How to Backup VM on the Native KVM and KVM-Based Platforms?

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Server virtualization technology has greatly improved the utilization of physical server resources. The popular hypervisors include ESXi, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, etc. ESXi is the most popular one but KVM also captures a lot of users because of its advantages, fast and economical.

VM backup is always a required skill for IT administrators and you can use the KVM backup scripts in the following sections to protect data in virtual environment.

How to take a snapshot in KVM as a short-term backup?

Snapshot can be regarded as a kind of quick backup. It is often created before system patching or updating for saving the status of the VM including power, memory, etc. When you restore VM from snapshot, VM will be reverted to the previous state.

Taking a snapshot takes much less time than creating backup and snapshot works in the way similar to backup when restoring VM, but it is still suggested to take KVM VM backup. Using snapshot to recover KVM VM relies on both of the VM files and snapshot files so that it can’t recover VM from severe disaster. In addition, storing snapshot for too long (more than 72 hours) will increase the load of VM and affect VM performance. Therefore, KVM snapshot is good, but you need to use it as backup correctly.

Creating snapshot backup in KVM environment needs virsh command. Just type the command below,

virsh snapshot-create-as domain snapshot-name

Domain is the name of the KVM VM, and snapshot-name is the name you give to the snapshot.

To check the list of KVM VM snapshots, type the command below:

virsh snapshot-list domain

To restore VM from KVM VM snapshot, type the command below:

virsh snapshot-revert domain snapshot-name

To delete one KVM VM snapshot, type the command below:

virsh snapshot-delete domain snapshot-name

How to make KVM backup with command line?

Virsh commands can also help export VM configuration and virtual hard disk. You can use them to create new virtual machine .

To export the VM configuration, type the command below:

# virsh dumpxml vm_name > /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm_name_backup.xml

Vm_name is the name of the KVM VM and the last part is the directory you would like to store the configuration file

To check the directory of virtual hard disk, type the command below:

# virsh domblklist vm_name

To copy the virtual hard disks, type the command below:

# cp /var/lib/libvirt/images/vm_name.qcow2 /var/lib/libvirt/images/vm_name_backup.qcow2

Replace the directories in this command with the real directory that you have checked.

To modify the configuration file, type the command below:

# vim /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm_name_backup.xml

Note: Virsh editing is not supported because the VM hasn’t been registered, so it can be only edited by vi/vim.

Things need to be modified:

1. Metadata

Change vm_name into vm_name_backup

2. UUID

Modify any number to make it distinct from the original one

3. virtual disk label

Change the directory into the new one

4. VNC port

VNC port should be unique

To register VM, type the command below:

# virsh define /etc/libvirt/qemu/vm-name_backup.xml

# virsh start vm_name_backup

How to clone KVM VM with command line?

Virt-clone is the command line tool for KVM VM clone. Before you use it to clone VM, make sure the guest is powered off.

For instance, if you have a QEMU VM in Red Hat Virtualization environment, and its name is demo, type the command below to clone it:

# virt-clone --connect qemu:///system --original demo --name newdemo --file /var/lib/libvirt/images/newdemo.img --file /var/lib/libvirt/images/newdata.img

If you would like to perform a simple automatic clone, type the command below:

# virt-clone --original demo --auto-clone

How to backup and restore VMs on KVM-based platforms simply?

It might take a long time to backup VMs on the native KVM but you can have a better solution to backup VMs on KMV-based platforms. Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a professional backup and disaster recovery solution for KVM-based platforms, like Oracle Linux KVM, Red Hat Virtualization, oVirt, etc. (Native KVM is not supported for now)

All the VM backup and restore job configurations are completed with wizards in a user-friendly web console. You just need to add the host into Vinchin backup server, and then you can make backup of any VMs on the host agentlessly.

Besides, Vinchin Backup & Recovery will also help manage heterogeneous virtual environment by allowing you to move VM between different virtualization platforms.

You can try this solution with a 60-day full-featured free trial. It just takes a few minutes to deploy in your virtual environment.

Conclusion

KVM becomes more and more popular and KVM backup is always necessary. To make backup, you can use the commands in this post to backup and clone VM.

The procedures of type commands might be tedious. You can use Vinchin Backup & Recovery to easily configure backup and restore jobs for VMs on KVM-based platforms, greatly improving work efficiency. Don’t miss the free trial.