This post describes how you can backup your VMware ESXi home installation with free license using BazaarVCB if you do not have a vCenter Server available. Bazaarvcb is the fastest backup solution I have used on the free VMware hypervisor.
Download the latest version from the download page.
The backup script is run by crontab every night and looks like this
#!/bin/bash
bazaarvcbPath="/media/backup/bazaarvcb-0.9.7b-linux-i386/bazaarvcb"
backupsPath="/media/backup"
hostname="192.168.0.222"
username="root"
password="password"
rollOut="30"
vmNames="vm-guest1 vm-guest2 vm-guest3"
for VM in $vmNames; do
`$bazaarvcbPath backup -H $hostname -u $username -p $password --roll-out $rollOut $VM $backupsPath/$VM`
done
The backups are full so make sure you have enough disk space available.
bazaarvcb options
$ bazaarvcb -h
usage: bazaarvcb [-h] ...
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
valid commands:
checkhash check .hsh files integrity in one directory
listvm list registered VMs on the ESXi host
queryvm display VMs informations
listbackup
search for backups in local and remote directories
querybackup
display report file of one particular
backup backup a VM
restore restore a backup
Open TCP port 31031 in your firewall to ensure that you have a high transfer rate, otherwise the backup will be transferred over SSH protocol and will be capped in speed to about 7MB/s (on the free hypervisor).
Bazaarvcb cannot backup a VM with snapshot(s).
Warning!
I have not tested this on a host connected to a vCenter server and can not confirm that it will work or not.