vcbVmName

If we only know some of the details of a VM, but not all, we can use this query tool to ask VirtualCenter to report back all that it can find about it. For example, lets say you know you want to perform an image-level backup of a VM and the VM has IP address 10.0.0.1. We would

[root@esx1host root] # vcbVmName -h vcserver -u vcadminuser -p secret -s ipaddr:10.0.0.1

FoundVM

vcbSnapshot

vcbMounter

If you want to perform image backups of running virtual machines from the service console command line, then this is the command for you. In a lot of ways this is the replacement of vmsnap.pl found in previous versions of ESX.

vcbMounter.exe

This command is the core component of VCB which runs on the VCB Proxy server.

vcbExport

mountvm.exe

This utility is only found on the VCB proxy server.

vcbCleanup

This command is new to 3.5/2.5 and allows a backup operator to cleanup the VM snapshot state should a VCB backup fail before completion.

backuptools.conf

If you don’t want to specify user credentials on the command line, you can store the credentials in this file in the service console.

vcbRestore

When virtual infrastructure administrators first start using VCB, questions arise about how they can restore their VCB archives. The vcbMounter.exe command on the backup proxy performs the backup of the live VM, but where is the utility to perform the restore operation? The answer is, you cannot restore directly from the VCB Proxy server into VMFS, the proxy server has read-only access to the VMFS datastores. The vcbRestore command exists in the ESX host service console. Therefore we need to have the VCB VM archive accessible to the vcbRestore command to perform a restore. The archive could be copied to the service console with a tool such as WinSCP or Veeam FastSCP, but often, administrators will simply perform an NFS/CIFS mount from the service console to the location where the VCB archive is.

vcbRestore /remotenfs/backups/vm

However, as of VirtualCenter 2.5 (with integrated VMware Converter) we have the ability to restore VCB VM archives directly into ESX using the VMware Converter import function. This is a huge step forward in simplifying recovery.

vcbUtil

This command is only in the service console, not on the backup proxy server.