c74e714ab12/VirtualDisks/ \
0004fb00001200006e548a28cb886f42.img
mountpoint=/dev/mapper/3300000006160a212/VirtualDisks/ \
0004fb00001200006e548a28cb886f42.img
Virtual Disk : 'MyVM01_datadisk' size : 250GB
file=/OVS/Repositories/0004fb00000300005b06362f2d866a98/VirtualDisks/ \
0004fb0000120000f217eb8c0fa70eef.img
mountpoint=nfs01:/mnt/vol2/repo03/VirtualDisks/ \
0004fb0000120000f217eb8c0fa70eef.img
Physical Disk : 'pd003'
device=/dev/mapper/3300000009b7b2cc4
Config File :
file=/OVS/Repositories/0004fb00000300005b06362f2d866a98/ \
VirtualMachines/0004fb00000600008757e38248a544e6/vm.cfg
mountpoint=nfs01:/mnt/vol2/repo03/VirtualMachines/ \
0004fb00000600008757e38248a544e6/vm.cfg
As you can see in the console output, VM 'MyVM01' is currently running. Note that backing up a running VM would be inconsistent, therefore it is highly recommended that you shut down the VM prior to making any backups. The console output shows that the virtual machine contains three disks, two virtual and one physical, and also provides the location of the virtual machine configuration file:
MyVM01_bootdisk: a virtual
disk on an ocfs2 storage repository. The ocfs2 repository
was created on the device
/dev/mapper/3300000006160a212
MyVM01_datadisk: a virtual
disk on an NFS storage server named
nfs01
. The full path to the virtual disk
file on the NFS server is
/mnt/vol2/repo03/VirtualDisks/0004fb0000120000f217eb8c0fa70eef.img
pd003: a raw disk device at
/dev/mapper/3300000009b7b2cc4
vm.cfg: the virtual machine
configuration file on NFS server nfs01
.
The full path to the configuration file is
nfs01:/mnt/vol2/repo03/VirtualMachines/0004fb00000600008757e38248a544e6/vm.cfg