RSP & Packages

[esnw33430]

Hi Pharoz

It does work a treat!

You can perform you're backups through the GUI depending on what you need to do or the size of the image you are running but if you get used to the CLI things do get easier :)

The CLI isnt so bad really (though me being from a Cisco background does help as the commands are almost identical) but just use the "?" to help step you through the commands, usually you have a rough idea which area you want to work in but its the exact syntax you need a reminder on....

the ? will show you which commands you can use and does serve as a great reminder, just bearing in mind that the CLI is very powerful and as a wise man once said....

With great power comes great responsibility.

Enjoy and if you do get stuck there is always the forum or the fine support service the Riverbed team supply.

Cheers

G

[pharoz]

Good stuff, G! I will have to try this next time we backup our RSP VMs. I wish there was a way to simply allow us to do this through the web interface so we don't have to go through the CLI. 

[darenmatthews]

Nice!  Very good advice which I'm sure that many people will find extremely useful!  Thanks for sharing this G.

[esnw33430]

Hi Guys

Sorry for the delay on this, been very busy here :)

ok the fastest and simplest way I found to do all this was to:

image the server (vConverter) and have that do all the leg work for you (choose which drives you want to keep / resize, and you can do this on a live running server without disruption)

re-package the image using the RSP package converter

then when your ready to "shrink" your server;  power off your original server and install the "new" package complete with nice fresh resized drives etc. no need to mess with anything else as you have just in effect completed a V2V (virtual to virtual) and resized in one swoop.

no faith in the process?

2 ways around this:

1: using the method of copying the VMDK directly out of the Riverbed (Thanks again Daren) you have a nice copy of the server running in the slot available for restore in the event of this going paws up!

2: using a spare drive for your Riverbed, treat this exactly the same as a drive failure..... swap your drive / restore the device config / squirt the "new" package into the slot and if your so inclined you can use pre-warming to fill the cache again.

remember the size of the RSP partition is the key here, if the package your running in the slot is small they you can just run the RSP backup process (no point in re-inventing the wheel), if the package and resulting VM server are too big and you want to shrink them then this works.

you have a corrupt cache but the VM server is still up and running? the backup process fails cause its hitting a bad section on the disk?  vConverter and repackage works a treat.

Obvious to some people but for others it takes a little digging. :)

have fun guys

[darenmatthews]

Great stuff G,

This will be a very useful tip and I thank you for taking the time to help others.

Much appreciated!

Regards,

Daren

[esnw33430]

Hi Guys

Just to build on this, I'll be looking to take the next intended steps on this and look for the best ways to "shrink" the VMDK that is produced when extracting the virtual server from the Riverbed.

This may come in handy for others who's hand was forced (by people higher up the tree) to roll out a Riverbed install on multiple sites and find themselves with a virtual server on the RSP platform that is too big to allow the backup to work correctly.

I'll get some time set aside for this and update on my findings, as you guys probably know there are many different ways to resize the VM but how many would be simple yet effective?

Cheers

G

[darenmatthews · Accepted solution]

Hi there,

The Knowledgebase Article was accepted and we have an internal KB number 76553.

Essentially it lists the steps we took to find the .vmdk using the linux find / -name *.vmdk -print command, then changing to that directory, ftping to a server then transferring the file (get or mget) to an external server.

A restore of course would enable the same procedure but with put or mput to replace the file.

Also a CLI challenge will be required in order to access the Linux shell, which can be obtained from Riverbed Support.

Also, thanks for the good feedback on my case crit.

- Daren

[esnw33430]

OK Guys

A quick update on this.....

Just finished a WEBEX with Daren at Riverbed Support, this isea works like a charm!

it is indeed possible to copy the flat file direct from the Steelhead (using the linux shell) and put it on an FTP server, and then use the same procedure (in reverse obviously ) to get it back on the device.

you should see the procedure added to the knowledge base soon.

Thanks Daren for your help on this one, much appreciated!

G

[esnw33430]

Hi Faisal

Thanks for your reply, thats what I did the last time. It really is a pity that we cant copy slot files directly to an external storage device.  This would negate the need for space on the RSP partition, while I understand the size of the data would be huge (depending on the size of the pre-allocated disk on the VM running in RSP) it would be of great help to users that find themself in the situation where the RSP image alone consumes most of the RSP partition.

The ability to backup directly to external devices would be much better as the current method isnt really an improvement on the old way of doing the backup (power off the slot /  backup to RSP partition / copy to scp server).

Cheers

G

[fmemon]

HI G,

Unfortuantely you do need free space on the RSP partition to perform a back up.  From the documentation:

Note: Before you create an RSP backup file, ensure that the RSP partition has free space that is greater than or equal to
the size of the RSP slot (total size of all VMDKs) + Slot RAM size + 20 MB. For example, an RSP slot with 30 GB VMDK
and 1 GB of RAM must have at least 31 GB of free disk space on the RSP partition for the RSP backup operation to
succeed.

I think the best option would be to backup the files and configuration you need from within the server to external storage.

Thanks,

Faisal