Using automatic backups on a VPS

Last updated 16th June 2021

Objective

This option offers a convenient way to frequently have complete VPS backups available from your OVHcloud Control Panel without having to connect to the server to create and restore them manually. Another advantage is that you can also choose to mount a backup and then access it via SSH.

This guide explains the usage of auto-backups for your OVHcloud VPS.

Requirements

• access to the OVHcloud Control Panel
• an OVHcloud VPS service already set up
• administrative access (root) via SSH to your VPS (optional)

Instructions

Log in to your OVHcloud Control Panel, navigate to the "Bare Metal Cloud" section, and select your server from the left-hand sidebar under Virtual Private Servers.

Step 1: Subscribing to the Automated backups option

After selecting your VPS, click on the Automated backup tab in the horizontal menu.

In the next step, please take note of the pricing information, then click on Order. You will be guided through the order process and receive a confirmation email. Backups will now be created daily until the option is cancelled again.

Step 2: Restoring a backup from the OVHcloud Control Panel

After selecting your VPS, click on the Automated backup tab in the horizontal menu. There will be a maximum of 7 daily backups available (15 with older VPS ranges). Click on ... next to the backup you would like to restore and select Restoration.

If you recently changed your root password, make sure to tick the option "Modify the root password on restoration" in the popup window to preserve your current root password and click on Confirm. You will receive an email as soon as the task is complete. The restoration might take a while, depending on the disk space used.

How to mount and access a backup

It is not necessary to completely overwrite your existing service with a restoration. The "Mounting" option allows you to access the backup data to retrieve your files.

Step 1: Control Panel

Click on ... next to the backup you need to access and select Mounting.

After the process is completed, you will receive an email. You can now connect to your VPS and add the partition where your backup is located.

Step 2: Secure Shell

First, connect to your VPS via SSH.

You can use the following command to verify the name of the newly attached device:

$ lsblk

Here is a sample output of this command:

NAME    MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda       8:0    0   25G  0 disk 
├─sda1    8:1    0 24.9G  0 part /
├─sda14   8:14   0    4M  0 part 
└─sda15   8:15   0  106M  0 part 
sdb       8:16   0   25G  0 disk 
├─sdb1    8:17   0 24.9G  0 part 
├─sdb14   8:30   0    4M  0 part 
└─sdb15   8:31   0  106M  0 part /boot/efi

In this example, the partition containing your backup filesystem is named "sdb1". Next, create a directory for this partition and define it as the mountpoint:

$ mkdir -p /mnt/restore
$ mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/restore

You can now switch to this folder and access your backup data.

Best practice for using auto-backups

The Automated Backup functionality is based on VPS snapshots. We recommend to follow the steps below to prevent any issues before using this option.

Configuring the QEMU agent on a VPS

Snapshots are instantaneous images of your running system ("live snapshot"). To ensure the availability of your system when the snapshot is created, the QEMU agent is used to prepare the filesystem for the process.

The required qemu-guest-agent is not installed by default on most distributions. Moreover, licensing restrictions may prevent OVHcloud from including it in the available OS images. Therefore, it is best practice to verify and install the agent in case it is not activated on your VPS. Connect to your VPS via SSH and follow the instructions below, according to your operating system.

Debian-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu)

Use the following command to check whether the system is properly set up for snapshots:

$ file /dev/virtio-ports/org.qemu.guest_agent.0
/dev/virtio-ports/org.qemu.guest_agent.0: symbolic link to ../vport2p1

If the output is different ("No such file or directory"), install the latest package:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install qemu-guest-agent

Reboot the VPS:

$ sudo reboot

Start the service to ensure it is running:

$ sudo service qemu-guest-agent start

Redhat-based distributions (Centos, Fedora)

Use the following command to check whether the system is properly set up for snapshots:

$ file /dev/virtio-ports/org.qemu.guest_agent.0
/dev/virtio-ports/org.qemu.guest_agent.0: symbolic link to ../vport2p1

If the output is different ("No such file or directory"), install and enable the agent:

$ sudo yum install qemu-guest-agent
$ sudo chkconfig qemu-guest-agent on

Reboot the VPS:

$ sudo reboot

Start the agent and verify that it is running:

$ sudo service qemu-guest-agent start
$ sudo service qemu-guest-agent status

Windows

You can install the agent via MSI file, available from the Fedora project website: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/latest-qemu-ga/

Verify that the service is running by using this powershell command:

PS C:\Users\Administrator> Get-Service QEMU-GA
Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  QEMU-GA            QEMU Guest Agent

Go further

Using snapshots on a VPS

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