[libvirt-users] Best practices on backingup/restore VMs

[Arthur Pemberton]

On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 12:48 AM, Justin Clift <justin at salasaga.org> wrote:
> On 06/08/2010 02:59 PM, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
>>
>> I just moved from F11 to F13 and I'm find no information on the best
>> way to restore VMs. I had just copied /var/lib/libvirt (with the VMs
>> off) as part of my backup (I already backup all of /etc). But
>> virt-manager doesn't allow creations of VMs without installing.
>>
>> Also, as a side note, the search feature on the website doesn't seem
>> to allow me to search using documentation only.
>
> Hi Arthur,
>
> It sounds like you already have working and valid XML configuration files
> saved somewhere.
>
> You may want to take a look at importing those XML configuration files (one
> by one) directly into your new F13 setup.
>
> Look into the virsh "define" then "start" commands, used from the command
> line.
>
> That should get you started.  There is plenty of info on the Net, in the man
> pages, and in the Fedora 13 Virtualization Guide, about this.
>
> Hope that helps. :)
>
> Regards and best wishes,
>
> Justin Clift

I found out about `virsh define` from the IRC channel, and was able to
restore from there. However, going forward, I'm curious as to how
'everyone else' handles backup/restore: simple copy/snapshot?

-- 
Fedora 13
(www.pembo13.com)