Many administrators use lvm snapshots for quick backup files in current state. Virtualmin use tar for creating snapshot of virtual server files, but when tar is working, some files can be changed and they will backed up badly.
Solution for this problem is to quickly do lvm snapshot before backing up files, and after this do tar snapshot from lvm snapshot, in which nothing is changed.
For do this, we can add option "Parent folder for files to backup" into backup options.
For example: Default parent folder: /home Custom parent folder: /mnt/lvm-snapshot Command to run before backup: [lvm create snapshot, mount to /mnt/lvm-snapshot] Backup process: [dumping virtialserver files not from /home/[path], but from /mnt/lvm-snapshot/[path]] Command to run after backup: [lvm umount, remove snapshot]
What do you think about this?
Can you add this feature in future versions?
Or maybe you can provide another solution for this problem?
I agree, but a user shouldn't have to specify the commands. "Just a snapshot option" would be better.
(by the way, this is exactly what the OpenVZ utilitues vzdump an vzdup do as well)
This option will be for advanced users, not for regular. "Snapshot" option will be better, but this will to hard to implement for normal working on different systems. So at first will be good to see this option, maybe not in visible part, but in advanced settings or on config files, for solve backup problem on already working lvm systems.
OpenVZ is virtual machines, but virtualmin is for shared hosting, this is different systems.
In my opinion the feature should be also for regular users (virtual server owners). Not disagreeing just adding an additional opinion.
There is hope that this is not difficult to implement since the virtualmin folks already did something similar for cloudmin (http://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/cloudmin/vm/backup).
regarding your openvz comment
But the method of backing up the containers is the same (filesystem based). Vzdump basically creates a tar archive of a folder. To avoid the problem you described Vzdump takes advantage of snapshots as well (just wanted to give an example to support your case)