open-vm-tools-devel

vmbackup plugin

[Ashok S. <ash...@gm...>]

Marcello

Given that there is no way to invoke the vmsync driver from a snapshot
request, I was wondering whether there is any other way to invoke this
driver on a Linux VM?  For instance, the open-vm-tools web-site says this
about vmsync:  "It is used by the "vmbackup" vmtoolsd plugin, so ideally it
should be loaded prior to starting that service, although it is not
required."

Is this still accurate, and if so, how do I go about building, installing,
and running the 'vmbackup' program?

Thanks
Ashok

Re: vmbackup plugin

[Marcelo V. <mv...@vm...>]

Hi Ashok,

Ashok Sudarsanam wrote:
> Given that there is no way to invoke the vmsync driver from a snapshot
> request, I was wondering whether there is any other way to invoke this driver
> on a Linux VM?  For instance, the open-vm-tools web-site says this about
> vmsync:  "It is used by the "vmbackup" vmtoolsd plugin, so ideally it should
> be loaded prior to starting that service, although it is not required."
> 
> Is this still accurate, and if so, how do I go about building, installing,
> and running the 'vmbackup' program?

The "vmbackup" plugin is just part of the Tools service, it's not a program you 
can execute by itself. It's there to respond to requests made by the VMware 
software running on the host (in this case, respond to messages related to 
backup operations).

Given what I mentioned before about these operations being disabled on the host 
for non-Windows VMs, the vmbackup plugin sort of falls in the same "currently 
not very useful" category as the vmsync driver itself...

-- 
- Marcelo