Mounting EMC's Checkpoints / SnapSure as a file-level recovery solution for VMware ESX Virtual Machines when using NFS Datastores
**Edit** 10/21/2009 - This is not solely for VMs running on NFS Datastores. This can be VMs running on iSCSI too. You just have to export the snapshot as a NFS volume to mount it inside a linux box
**EDIT** 1/15/2010 - Collin MacMillan over at http://blog.solori.net- brought up a very good point. How can you export an ISCSI VMFS to a NFS datastore? The Answer is: I DON'T KNOW =(. I no longer have my celerra, so if anyone can test and let me know, I will be sure to update the post. So if you're running iSCSI, this is YMMV. Thanks Collin!
I'm really getting bad at these long titles. On to the good stuff
A little background on what I am running to see if it will suit your environment's needs. I currently have 7 ESX Servers running version 3.5 and an EMC NS40 Celerra Version running version 5.3.36. My environment runs solely on NFS and so far this is the best option I've seen. You will need a linux box, in this case I created a virtual machine of Kubuntu Desktop Intrepid Ibex 8.10. That being said let's continue.
Basically, this is how it works. Using the Celerra Manager we will create a schedule of checkpoints for a file system. This is done on the back end of the file system, so unlike many backup solutions, this won't put any stress on the ESX hosts. Using some Linux mount commands, we can mount the snapshots/checkpoints and mount a virtual machine's hard drive. This solution is free, won't be needing any additional servers or bigger storage, can be managed internally, and won't be dependent on 3rd parties.
How To Recover a lost document
Forewarning: Please forgive me on some of the names on the graphics not matching up with the text, it's all relative anyway
From the Celerra we have 2 Options. 1)Create just 1 checkpoint or 2) Create a schedule for checkpoints
To create 1 checkpoint:
1) Open up your Celerra Manager Page
2) Click on Checkpoints
3) Click on the button 'New '
4) The screen below is what you will be shown.
- Use the drop down box to choose the Production File SYstem that you wish to have a checkpoint created.
- Give the Checlpoint a name, click on OK and you are done.
To create a schedule:
1) Open up your Celerra Manager Page
2) Click on Checkpoints
3) Click on Schedules
4) Click the button 'New'
5) The screen below is what you will be shown.
- Use the drop down box to choose the Production File SYstem that you wish to have checkpoints created.
- Put in a 'Schedule Name:'
- The under 'Run At Which Hours' tick a box on what hour during the day you would like the snap shot to be created
- Under 'Number of checkpoints to keep:', type in how many you would like to keep on a rotating schedule. I chose 14 because the schedule I'm creating will take 1 snap shot per day, so this will be a 2 week retention schedule.
- Click on OK and you are done.
Now we need to make the checkpoint a NFS volume
1) Go to Checkpoints within the Celerra Manager
2) Find the date of the checkpoint that is needed
3) To Export the checkpoint as a NFS Filesystem, right click the checkpoint and then click on 'New NFS Export'
4) You are now brought to the screen below
- Type in the IP address of your linux box that will be mounting this NFS share under the 'Root Hosts'
- Click OK and you are done
Mount the NFS Checkpoint to a folder on the linux host
1) create a directory anywhere
- mkdir /home/administrator/Desktop/NFSmount
2) mount the NFS share to the folder we just created
- sudo mount NFSserverIPaddress:/NFSexport /home/administrator/Desktop/NFSmount
3) enter sudo password
4) the NFS checkpoint is now mounted
Find the -flat.vmdk file needed
1) Go to your NFSmount folder by using the cd (change directory) command.
2) Find the vmdk flat file needed
- for this case we'll use MONT01A_1-flat.vmdk in the Virtual Machine MONT01A.
At this point you can use the folder GUI Dolphin (KDE) to view all of your files. If need be, you can drag files to another network share, or to your own desktop.
To mount the vmdk within linux I can't take any credit. Thanks to this blog by Nick Triantos, he demonstrates hows to use some linux mount commands to mount the vmdk. I had to modify my method a bit because I am running kubuntu. Also, before you begin, you need to have the linux NTFS driver so do a 'sudo apt-get install ntfs-config'
Create a mount point for the vmdk
1) create a directory anywhere
- mkdir /home/administrator/Desktop/mountpoint
2) Mount the -flat.vmdk to the mount point
- sudo mount /home/administrator/Desktop/NFSexport/MONT01A/MONT01A_1-flat.vmdk /home/administrator/Desktop/mountpoint -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0,offset=32256 -t ntfs
3) the drive is now mounted to the folder mountpoint
4) you can use the use the cp command to copy files to another network location, or you can now email a particular file to a user using KMail. Or like before, you can browse through the GUI desktop to access your files.
To unmount everything be sure you have cd back to the root of the Desktop folder
1) sudo umount NFSmount
2) sudo umount mountpoint
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Some notes on things I tried where I got stuck.
On the Celerra I would take take a RO checkpoint of a filesystem. Export that Filesystem as NFS (setting the root access for my IP)
I installed UNIX services for windows and I was able to mount the NFS share on my XP box.
VMware has a disk utility that allows you to mount vmdk's on windows without having VMware Workstation or Server installed.
I try to mount a vmdk using the vmware-mount command, and I get an error saying that it cannot mount a read-only disk.
So i go the linux route.
I have a kubuntu vm and I installed VMware Server so I can have a bunch of the vmware commands available.
I get the NFS share mounted without a problem on kubuntu. Then I try using vmware-mount to mount a vmdk and I get an error saying it couldn't mount it because "it's not a filesystem"
So I tried to make a R/W checkpoint of a different filesystem on the NS40.
I try the windows route:
I can mount the NFS share without a problem, but when I go to mount the vmdk using the vmware-mount command, i get the same read-only error.
I try the kubuntu route:
Mounted the NFS without a problem. Then when i tried to mount a vmdk, I got the same error as before.
I then tried to mount a vmdk, using the vmware-mount command of a VM that was powered OFF, and it was able to mount the vmdk.
So using the vmware-mount command, I can mount a vmdk from a powered off VM, from a Read/Write checkpoint from the NS40 (Celerra). On the other hand, I'm sure that if I copied the vmdks from the NFS share to the local hdd, I could mount the disks. But that is not a feasible solution because some of VMs may have 300gb vmdks. Then you are hitting space requirements and time lost by copying a vmdk.