What is the best practice to backup OpenVZ containters?

Question

I'm running Linux server with OpenVZ containers. I back up data with rdiff-backup in two steps (to minimalize downtime). First step is on live containter, and second step is on suspended container.

Is there a better way to back up OpenVZ containters?

Solution 1

This website lists the different ways of doing it. If you have LVM that is really the best. One thing I would make sure of is that if you are running any database apps, to do a database dump of all the databases before backing up the container (ie mysqldump).

Solution 2

Why not use vzmigrate between hardware nodes with options that keep the "image" stored on the source and destinations, also the online switch. If you do this often, the rsync will run very fast (less changes to synchronize). I'm doing this without LVM. I think the beauty of virtual servers is that you don't have to worry about filesystem level backups (applauds)! Of course you can do the vzmigrate stuff without the migration part.

Comments

[miHost]

Don't have LVM. :( I used to use vzdump but - it's processor intensive and using to much space (xdelta don't like big (>1GB) archive files).

[t.mikael.d]

Unfortunately requires two servers and don't support XFS.