User`s guide

Operations on Virtual Machines and Containers 42

 Ubuntu, version 4.10 and higher

Using pctl backup and pctl restore

This section describes how to perform the basic backup-related operations using the pctl

utility.

Creating a Virtual Machine and Container Backup

You can use the pctl backup command to back up your virtual machines and Containers.

This command is executed on the Source Server and can store the created virtual machine and

Container backup on both the Source and Backup Servers. When creating a backup on the

Source Server, you only need to specify the name of the virtual machine and Container to back

up. For example, you can execute the following command to back up the MyVM virtual machine

and store its backup archive on the Source Server:

# pctl backup MyVM

Backing up the VM MyVM

Operation progress 100%

The virtual machine has been successfully backed up with backup ID {746dba2a-

3b10-4ced-9dd6-76a2blcl4a69}

The command output informs you that the virtual machine backup has been successfully created

and assigned ID 746dba2a-3b10-4ced-9dd6-76a2blcl4a69. You can use this ID

when managing the backup archive (e.g. remove the backup).

At the same time, you can run the following command to back up the MyVM virtual machine and

store its backup archive on the Backup Server with the IP address of 129.129.10.10:

# pctl backup MyVM -s root:1qaz2wsx@129.129.10.10

root:1qaz2wsx before the Destination Server IP address denotes the root credentials used to

command execution.

All newly created backups are placed to the directory specified as the value of the

BACKUP_DIR parameter in the /etc/vzbackup.conf configuration file. By default, this

directory is /vz/backups/ID (where ID is the ID of the respective virtual machine and

Container).

Notes:

1. A Backup Server can be any server running the Parallels Server Bare Metal software and

having sufficient space for storing virtual machine and Container backups.

2. For more information on the options you can pass to pctl backup, refer to the Parallels

Command Line Reference Guide.

Listing the Existing Backups

You can use the pctl backup-list command to view the backups existing on the physical

server. For example:

# pctl backup-list

ID Backup_ID

Node Date Type Size