Rsync backups and VMWare binary blobs

[jboland at citistreetonline.com (Boland, John)]

with vmware server, if the client is suspended, you can copy or move the
files belonging to that guest to your heart's content. 
not sure how it works with vmware workstation.

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at blu.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at blu.org] On Behalf
Of John Abreau
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 11:57 AM
To: discuss at blu.org
Subject: Rsync backups and VMWare binary blobs

I'm in the process of setting up a new backup server using rsync
snapshots, and I'm trying to figure out how to address my VMWare guest
systems. By default, rsync will see the VMware folders as opaque binary
blobs that change with every backup, and these binary blobs will quickly
chew up all the disk space on the backup server.

I've disabled them for now by including the rsync option
"exclude=VMWare/" when it backs up my workstation's  /home, but that
means the VMware guest systems won't get backed up at all.

How do others back up their VMware guests? I'm using VMWare Workstation,
and I generally leave the guest systems in a suspended state when I'm
not actively using them.


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