<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 6:37 PM, Fajar A. Nugraha <<a href="mailto:fajar@fajar.net">fajar@fajar.net</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) <div class="im"><<a href="mailto:space.time.universe@gmail.com">space.time.universe@gmail.com</a>> wrote: </div><div class="im">> Hi, > > I don't think I will be using the LVM snapshot method. I will simply ensure > that my domU is not running, </div>Ah, so you can live with the down time. It makes things a lot simpler then. <div class="im"> > then I proceed to do the losetup and kpartx > procedure. </div>Like others mentioned, you don't need losetup for LVs. It will only make things slower. <div class="im"> > Subsequently I will backup the MBR of my domU by dd-ing > /dev/loopX and clone all the filesystems of the domU using fsarchiver. > > I would like to use fsarchiver because it can support LZMA compression. LZMA > can compress better than bzip2 and decompress 3x faster than bzip2. > partimage only supports gzip and bzip2. </div>If your concern is the size and speed of backup, here's one final note from me: you might want to look at zfs. Possible use scenarios : - use opensolaris as dom0. Probably the most supported option when it comes to xen + zfs, but you need to be familiar with how opensolaris works. - use external storage server running solaris/opensolaris as iscsi SAN. Think of it as poor-man's Netapp. - use zfs-fuse inside Linux dom0, and store domU storage as files - use zfs-fuse on domU, and do backup from domU instead of dom0. With zfs, you'd get zfs snapshot (which is like instaneous in-place backup), incremental block-level send (can greatly reduce backup storage size if your data doesn't change often), optional transparent compression for live data (like what ntfs has). -- Fajar </blockquote></div> I am not familiar with OpenSolaris but that may change with time. -- Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) Dip(Mechatronics) BEng(Hons)(Mechanical Engineering) Alma Maters: (1) Singapore Polytechnic (2) National University of Singapore My Primary Blog: <a href="http://teo-en-ming-aka-zhang-enming.blogspot.com">http://teo-en-ming-aka-zhang-enming.blogspot.com</a> My Secondary Blog: <a href="http://enmingteo.wordpress.com">http://enmingteo.wordpress.com</a> My Youtube videos: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/enmingteo">http://www.youtube.com/user/enmingteo</a> Email: <a href="mailto:space.time.universe@gmail.com">space.time.universe@gmail.com</a> Mobile Phone (Starhub Prepaid): +65-8369-2618 Street: Bedok Reservoir Road Country: Singapore