GhettoVCB

There's a script called GhettoVCB which creates and restores backups using snapshots, which means that the backup will be done online without needing to shut the guest down. The drawback with this script is that it is unable to back up guests with existing snapshots.

Backing Up with GhettoVCB

On a linux machine:

# wget ghettoVCB-master.zip
# scp ghettoVCB-master.zip root@esxi:/

On the ESXi server:

~ # unzip ghettoVCB-master.zip
Archive:  ghettoVCB-master.zip
   creating: ghettoVCB-master/
  inflating: ghettoVCB-master/README
  inflating: ghettoVCB-master/ghettoVCB-restore.sh
  inflating: ghettoVCB-master/ghettoVCB-restore_vm_restore_configuration_template
  inflating: ghettoVCB-master/ghettoVCB-vm_backup_configuration_template
  inflating: ghettoVCB-master/ghettoVCB.conf
  inflating: ghettoVCB-master/ghettoVCB.sh
~ # rm ghettoVCB-master.zip
~ # cd ghettoVCB-master/
/ghettoVCB-master # chmod +x ghettoVCB.sh
/ghettoVCB-master # chmod +x ghettoVCB-restore.sh
/ghettoVCB-master # ls
README
ghettoVCB-restore.sh
ghettoVCB-restore_vm_restore_configuration_template
ghettoVCB-vm_backup_configuration_template
ghettoVCB.conf
ghettoVCB.sh
 
/ghettoVCB-master # vi ghettoVCB.sh

 (ensure that VM_BACKUP_VOLUME is set to your backup volume. eg: /vmfs/volumes/backups/)

To back up a machine named 'CentOS6', run:

/ghettoVCB-master # ./ghettoVCB.sh -m "CentOS6"