Check out the latest update to both ghettoVCB and ghettoVCBg2, which now supports vSphere 4.1! There are no new features introduced with these updates but ghettoVCB does include additional logging and debugging functionality to help identify issues that may arise. Unfortunately, with ghettoVCBg2 I had to perform some additional code changes due to undocumented changes in vMA's vi-fastpass Perl library. This initially caused the script to break and the reason was deprecated methods that were removed in the latest release of vMA 4.1. Luckily the fix was not too bad and I had to spend a few hours looking at the new methods that were implemented.
Hopefully everyone enjoys these two releases and if you run into any troubles, please post in respective script's forum.
Anonymous says
you know when ghettoVCB-restore support esxi 4.1?
Now not support.
Thanks
William says
@Anonymous
Technically it _should_ work on vSphere 4.1, though the same change that was done on ghettoVCB will be needed on ghettoVCB-restore as it checks for either 3.5 or 4.0. I've not had the time to validate that script and may not happen for awhile. You can make the change and let me know if you run into any issues
--William
Anonymous says
First, Thanks a bunch for GhettoVCB. We are testing and think its great! However, I have run into a major snag. Likely it is my poor knowledge of Linux to blame but I have been successful in getting GhettoVCB to work, even scheduled and ran jobs using cron. Unfortunatley I seem to have discovered that ESXi (4.1) uses a RAM drive for the file system and that any changes I make (copying the script and modifications to the cron file) gets discarded on a reboot of the system. Any suggestions?
William says
@Anonymous
Please take a look at the ghettoVCB documentation, there is a section that explains persisting configuration changes. For further questions/comments, please post in the ghettoVCB forum.
Thanks
Brett says
I just upgraded our ESXi hosts to 4.1 and broke our ghettoVCB backup scheme (Works Great, by the way!!). I tried to download the updated script but the vmware community page to download the files gives me a "forbidden" page. Is there any way to get a copy directly?
Thanks!
William says
@Brett,
VMware upgraded their VMTN software and ghettoVCB document was not converted over correctly. It will not get resolved until VMware is back from their holiday break. For now, you can grab the latest via Google cache
Brett says
Thanks William. Should have thought of that (Google is our friend). Anyway, got the updated script installed and all is well.
Great script!!
Joseph says
William,
The ghettoVCB script seems to have an issue when the rsync link is enabled, `ls -t` doesn't skip the symlink so the backup retention code gets fubared. Also, on esxi you cant create a symlink over another, you need to remove it first, so the initial creation works but subsequent backups don't work as expected.
I used an ugly find/sed hack for lack of something better atm...
danhvos says
Looks like Vmware took down the ghettoVCB posting. I cannot find it in any internet cache either. Can you post the full text for implementing ghettoVCB on this blog?
William says
@Joseph,
There should not be any type of skipping, the "ls -t" just performs a listing and sorts by modification times. Could you provide a little bit more details? Overwriting the symlink, that maybe an issue on ESXi, but I personally don't use it and was released as part of a feature request. I'll need to take a look when I get a chance but thank you for the information
William says
@danhvos,
Please take a look at this thread and the response should include the latest copy of the ghettoVCB document - http://communities.vmware.com/message/1674597#1674597
I'm hoping to have an answer for everyone real soon on the ghettoVCB document issue.
Thanks for your patience.
William says
I wanted to give an update to the ghettoVCB document, it has been resolved over the weekend. You should be able to reach it once again - http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-8760
Let me know if there are any issues accessing the document.
Thanks
Richard says
Maybe it is my vision problem getting in the way. Could you point me to the spot to click to download ghettoVCBg2.
William says
@Richard,
The script downloads are located at the bottom of the document
Bjorn Azzopardi says
When I run the command vim-cmd svc/getallvms I get the following "error at line number 7, not well-formed (invalid token)"
Any ideas? i am running esxi 4.1 update 1.
Bjorn
William says
@Bjorn,
No issues I've seen for ESXi 4.1 Update 1
~ # vmware -v
VMware ESXi 4.1.0 build-348481
~ # vmware -l
VMware ESXi 4.1.0 Update 1
~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
Vmid Name File Guest OS Version Annotation
16 daft [esx4-6-datastore1] daft/daft.vmx dosGuest vmx-07
32 punk [esx4-6-datastore1] punk/punk.vmx dosGuest vmx-07
If you're continuing to have more issues, I would recommend posting on the VMTN community forums. I've seen in the past that vim-cmd could get screwed up if hostd isn't responsive ... you may want to check that your ESXi host is in fact healthy and not constrained on any resources. A good reboot may also help even though it's not ideal
Bjorn Azzopardi says
@William,
~ # vmware -v
VMware ESXi 4.1.0 build-348481
~ # vmware -l
VMware ESXi 4.1.0 Update 1
~ # vim-cmd vmsvc/getallvms
at line number 7, not well-formed (invalid token)
I upgraded to this version from 3.5 as the ghetto script was failing at when running this command. The error now changed to this. The system is not resource constrained.
Bjorn Azzopardi says
I restarted the machine a number of times too
Steve says
What does "Datastore not found" mean to me??? It seems to back everything up, but I still get this message....
Anonymous says
is there an update for 5.1 or 5.5 coming up?