Backing up the ESX host

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Gott

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While what I've read, people don't generally backup the ESX host because it's very easy to reinstall. But my question/concern is, what do they do about the virtual switches and other host configurations? Surely they must save a configuration file or directory because redoing those can be time consuming.

I'm only aware of the /etc/vmware folder being of any significance as well as the following commands:
esxcfg-info -n
esxcfg-vswif -l
esxcfg-vswitch -l

But do any of you backup your ESX host configuration's and if so, by what means?
 
It doesn't work well in my limited experience. Esx.conf is edited automatically at times so backing it up may not work. I'll look into seeing what it would take to just back up the netwoking portion. Most just wrote down the network stuff and redo it or have it in a scripted install
 
I think this is one of those things that ESX 4 will improve on - duplicating configs between hosts...

Frankly, I think this is a feature that it should already have.
 
Well for the time being I have a script that adds my vswitches and vlans to the appropriate nics.
 
if you have a SAN, you can use your SAN tools to snap the LUNS of the ESX hosts while it's running. If you don't, then your best bet with ESX 3.5 is probably to do what I did, log into the VC Server, and take screencaps of your Network config settings on each host, and save them to a .JPG file, and save it inside your recorded configuration/deployment notes. When you have to move boot devices or SAN LUNs, just open up your step by step instructions (that you should have created based on best practices) and also open up your .JPG network config screencaps. It really shouldn't be that difficult. You'll spend more time redoing the installation than recreating the network config, if you've done this.
 
sabregen said:
if you have a SAN, you can use your SAN tools to snap the LUNS of the ESX hosts while it's running. If you don't, then your best bet with ESX 3.5 is probably to do what I did, log into the VC Server, and take screencaps of your Network config settings on each host, and save them to a .JPG file, and save it inside your recorded configuration/deployment notes. When you have to move boot devices or SAN LUNs, just open up your step by step instructions (that you should have created based on best practices) and also open up your .JPG network config screencaps. It really shouldn't be that difficult. You'll spend more time redoing the installation than recreating the network config, if you've done this.
Click to expand...
We do have an iSCSI SAN but as I previously mentioned, I have a script that adds all of my virtual switches, VLANs, and associates them with the correct virtual nic. The only captures we have are the installation steps.

For me, it's easier to run a three commands - and redirect them to a file - to get the output and put them in a script.
esxcfg-vswif -l
esxcfg-vswitch -l
esxcfg-nics -l
 
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