 Hello everybody! Watch this video to find out how to set up backup options for virtual machines and ESXi system configuration. Hello friends! If you need to recover deleted data, view or restore remote browsing history, Hetman software products will help you. Follow the link in the description, download the necessary program for free, install it and analyze the disk. The utility will show you the data you can recover, so you will be able to view it or get it back. In our channel and blog you will find solutions to any problem, from installing an operating system or configuring it to fixing possible bugs and errors or optimizing mobile gadgets. Our specialists will answer any questions you ask in your comments under the videos or articles. Virtualization servers play a crucial role in modern IT systems and loss of data can become a real challenge for business. In today's video, we'll both consider the importance of creating backups and show you how to automate this process and make it more efficient. Virtual machines are often used to store critical information such as databases, mail servers, web applications and much more. Loss of such data can result in grave consequences causing business downtime, loss of customers and even legal issues. Regular backup allows to recover virtual machines after errors and failures and thus reduce the idle period of the whole system. This is especially important for business processes that require permanent availability of certain resources. When the system configuration is modified, software is updated, where certain patches are applied, there is always a risk of encountering problems. Backup files let you roll back all changes if an update goes wrong. Also, backups make it easier to migrate to new hardware or upscale your infrastructure. You'll be able to recover virtual machines easily on new servers or in cloud-based environments. Data backup and system configuration backup are two important elements in the strategy to ensure security in the IT field. Data backup is focused on saving and restoring actual data stored in a system. It could be files, databases, multimedia content and other information assets. System configuration backup is meant to save system settings and options, including operating system settings, application settings, security settings, network settings and other parameters that determine the system structure and functionality. For starters, let's explore how to backup ESXi hypervisor configuration. The easiest way to create a backup of ESXi host system and recover stuff from there is to use special commandlets, including into PowerCLI tool. To use this backup method, you should install an extension called vSpherePowerCLI. I'll show you how to create a backup on a Windows PC connected to the host machine over the network. For starters, make sure that you have PowerCLI installed. Run PowerShell as administrator. Here is the command you need to use for installation. After that, connect to the host. Use this command. You'll have to give the host IP address. To backup an ESXi host server configuration, run the following command. Here, give the ESXi server's IP address and the path to save the backup file. In my case, it will be diskD and the folder backup ESXi. After running the command in this directory, d backup ESXi, a file appears which contains the ESXi server configuration backup. Now, you have this ESXi server configuration backup, and if there is a server breakdown, you'll be able to recover its configuration with the help of this backup file. For recovery, use this command. There is one thing to keep in mind, an ESXi configuration from backup should be recovered to exactly the same version of ESXi, otherwise it may not be successful. As to virtual machines, VMware vSphere ESXi offers several ways to create their backups. I'm going to show you two main methods, one using the web interface and the other using command line utilities, that is PowerCLI. For the first method, we'll be using the web panel, open a browser and type the address of your ESXi host. And then give the login and administrator's password to login. On the main page, choose the virtual machines tab on the left. Find the necessary virtual machine on the list. Right-click on it and choose Snapshot – Take Snapshot. Give the snapshot a name and description, then click Take Snapshot. You can use various options to manage snapshots, such as restoring or deleting snapshots, and you can use them to restore the previous condition of your system from a snapshot you took at an earlier time. There is also the second method to take a snapshot of a virtual machine with the help of PowerShell and PowerCLI. Since we have already installed this tool, now you need to connect to ESXi server, open PowerShell and type the following command. To take a snapshot, run this command, give the machine's name, snapshot name and description. You can also use other PowerCLI commandlets to manage snapshots, such as GetSnapshot, RemoveSnapshot and so on. Please note that taking snapshots can take some time and resources. Also, remember to manage snapshots regularly, so they don't accumulate in big numbers and can't cause possible storage issues. One more way to create a backup copy of the virtual machine involves a third-party tool – GetoVCb. GetoVCb is a script designed to backup virtual machines in VMware ESXi environment. It's a flexible way to backup virtual machines, and it's similar to VMware VCB, which stands for VMware Consolidated Backup. This is a tool which is also used for backup purposes. But using GetoVCb involves taking a snapshot of the virtual machine, running backup operations and then removing the snapshot after backup operations are over. One peculiarity in this scenario is that it can create backups while the virtual machine is online, without having to shut it down. As a simple backup solution for ESXi virtual machines, GetoVCb can create only a full backup file every time. So if you want to create backups of the different data, or in other words, create incremental backups or differential backups, you need to find another tool for the job. But to use this method, download GetoVCb from the official webpage on GitHub. You need to get a source code. After that, enable access by SSH on the ESXi host and download GetoVCb to the server. To enable SSH, look at the control panel, find the host tab, click on Actions, Services, Enable Secure Shell. Now to download the script to the server, go to the Storage tab and click Data Store Browser. In the window that opens, choose the storage where the archive should be downloaded and click Upload. Then give the path to the archive and click Open, and the download will start. When it's over, extract the archive. To do it, connect to ESXi host with an SSH client, for example, for T. Type the host IP address, and then the login and administrator's password. After successful login, go to the Data Storage where you download the archive, type the command CD and the path. To extract the archive, run this command, give the archive name here. Now, you have a folder containing the script on your server. Let's create a special folder to keep your virtual machine backups, and let's give it a simple name – backup. In addition to the local storage, you can also set up an NFS storage. If you have one more server or NAS, you can configure NFS access and save a backup file there. Wait a bit later. I will show you how to configure NFS access on Synology NAS, but now let's modify the configuration file ghettovcv.conf. Go to the folder containing the script. Open the configuration file in a text editor, press the I key to edit. You can modify some settings or delete everything and enter only the options you need. For starters, give the path to the folder where the backup should be stored. Backup format – Synvolve it. Now, one of the important settings is the schedule. I will configure a daily backup at 2 p.m. You can do it with the help of the cron setting. Add the variable cron minute 0, and you can set any digit from 0 to 59. Add another variable cron hour 14, which can contain any digit from 0 to 23. After you run the script, a virtual machine backup will be created every day at the specified time. Now, let's reduce the number of saved backups to 5, so that they don't take up too much space. So add this line. This means that ghettovcv will keep a maximum of 5 backup files, and when a new one is created, the oldest file, which is now the sixth file, will be removed. Now let's save the changes. Press Escape and type a combination of colon and wq. Now you can start the backup operations. To check the configuration, run the script ghettovcv. If you see an error saying that a backup can't be saved and it shows a backup folder path is different from the path we have given in the configuration file, you need to change the script file itself. Open it in the script editor. Here change the path to the backup folder, press the I key to edit, and finally press escape and type colon wq to save the changes. Run the script again. parameter A indicates backing up all virtual machines on the host. By giving the F parameter, you can add a list of virtual machines for backup. To create a list, open a text editor with the name for the list of virtual machines. Add machine names for Linux or Windows, and finally press escape with colon and wq. The command using the list of virtual machines will look like this. With parameter C, you can add a directory for virtual machine configuration. You'll get a backup of virtual machines based on certain configurations located in this directory. Parameter G gives the path to a local ghettovcv configuration file. With parameter L, the output will be written to the log file. Parameter D indicates the debugging level. For example, let's run a command when the archive is not saved and a test run will be performed. As you can see, previously created backups of virtual machines are located in the specified folder. Now, let's explore how to configure NFS storage with the example of SynologyNs. By default, NFS is disabled over SynologyNs, so you need to turn it on first. Open the control panel, file services, SMB AFP NFS tab, and scroll down to check the box next to Enable NFS and NFS version 4.1. After that, click on the shared folder link and add a new shared folder. Create, give its name, description, check the options to hide this shared folder in my network places and to hide files from users without permissions, then click Next. Open permissions and allow access for your user only. Then navigate to NFS permissions and click Create here. Type your ESXi host IP address and click OK to confirm your choice. Remember the mount pass, it is shown down below. Alright, we have created a shared folder for backups. Now let's proceed with host settings. Open the ESXi administration panel, go to Storage tab – New Data Store. In the window that opens, choose the type, mount NFS data store and click Next. Now give its name, type the storage IP address, in my case the IP address of my SynologyNs, and give the directory which you have just remembered. Choose NFS 4, give the login and password with write permissions, click Next and finish. After that, the new data store will appear in this window. You will be able to configure backup to a new directory. To do it, you need to change the configuration file and the script file if necessary. Let's add a new storage directory. Don't forget to give the address of the new NFS storage and the directory. If nothing changes after you have added the configuration file, add the settings data to the script file. To recover data from a backup, you need to copy files from the backup to a certain folder of your virtual machine, or register a new virtual machine from backup. Open virtual machines, create or register VM, register an existing virtual machine, and give the pass to the folder containing a machine. In advance, this folder should be copied to another directory, because it may be erased as new backups are created. If you ever have any issues in restoring files from your backup, or a backup file is damaged or missing, you can always restore virtual machine files accidentally removed from an ESXi server as long as you have a dedicated tool – Hetman RAID Recovery. Hetman RAID Recovery will help you recover data if your RAID has crashed, if you deleted virtual machine files accidentally, or if the disks containing data have been formatted. The program will automatically rebuild the damaged array with the available hard disks and display its contents. To recover your files, start the disk scan and wait until it's over. After that, open the folder where the lost files were stored and recover them. If you want to learn more about virtual machine recovery from VMware ESXi, check other videos in our channel. You can find the link in the description as always. Summing up, we can say that setting up backup options for virtual machines and ESXi system configuration is a key element in ensuring safety and reliability of virtual infrastructure. Today, we have reviewed several backup methods, including with the use of Power CLI and a third-party scripting ghetto visiting. It is important to understand the process of creating backups, because it enables you to use quick recovery methods in case of data loss or failure. And that is all for now. I hope this video was useful. Remember to click the Like button and subscribe to our channel. Leave your comments under the video. Thank you for watching and good luck.