Unraid Backup Strategy

[Earan]

Hi everyone,

 

I have the pleasure of coming up and implementing a backup straregy for the unraid server in our company. The server runs a few docker containers and a few VMs additionally to it's main use, the file shares. While the Shares are relatively easy, I can just zip up what I need and move it to the backup drives, I'm a bit unsure with the docker containers and the VMs. For docker atleast, I got the Backup/Restore Appdata CA Plugin, which does work fine, I think. But I do have some questions about it:

1. It asked for a folder, and upon first run also created a libvirt.img file in that folder, without any date though. Is this backuped only once? What does it contain?
2. it also asked for a folder for the usb-drive. Same behaviour here, One backup, without any dates or anything. Is this backuped only once?

 

Next thing is VMs. How do I best create backups of those?

I installed the VM Backup CA Plugin, but it just says "cannot run". Don't even know where to look for more detailed information.

Next thing I tried, was making snapshots of these VMs, but that lead me down another rabbit hole, fiddling around with file formats (.raw vs .qcow2) and Bios diffrences (OMVF vs. SeaBios) where I learned that I pretty much fucked up, because most of my VMs use .raw and OVMF which makes it impossible to suspend them, or take snapshots.

So my last thought was, that I might just copy the vDisks of the VMs just over to their backup destination and call it a day. Are there any problems that this could cause? I have varying Windows and Linux VMs running.

The last thing I need, would be the XML files of the VMs. Apparently nobody knows where those are located, but on the other hand, I somehow have a single backup for some machinces, with their .xml files, probably from a test a year or more back.

[Energen]

So lots to do here.. I'll try to help where I can, or possibly make things more difficult

 

5 hours ago, Earan said:

1. It asked for a folder, and upon first run also created a libvirt.img file in that folder, without any date though. Is this backuped only once? What does it contain?
2. it also asked for a folder for the usb-drive. Same behaviour here, One backup, without any dates or anything. Is this backuped only once?

 

Yes to both.  They are both backed up once, in their current states.  Libvirt has stuff related to the VMs, and is somewhat important to have in case of need to restore..  I can't go into more details than that because I honestly don't know everything it contains..   possibly some BIOS related stuff, network configurations, who knows... just stuff to run the VMs.

 

If you wanted a backup routine for the flash drive that was more archival in nature with dates, there's a few custom user scripts available to do just that.  A couple different ways that they've been implemented based on personal preference.    The core logic behind them could easily be used to create backups of libvirt or anything else that you wanted.

 

 

6 hours ago, Earan said:

Next thing is VMs. How do I best create backups of those?

I installed the VM Backup CA Plugin, but it just says "cannot run". Don't even know where to look for more detailed information.

 

I use this one "VM Backup" from JTok's Repository and seems to work pretty good.  Also does the XML for the VMs... I haven't tested it extensively and have not used it for multiple dated backups but those options are there.

 

As far as VM snapshots.. I believe that the current situation is that there is no snapshot ability with Unraid.  I think some things are being worked on but as I recall it also depends on the filesystem of Unraid, specifically btfrs (I believe) which is generally not suggested to use over xfs.  Could be a lot I'm unaware of because I don't follow the snapshot development threads.

[Earan]

On 2/13/2021 at 9:44 PM, Energen said:

I use this one "VM Backup" from JTok's Repository and seems to work pretty good.

I tried the same, but it just tells me "cannot run Daily/Weekly/etc." whenever I try. Is there something I need to look out for? Are there any kinds of logs, I can look into to see why it cannot run?

Edited February 17, 2021 by Earan