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    Execute pre-freeze and post-thaw

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    • olivierlambertO Offline
      olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
      last edited by

      No, it's not using the same mechanism. It's a PV call (if I remember, but I'm not sure). You cannot write a xenstore key in live to a VM (only on boot).

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      • olivierlambertO Offline
        olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
        last edited by

        And beyond that, I'm not sure we actually want this behaviour from a security perspective. But it's another topic.

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        • D Offline
          dcskinner @olivierlambert
          last edited by

          @olivierlambert ok, but it wouldn't have to. The guest tools always run the scripts (if they exist) when it sees a snap happening and then reports out the status the same way it says that the block commits are complete.

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          • olivierlambertO Offline
            olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
            last edited by

            They aren't meant for that, I have no idea how difficult it would be to make the PV drivers to actually "do something" (what exactly? write a value in the xenstore?). Maybe @teddyastie could provide an opinion on that.

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            • TeddyAstieT Online
              TeddyAstie Vates 🪐 XCP-ng Team Xen Guru @olivierlambert
              last edited by TeddyAstie

              @dcskinner @olivierlambert

              You can read key/values from the xenstore, and write some (from VM to outside), but you cannot write values "in live" from outside the VM to the inside.

              It is, but XAPI doesn't provide a interface for it.

              do the guest tools quiesce the filesystems before snapshotting?

              Tools are aware of a snapshot so you don't have blocks in flight.

              do the guest tools quiesce the filesystems before snapshotting?

              Guests kernel are aware, as it is them that are performing a "suspend" on toolstack request (thus quiece filesystems); although "tools" can only observe that the system has been suspended after the fact by measuring side effects, and not orchestrate it.

              It's because suspend/resume operation doesn't come from "guest tools" actually, but instead from the kernel drivers. So userland tools has no say on it.

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              • D Offline
                dinhngtu Vates 🪐 XCP-ng Team
                last edited by dinhngtu

                There used to be quiescent snapshot capabilities in older versions (mainly for Windows VSS support), but it has since been removed. I'd say @Team-XAPI-Network knows more about the reason.

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                • psafontP Online
                  psafont Vates 🪐 XAPI & Network Team @dinhngtu
                  last edited by

                  @dinhngtu It's possible to run hooks inside the control domain on different stages of VM lifecycle operations, but these need to be installed beforehand, see https://xapi-project.github.io/new-docs/xenopsd/design/hooks/index.html

                  I think the vm-pre-suspend is the name of the hook the does this, but I can't confirm it. The docuementation is missing the hook, but it exists in the source code: https://github.com/xapi-project/xen-api/blob/master/ocaml/xenopsd/lib/xenops_hooks.ml#L37

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                  • D Offline
                    dinhngtu Vates 🪐 XCP-ng Team @psafont
                    last edited by dinhngtu

                    @psafont Looks like these hooks are for suspend-resume rather than snapshot/backups? I couldn't find any mention of hook calls during the snapshot process

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                    • ForzaF Offline
                      Forza @dinhngtu
                      last edited by

                      @dinhngtu said in Execute pre-freeze and post-thaw:

                      There used to be quiescent snapshot capabilities in older versions (mainly for Windows VSS support), but it has since been removed. I'd say @Team-XAPI-Network knows more about the reason.

                      We have vmware with ppdm backups and the vss part is actually causing some annoying issues such as quite long io stalls. But I do understand the reason for vss, especially for applications that aren't crash safe.

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                      • psafontP Online
                        psafont Vates 🪐 XAPI & Network Team @dinhngtu
                        last edited by

                        @dinhngtu Xenopsd does not have a concept of snapshot. Because I understand that "freezing" the VM means suspending it, I think that the suspend hook will get triggered in any snapshot with memory

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                        • D Offline
                          dinhngtu Vates 🪐 XCP-ng Team @psafont
                          last edited by

                          @psafont Freezing/thawing doesn't actually suspend a VM, but it's just a part of the backup process, where I/O operations are quiesced to create a stable view of the on-disk data.

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                          • J Offline
                            jsajous26 @dinhngtu
                            last edited by jsajous26

                            Could this feature integrate XCP-ng?

                            We are looking for a new virtualization solution.
                            Oracle is a bottleneck for backups.

                            We tested the backup with the Veeam agent, which appears to be successful.
                            However, replication is not possible for this Oracle point via Veeam.

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                            • olivierlambertO Offline
                              olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                              last edited by

                              What is the purpose of this discussion?

                              You did create this thread, I think you would know what's the purpose of this discussion 😅

                              Have you asked VEEAM for a solution, because it seems more VEEAM-related question after all 🤔 I have no idea what it means regarding "replication is not possible for this Oracle point via VEEAM". Remember we aren't from VEEAM in here, so you should explain more precisely what do you expect from us to do despite it seems to be a VEEAM limitation?

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                              • J Offline
                                jsajous26 @olivierlambert
                                last edited by

                                @olivierlambert said in Execute pre-freeze and post-thaw:

                                You did create this thread, I think you would know what's the purpose of this discussion

                                Have you asked VEEAM for a solution, because it seems more VEEAM-related question after all I have no idea what it means regarding "replication is not possible for this Oracle point via VEEAM". Remember we aren't from VEEAM in here, so you should explain more precisely what do you expect from us to do despite it seems to be a VEEAM limitation?

                                The problem is not Veeam, but the inability to trigger a pre-free and post-thaw (Quiesce) on a VM before and after snapshot on XCP-NG.

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                                • olivierlambertO Offline
                                  olivierlambert Vates 🪐 Co-Founder CEO
                                  last edited by

                                  It's not a problem with XO backups 🤷

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