How to backup VMWare ESXi using free tools?

What do I need to do to establish backup of ESXi 3.5 or 4 server? It is my understanding that the server runs Linux, so as far as I understand the backup sequence should be:

• create a snapshot of VM
• copy files to a backup location
• delete snapshot

I could probably write a script to create/delete snapshot. Is there cron on ESXi to schedule backup jobs? And another question: I assume there is no rsync or rdiff-backup pre-installed on ESXi. Are there existing pre-compiled binaries known to work with ESXi?

Solution 1:

Here is an article that describes the configuration and has scripts that you can use to perform a back of ESXi 3.5 and 4.0. I haven't deployed this myself but it is on my todo list to possibly setup.

At the moment I am just running backups within the guests.

Solution 2:

Zoredache has already showed the right way to go. ghettoVCB.sh is your tool of choice. It works quite well, but make sure you also read the articles by Raj Perumal (Part 1, 2 & 3).

Solution 3:

I started writing a script to do this myself but then I came across a free script that already does it called XSIBackup .

It does scheduling as well. I use it to schedule separate backups at different times for each vm in our office ESXi 6.0 server.

It can even do hot backups based on snapshots like the expensive Veeam Backup.

And the cool thing about it is that the backups are all run from cron directly from the ESXi host. You don't need vCenter Server or any of the expensive API tools like Veeam. It just works.