Acronis: Backup your Linux server

First creation of secure zone

When creation of secure zone requires changing partitions on active disk, acronis will have to reboot the machine. Before reboot it will temporarily substitute MBR. Upon reboot it will perform needed actions, restore MBR and reboot the machine again. However, if zone is created for the first time, acronis will display a graphical dialog "Operation Successful" and wait for user to click the "OK" button, and only after that will it reboot the machine to OS. Therefore, this action cannot be done remotely. 

Archiving disk with virtual machine

vmrun pause /path/to/appliance.vmx
...archive...
vmrun unpause /path/to/appliance.vmx

Example Schedule

1. root disk to secure zone - weekly full
2. root disk to /backup - weekly full, daily increment
3. /group files to /backup - weekly full, daily increment
4. /var file to /backup - weekly full, daily increment

Issues

1. Archiving /var/.../vmware always triggers CDROM
2. Cannot archive root files to /backup (file not accessible ?!)

TODO

1. mail notification
2. vmrun pause/unpause for virtual machine
3. mysqldump for mysql