47
Figure 40
. Backing up the host configuration
The resulting backup file contains the host configuration and may be extremely large.
The host may be restored using the following command.
xe host-restore host=<host> file-name=<restorefile>
Original XenServer installation media may also be used for restoration purposes.
Backing up metadata
SRs contain the virtual disks used by VMs either to boot their operating systems or store data. An SR is
physically connected to the hosts by physical block device (PBD) descriptors; virtual disks stored on
these SRs are connected to VMs by virtual block device (VBD) descriptors.
These descriptors can be thought of as SR-level VM metadata that provide the mechanism for
associating physical storage to the XenServer host and for connecting VMs to virtual disks stored on
the SR. Following a disaster, the physical SRs may be available; however, you need to recreate the
XenServer hosts. In this scenario, you would have to recreate the VM metadata unless this information
has previously been backed up.
You can back up VM metadata using the
xsconsole
command, as shown in Figure 41. Select the
desired SR.
Note
The metadata backup must be run on the master host in the resource pool,
if so configured.
