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=== Introduction ===

[[Affa]] supports hot backing up virtual machines running on the VMWare ESXi server. It uses the VMware Infrastructure Perl Toolkit to communicate with the EXSi and rsync over ssh to transfer the data. Before the backup starts, the state of the running VM is freezed by creating a snapshot of all its disks. After the freezed virtual disk files were backed up, the snapshot is deleted and the config points to the just backed up disks again. Then, as a last step the config files are backed up.

A restore of a VM can be done by simply copying back all archived files to the original location on the ESXi host. It is also possible to copy the files to a different directory (or to another ESXi server) and add the vmx file to the inventory. Alternatively with SambaShare=yes the VMWare Converter tool can be used.


{{Note box|This document is applicable to ESX3i with an USB boot device. It will most likely not work with other type of boot devices}}

{{Warning box|This software comes 'as is' without any warranty.  Errors in design and/or implementation cannot be completely eliminated. Therefore take precautions to avoid negative impacts to your system.}}

=== Preparing the Affa Server ===
==== Affa Installation ====
Install the Affa program as descibed here: [[Affa#Installation_or_Update]]

==== VMware Infrastructure (VI) Perl Toolkit Installation ====
===== Configure the DAG repository =====
You need to activate the [[Dag]] reposity before installing this contrib.<br />

see [[dag|dag repository]] <br />


Login as root and run:
 /usr/bin/yum install openssl-devel
 /usr/bin/yum --enable=dag install perl-XML-SAX

===== Install the VMware Infrastructure (VI) Perl Toolkit =====
Download the VI Perl Toolkit tarball from the VMWare web site: http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/viperltoolkit/
 tar xzf VMware-VIPerl-1.6.0-104313.i386.tar.gz
 cd vmware-viperl-distrib
Edit the vmware-install.pl script and comment out these lines
   4738 #      if ( -d '/proc/xen' ) {
   4739 #        error('You cannot install ' .
   4740 #              vmware_product_name() .
   4741 #              ' on a system running a xen kernel.');
   4742 #      }
Run the script
 ./vmware-install.pl
Ignore this warning:
The following Perl modules were found on the system but may be too old to work
with VIPerl:
URI
XML::NamespaceSupport



=== Preparing the ESXi Host for use with Affa ===
To make the ESXi server ready to cooperate with Affa you must install the rsync program, enable the ssh service, configure passwordless ssh login and add a user for API communication using the VMware Infrastructure (VI) Perl Toolkit.
==== Adding an ESXi User with restricted Permissions ====
Run the Virtual Infrastructure Client and logon to the ESXi host.
===== Adding Affa role =====
Switch to the ''Administration'' module and add a new role with permissions to create and delete snapshots

[[Image:Affa_add_new_esxi_role.gif]]
===== Adding Affa user =====
Switch back to the ''Inventory'' module and add a new user with password:

[[Image:Affa_add_new_esxi_user.gif]]
===== Assigning permissions =====
In the ''Permission Tab'' assign the new role to the new user.

[[Image:Affa_add_new_esxi_permission.gif]]


==== Configuring SSH and RSYNC on the ESX3i Host ====
On ESXi the SSH service Dropbear is installed but disabled. To use rsync the SSH service must be enabled and the rsync program must be installed. To enable passwordless login a .ssh directory for storing the keys must be created.

A script <tt>affa-setup.sh</tt> is provided that does this:
* enable SSH service by configuring inetd.conf and restarting the inetd service
* install rsync (statically linked binary)
* create a /root home directory  with a .ssh sub directory to store the public keys for password-less login
* link the .ssh directory to the non-volatile USB device
* add a command to /etc/rc.local that executes all the steps above at boot time

===== Download and install the script ===== 
On the ESXi Server console hit Alt-F1 to get the service shell. Now blind-type the word '''unsupported''' to unlock the shell. 

Login with the root password.

[[Image:Affa_esxi_service_console.gif‎]]

Download the tarball. The tarball contains the rsync binary and the script. 
 cd /bootbank
 wget <nowiki>http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/michaelw/sme7/Affa2/affa-esxi-setup-02.tgz</nowiki>
Verify the download
  wget <nowiki>http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/michaelw/sme7/Affa2/affa-esxi-setup-02.tgz.md5sum</nowiki>
  md5sum -c affa-esxi-setup-02.tgz.md5sum
Unpack it
 tar xzf affa-esxi-setup-02.tgz 
 rm affa-esxi-setup-02.tgz* 
and run the script
 ./bexi/affa-setup.sh

Now you can ssh login and use rsync.

=== Setting up an Affa job ===
The following assumes, that you are already familiar with configuring [[Affa]] and only focus on the ESXi specific parts.

Assume you want to backup the virtual machine named 'myvm' on ESXi server with IP 10.200.48.5.

* log into the 'affabox' and copy the config helper script
 cp -a /usr/lib/affa/jobconfig-esxi-sample.pl /root/esxi-myvm-job.pl
* edit <tt>/root/esxi-myvm-job.pl</tt> and set
 my $jobname='esxi-myvm';
and
 'remoteHostName‘=>'10.200.48.5',
* tell Affa that this job backups a ESXi virtual machine
 'ESXi' => 'yes',
* set the VM name
 'ESXiVMName' => 'myvm',
* set the username and password (this is the ESXi User with restricted permissions created above)
 'ESXiUsername' => 'affa',
 'ESXiPassword' => 'secret',
* configure virtual disk files to be compressed and chunked
 'chunkFiles' => '*.vmdk',
* save the script, then run it
 /root/esxi-myvm-job.pl
* send the public key
 affa --send-key esxi-myvm
* run the job manually
 affa --run esxi-myvm

When the Affa job starts, you can watch the snapshot create task in the Virtual Infrastructure Client.
[[Image:Affa_esxi_viclient_tasks.gif]]

The name of the snaphot starts with "BEXI-". Do not delete it or revert to it while Affa is running.

=== Uninstall ===
SSH login as root on the ESXi host and run these commands '''carefully''':
 grep -v "#BEXI" < /etc/rc.local >/etc/rc.local.affa; mv -f /etc/rc.local.affa /etc/rc.local
 sed -e 's#^\(root:.*\)\(:/root:\)\(.*\)#\1:/:\3#' < /etc/passwd > /etc/passwd.affa; mv -f /etc/passwd.affa /etc/passwd
 sed -e 's/^\(ssh.*\)/#\1/' < /etc/inetd.conf > /etc/inetd.conf.affa; mv -f /etc/inetd.conf.affa /etc/inetd.conf
 kill -HUP `ps | grep inetd | sed -e 's/ .*//'`
 rm -rf /bin/rsync /root /bootbank/bexi
 tar -C / -xzf /bootbank/environ.tgz sbin/dropbearmulti

=== Addtional Information ===




===== How to update the ESXi System Image =====
Shutdown the ESXi server. Remove the USB Memory stick and plug it into a linux computer.
run the <tt>dmesg</tt> command to find out the device the memory stick is assigned to. The following example assumes that it is /dev/sdf. Replace is by the correct device.
 mkdir -p /mnt/esxi
 mount -t vfat /dev/sdf5 /mnt/esxi
Save local.tgz and the bexi/ directory to the local machine
 cp -a /mnt/esxi/local.tgz /mnt/esxi/bexi .
 umount /mnt/esxi
Download the ISO from the [http://www.vmware.com/download/esxi/ VMWare website] and extract the image.

 mount -o loop VMware-VMvisor-InstallerCD*iso /mnt/esxi/
 mkdir -p /tmp/esxi
 tar -xvzf /mnt/esxi/install.tgz -C /tmp/esxi/
 umount /mnt/esxi
 cd /tmp/esxi/usr/lib/vmware/installer/
 bzip2 -d VMware-VMvisor-big*.dd.bz2
Write the new image to the memory stick. Make sure that you use the correct target device of=...
 dd if=VMware-VMvisor-big-3.5.0_Update_3-123629.i386.dd of=/dev/sdf
 rm -rf /tmp/esxi
Copy local.tgz and the bexi/ directory to the memory stick.
 mount -t vfat /dev/sdf5 /mnt/esxi
 cp -a local.tgz bexi /mnt/esxi
 umount /mnt/esxi
Plug the memory stick into the ESXi server and power on.

Note: Alternatively you can install the new ESXi image on a second memory stick and then remote copy local.tgz and bexi/ from the running ESXi. Then shut down the ESXi server, replace the stick and power on. This minimizes the down time.

===== How to make a statically linked Rsync Binary =====
''(This is just for information. A pre-build Rsync static is included in the affa-esxi-setup-*.tgz tarball)''
* download the source from http://rsync.samba.org/
* unpack the tarball
 tar xzf rsync-3.0.4.tar.gz
 cd rsync-3.0.4
* build the statically linked binary
 make CFLAGS="-static" EXEEXT="-static"
 strip rsync-static

=== References ===
Wiki article [[Affa]]

[[Category:Howto]]
[[Category: Backup]]
[[Category: Virtualisation]]
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