This article describes how to run the latest build of ESXi 5.1 Patch 2 (Build 914609) with the newest backupscript ghettoVCB (from William Lam). This article also includes an update from ESXi 5.x to the newest version.
You can see an overview of all the releases, patches and updates here.
If you don’t have a ESXi 5.1 P2 follow the upgrade process described here. You can skip this.
Download the patch from here and select the newest update (Patch Release ESXi510-201210001)
The easiest way is to provide the image on a http server so it is very easy to get. (You can also copy it via WinSCP or similar)
Login to your server via PuTTY or similair and get your image via
wget http://10.10.10.10/esxi5.1u2/ESXi510-201212001.zip -O /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip
After you downloaded the update execute the update process via esxcli (don’t reboot, there is more to do!)
esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip
If you have ESXi 5.1 P2 installed you can continue here
It is on to deploy our custom package. Last time a filesystem within a tgz-file was created. This time an own VIB (vSphere Installation Bundle) will be created which. Download the Community Packaging Tools (CPT) from Andreas Peetz (for Windows). If you like to do this with Linux check out the VMware page about the VIB Author (I have not tested this but maybe you find something on William Lams site here)
Also download the newest ghettoVCB. Don’t forget to alter the script (search for preparation) if you want to use Email Log, especially with a Windows Mail server.
As described in my first article about vSphere Hypervisor a filesystem will be created and then packed into a VIB via CPT.
This filesystem looks like the following (I made some changes according to William Lams site)
/
├───etc
│ ├───rc.local.d
│ │ 999.addCronJobs.sh
│ │
│ └───vmware
│ └───firewall
│ smtp.xml
│
└───opt
└───ghettoVCB
2nd-backup.sh
ghettoVCB-resotre_vm_resotre_configuration_template
ghettoVCB-restore.sh
ghettoVCB-vm_backup_configuration_template
ghettoVCB.conf
ghettoVCB.sh
Starting with the first file
999.addCronJobs.sh
you can see that this file is in the /etc/rc.local.d/ directory. You can’t put your lines in the /etc/lc.local file anymore.
Moreover it is named with the number 999 at the beginning which will make it execute at a very late time and don’t get into conflict with other scripts.
This script kills the cron daemon, injects our lines and starts it again.
# Stop cron /bin/kill $(cat /var/run/crond.pid) # Script for cron injection /bin/echo "#Backup of all VMs" >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root /bin/echo "0 18 * * 0 /opt/ghettoVCB/ghettoVCB.sh -g /opt/ghettoVCB/ghettoVCB.conf -a" >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root /bin/echo "#Backup of SYSTEM Disk to Datastore2 from existing Backups" >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root /bin/echo "0 23 * * 0 /opt/ghettoVCB/2nd-backup.sh" >> /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root # Start cron /usr/lib/vmware/busybox/bin/busybox crond
The /etc/vmware/firewall/smtp.xml is a custom firewall rule to send to emails. (search for creating a custom firewall rule)
In the /opt/ghettoVCB there are the files which you have downloaded from William Lams Github site and also made the changes regarding Email (see top of this article)
the 2nd-backup.sh looks like this
#variables
d1=/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/BACKUP
d2=/vmfs/volumes/datastore2/BACKUP
#delete backups older than 20 days
test -d "${d2}" || mkdir -p "${d2}"
cd "${d2}" && find . -mindepth 1 -mtime +20 -exec rm -f {} ;
#change to original dir
cd "${d1}" && find . ( ! -name "*_1-flat.vmdk" ) | cpio -padvm "${d2}"
it deletes all backups from datastore2/BACKUP which are older than 20 days.
After this it changes to the datastore 1 and copies only the 1st harddisk of all VMs to datastore2.
Unfortunately the cpio command (Version 2.9) has some bugs where it loses permissions, access and modification time, even when you set the appropriate parameters. These bugs are fixed in version 2.11.
With this knowledge it happens that the initial backup stays longer on your datastore2, but after 20 days it will also be removed. This maybe can be a problem if you do not have that much space on datastore2.
Load the filestructure to the /tmp folder of an existing ESXi or another Linux machine.
Make your shell scripts executable and pack your folder into a tgz file
chmod +x /tmp/opt/ghettoVCB/*.sh chmod +x /tmp/etc/rc.local.d/*.sh tar -czvf /tmp/sysstem.tgz /tmp/etc/ /tmp/opt/
Now get the sysstem.tgz back on your machine and start CPT.
Follow the instructions on the page of Andreas Peetz how to configure the parameters. (be aware that this tool can’t handle UNC paths correctly.
These are my preferences
Now Copy this VIB to a Webserver (to make it available for more hosts) or directly to the ESXi.
We need to set the acceptance level to CommunitySupported so the own crafted VIB can be installed.
esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported
After this the own package can be installed
esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/sysstem-fs-5.1p2.x86_64.vib -f
The -f flag forces the VIB to be installed because the acceptance level (and/or other reasons) is officially unsupported by VMware.
Now reboot and your new system should be ready with all the updates and your Backupscript in place.
This is the simplyfied script I use to upgrade a ESXi vSphere Hypervisor, once all the preparation work is done.
wget http://10.10.10.10/esxi5.1p2/ESXi510-201212001.zip -O /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip wget http://10.10.10.10/esxi5.1p2/sysstem-fs-5.1p2.x86_64.vib -O /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/sysstem-fs-5.1p2.x86_64.vib esxcli software vib update -d /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/ESXi510-201212001.zip esxcli software acceptance set --level=CommunitySupported esxcli software vib remove -n sysstem-fs esxcli software vib install -v /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/sysstem-fs-5.1p2.x86_64.vib -f
