Backing up IBM Power® Virtualization Center data

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Use the powervc-backup command to back up your essential PowerVC data. You can then restore to a working state in the event of data corruption or a disaster.

The powervc-backup command is in the /opt/ibm/powervc/bin/ directory. For syntax and options, run powervc-backup --help.

The following data is backed up:
  • PowerVC databases, such as the nova database where information about your registered hosts is stored
  • PowerVC configuration data, such as /etc/nova
  • SSH private keys that are provided by the administrator
  • Glance image repositories
Important: Most PowerVC services are stopped and all other users are logged off from PowerVC until the operation completes.
Complete the following steps to back up PowerVC data.

  1. Ensure that the user has sufficient sudo privileges configured to perform execution of this command and read access to the files.
  2. Open a command-line interface to the operating system on the virtual machine on which IBM® PowerVC is installed.
  3. Navigate to the /opt/ibm/powervc/bin/ directory.
  4. Run the powervc-backup command with any needed options.
    If prompts are not suppressed, respond to them as needed.
    Example of the command with no prompts and a non default mounted file system target directory:
    powervc-backup --noprompt --targetdir=/tmp/backups
When the backup operation completes, new file powervc_backup.tar.gz is placed in a new time stamp subdirectory of the target directory. For example, a potential file path is /var/opt/ibm/powervc/backups/201391214289350413/powervc_backup.tar.gz. You can then leave the archive there or move or copy it to another directory as needed.
Note: If an error occurs while running powervc-backup, check for errors in the powervc-backup logs in /opt/ibm/powervc/log.
Consider regularly, for example on a daily basis, backing up your PowerVC data as part of a broader system backup and recovery strategy. If you want to regularly back up, use your operating system's scheduling tool to set the powervc-backup command to run on a schedule. Target off-peak intervals when few or no other operations are running in PowerVC.

Active backup of PowerVC

You can use powervc-backup with the --active option to take backup of PowerVC management server even when operations are in progress.