[lxc-users] What is right way to backup and restore linux containers?

[Saint Michael]

What would it be the right tar parameters to compress and decompress all
the rootfs, including devices and special files?

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 11:58 AM, Bostjan Skufca <bostjan at a2o.si> wrote:

> Depends if you need consistent copy and how much downtime you can tolerate.
>
> If inconsistent copy is enough, then you can run rsync over storage of
> running container (on host, not in container) and be done with it.
>
> Rsync:
> I find rsync useful and fast, providing that:
> - whole container filesystem metadata fits into memory
> - not too much data changes between subsequent rsync runs
>
> So, my simplified procedure is:
> 1: rsync #1 - does most of the work, takes time, but can be run on running
> container
> 2: rsync #2 - to see how much files have changed since initial run (gives
> good estimate of upcoming downtime)
> 3: lxc-stop -n container (on host 1)
> 4: rsync #3
> 5: lxc-start -n container (on host 2)
>
> This procedure gives me about 10 seconds of downtime for containers with
> small filesystems (up to 50GB).
>
> Block device migration:
> Rsync is fast if it operates on not-too-many-files. If you are getting
> long rsync runs because of amount of small files, then you might be better
> off migrating whole block device. You can go about it with LVM or btrfs
> snapshots too. I do not usually use this.
>
>
> LXC vs LXD:
> LXC in generally single-host-centred, so you have to do things manually.
> LXD on the other hand supports operations on multiple hosts, but others
> are more qualified to summarize what is currently possible (creating LXD
> host associations between on-premises and cloud-provider hosts etc.)
>
> b.
>
>
>
> On 4 December 2015 at 17:32, Saint Michael <venefax at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I was going t ask the same question.
>> It  is a very important one. I am moving containers via rsync, but it
>> takes tooo long.
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 11:03 AM, Eax Melanhovich <afiskon at devzen.ru>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hello.
>>>
>>> Lets say I have some container. I would like to run something like:
>>>
>>> lxc-backup -n test-container my-backup.tgz
>>>
>>> Then move backup somewhere (say, to Amazon S3). Then say I would like
>>> to restore my container or create its copy on different machine. So I
>>> need something like:
>>>
>>> lxc-restore -n copy-of-container my-backup.tgz
>>>
>>> I discovered lxc-snapshot, but it doesn't do exactly what I need.
>>>
>>> So what is the right way of backuping and restoring linux containers?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Best regards,
>>> Eax Melanhovich
>>> http://eax.me/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> lxc-users mailing list
>>> lxc-users at lists.linuxcontainers.org
>>> http://lists.linuxcontainers.org/listinfo/lxc-users
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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