Introduction

The Appliance Hypervisor provides the possibility to backup your VM's via ssh to a remote second Appliance in the same network on a schedule or directly.

In order to keep the guide clear and easy to follow, there will be a label whether we are working on the first original Appliance or the second remote Appliance.
For the example in this guide I will use 2 Appliances with the IPs:

- 172.20.20.61

- 172.20.14.98

Prerequisites

two beroNet Appliances in the same network
firmware newer than v2.07

How it works

We generate an SSH-Key on the remote Appliance and upload it to the original Appliance, in order to pair the configured internal storage of the remote Appliance for Backups of your VM's.
If you initiate a remote Backup, the Appliance will create a backup of the VM and send it to the remote Appliance.
You can choose to keep the network configuration of the first Appliance or create a new network configuration.

Pair the beroNet Appliances

Step 1: Configure internal storage of the remote beroNet Appliance

In order to backup VM's from the first Appliance you have to configure the internal storage with enough free space.

Go to Backup+ → Backup Configuration → Internal Storage (on the second Appliance)
allocate enough local space to hold your VM's

beroNet Documentation > How to BackUp a VM to a remote beroNet Appliance (firmware 2.07) > internalstorage.png

Step 2: Pair the storage of the remote Appliance to the first Appliance via SSH

Go to Backup+ → Backup Configuration → Paired Storage (on the second Appliance)
Generate the SSH Key and wait for the Key to be created
Download the SSH-Key and save it

beroNet Documentation > How to BackUp a VM to a remote beroNet Appliance (firmware 2.07) > dwSSH.png

The SSH-Key-File will have a name that contains the serial number of the Appliance in order to make it easy to match it to the Appliance when uploading.

In our example: 20-08-0000000867_id_rsa.pub will be used to pair the remote Appliance with the serial-number 20-08-0000000867 on our first Appliance.

Go to Backup+ → Backup Configuration → Paired Storage (on the first Appliance)
Generate the SSH Key and wait for the Key to be created
Scan the network to search for the remote Appliance
Upload the SSH-Key you downloaded previously and click pair

In the next steps we will repeat the previous procedures the other way around to pair the first Appliance to the remote Appliance as well in order to ensure the SSH-Connection.

Step 3: Configure internal storage of the first beroNet Appliance

In order to backup VM's from the first Appliance you have to configure the internal storage with enough free space.

Go to Backup+ → Backup Configuration → Internal Storage (on the second Appliance)
allocate enough local space to hold your VM's

Step 4: Pair the storage of the first Appliance to the remote Appliance via SSH

Go to Backup+ → Backup Configuration → Paired Storage (on the second Appliance)
Generate the SSH Key and wait for the Key to be created
Download the SSH-Key and save it

beroNet Documentation > How to BackUp a VM to a remote beroNet Appliance (firmware 2.07) > dwSSH.png

Go to Backup+ → Backup Configuration → Paired Storage (on the first Appliance)
Generate the SSH Key and wait for the Key to be created
Scan the network to search for the remote Appliance
Upload the SSH-Key you downloaded previously and click pair

Paired

Your Appliances should now be paired and they should have a green light next to the other Appliance under Paired Storage.
Furthermore you can see the total size of the remote Storage and the available space.

If it does not, please refer to the tooltip or the Troubleshooting Section further down in this Guide.

beroNet Documentation > How to BackUp a VM to a remote beroNet Appliance (firmware 2.07) > paired.png

Create a VM-Backup to the remote Appliance

In order to create a remote Backup of your VM, visit the Management page of your first Appliance

Go to Dashboard → <your VM> → Open Management-Page → Backup-Settings

beroNet Documentation > How to BackUp a VM to a remote beroNet Appliance (firmware 2.07) > backuppage.png

Manual Backups

Under Manual Backups, choose the Paired Storage of the remote Appliance
Click on Create Backup
Under Background Tasks you can see that the backup process has been started
When the Background Tasks Icon vanishes, the Hypervisor has successfully created a backup

Scheduled / Automated Backups

Under Automated Backups, set a interval and a time for the scheduled backup. (The VM can still run in the background)
You can limit the number of backups currently saved on the remote Appliance for the current VM
Click on Save
Under Background Tasks the backup process will start as soon as it's the configured time
When the Background Tasks Icon vanishes, the Hypervisor has successfully created a backup

Restore a VM-Backup on the remote Appliance

In the case that your first appliance would fail or malfunction, you are able to restore the VM on your remote Appliance.

Here you can choose to assign new MAC-addresses to the network configuration of your VM or keep them if you want to use it as a fail-over without reconfiguration.

Go to Backup+ → VM Backups → On Internal Storage on your remote Appliance
Choose whether or not you want to assign new mac addresses and press Apply
Under Background Tasks the restoring process will start and the icon vanishes if the Hypervisor has successfully restored the VM

You are now able to see the restored VM in your Dashboard.

From here you can Start and Stop the VM as usual or Download the VM as .ova file.

Troubleshooting

Check if the Internal storage space of the remote Appliance is correctly configured with enough space
Check the SSH-Connection: Are the SSH-Keys correctly exchanged between the two Appliances?
Please check the firmware version of the remote appliance (required: 2.07)
Note that there should only be one Backup created at a time
Check Background Tasks Error for more information