Easiest way to do full OpenVZ container migration without access to node?

elwebmaster

This has been discussed a million times, and people always recommend the same old manual approach of using "rsync" to copy all files and configuration from one VPS to another.

I am looking for a more robust/automated approach similar to the Proxmox dump/restore. I think it would be valuable if providers allowed users to dump/restore their OpenVZ containers, but as this is not the case (and unlikely to ever be) has there been any innovation in this space?

GoodHosting

@elwebmaster said:
This has been discussed a million times, and people always recommend the same old manual approach of using "rsync" to copy all files and configuration from one VPS to another.

I am looking for a more robust/automated approach similar to the Proxmox dump/restore. I think it would be valuable if providers allowed users to dump/restore their OpenVZ containers, but as this is not the case (and unlikely to ever be) has there been any innovation in this space?

Open a Support Ticket to your provider and ask if they will provide a backup of your server, if you don't want to do it yourself. Mind you, all they're going to do is "tar -cjf backup.tbz /vz/private/###/"; the same thing you could do with rsync.

shovenose

vzdump?

elwebmaster

@shovenose said:
vzdump?

Yeah, that's what I want but from within the VPS.

elwebmaster

@GoodHosting said:
Open a Support Ticket to your provider and ask if they will provide a backup of your server, if you don't want to do it yourself. Mind you, all they're going to do is "tar -cjf backup.tbz /vz/private/###/"; the same thing you could do with rsync.

Is this what vzdump does underneath?

I found this article promising: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Full_system_backup_with_rsync

But I can't believe nobody has created a script for doing this on VPS specifically.

rsk

Previously, in such scenarios, I used rsync. Although it is something you "do not want", people recommend it like you say :-)

It is a single, simple command - which can be tuned to your liking (in terms of exclusions)

rsync -e 'ssh -p 22' -azPx --delete-after --exclude-from="/root/exclude.txt" / [email protected]:/

You can read more about it at http://articles.slicehost.com/2011/2/4/migrating-a-linux-server-from-the-command-line-running-the-sync

Good luck :-)

Magiobiwan

elwebmaster said: Is this what vzdump does underneath?

Pretty much. vzdump can do a live dump by doing trickery, but it gives you a tarball just the same.