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"