virt-backup 🚀

Fully backup & restore your KVM Virtual Machines

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virt-backup Features:

• Ability to backup all the VM's disks or only system disk
• compress the backup directly in a ZIP file, which decreases backup size
• validate the restore process with the checksum of the original VM (taken on backup)
• Ability to backup and restore all the VM's snapshot - [ Internal Snapshots ]

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Install

At least Ruby Version 2.4 is needed, Here is how to install Ruby 2.5 on different distributions

Just install the gems used and you're good to go (Assuming that you have KVM installed)

gem install rubysl-tempfile
gem install rubysl-optparse
gem install open4
gem uninstall zip # Need to be removed if installed
gem install rubyzip

git clone https://github.com/eslam-gomaa/virt-backup.git
cd virt-backup
ruby virt-backup.rb --help

Prefered way to install

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cd /var
git clone https://github.com/eslam-gomaa/virt-backup.git
alias virt-backup="ruby /var/virt-backup/virt-backup.rb"
# Put it in ~/.bashrc for persistence.
# echo 'alias virt-backup="ruby /var/virt-backup/virt-backup.rb"' >> ~/.bashrc
virt-backup -h

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Test

📌 The tests are done by an automated Jenkins pipeline

Distro	Test Result
Ubuntu 16.04
Ubuntu 18.04
Ubuntu 20.04
CentOS 7
CentOS 8
fedora-34
Debian 10
Debian 11

Note for Debian 11 Users (Consider that issue)

It works fine on my tests, but if you'll use the --with-snapshots or -s option make sure to test to restore your VM

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Examples

• Backup a VM with all its disks

Note To backup the Snapshots of the VM, use the option --with-snapshots

ruby virt-backup.rb --backup \
 --with-snapshots \
 --original-vm kubernetes-master \
 --save-dir /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/

• Backup a VM with only system disk

ruby virt-backup.rb --backup \
 --with-snapshots \
 --original-vm kubernetes-master \
 --system-disk-only \
 --save-dir /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/

• Restore a VM from backup

Note no options needed when restoring a backup with only system disk, the script detects and handles that.

Note To restore the Snapshots of the VM, use the option --with-snapshots

ruby virt-backup.rb --restore \
 --with-snapshots \
 --backup-file /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/kubernetes-master.zip \
 --restore-dir /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/

• Backup without compression

supported (--compression) values are: default, none, best Default: best

ruby virt-backup.rb --backup \
 --with-snapshots \
 --original-vm kubernetes-master \
 --system-disk-only \
 --compression none
 --save-dir /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/

Example screenshots

Assuming you have installed this way

🚩 Backup

mkdir /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/

virt-backup --backup \
  --with-snapshots \
  --original-vm cirros \
  --save-dir /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/

🚩 Restore

virt-backup --restore \
  --with-snapshots \
  --backup-file /var/lib/libvirt/images/backup/cirros.zip \
  --restore-dir /var/lib/libvirt/images/

Updates & Fixes

• If md5 mismatch found, print where is the difference ✔️
• Pause the VM before collecting the checksum ✔️
• Fix: Error if snapshot name has a space ✔️
• Fix: Restore snapshot --> stable now ✔️
• Update: Zip 64 bit is added (the support to backup & restore large disk files) ✔️
• Add command-line control to the compression level ✔️

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Note
The script does the job perfectly, However to add more features easily the code needs to be refactored,

And since that would take a few weeks, at least 3 features/enhancements should be requested first.

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Thank you

Eslam Gomaa

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