You can use VMware tools to perform specific operations before or after a backup. For example, if a virtual machine hosts an Oracle database and you want to enable a Hot backup of the database before performing a backup, you can run a script using VMware tools.
By default, custom quiescing scripts for Linux are stored in /etc/vmware-tools/backupScripts.d/. If that directory does not exist or is empty, the system runs any scripts that are in the legacy directory of C:Windowspre-freeze-script.bat on Windows and /usr/sbin/pre-freeze-script on Linux. For more information, see Running custom quiescing scripts inside Windows & Linux virtual machines (1006671).
Note
For ESX version4.x, store the VMware tools scripts in C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\backupScripts.d.
The following scripts are available to perform pre- or post-processing using VMware tools:
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Operation
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Procedure
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Scripts
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Scripts can be used to take a snapshot of a VM with the DB2 application. These scripts enable VMware to suspend I/O updates to the DB2 database until the VMware Linux guest snapshot is completed.
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On a Linux virtual machine, copy the pre-freeze-script and post-thaw-script to the /usr/sbin directory.
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Copy the write_suspend and write_resume scripts to a location where the DB2 database can execute them (preferably to a directory under DB2 home).
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pre-freeze-script
post-thaw-script
write_resume.sh
write_suspend.sh
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Scripts can be used to take a snapshot of a VM with the MAXDB application. These scripts enable VMware to suspend I/O updates to the MAXDB database until the VMware Linux guest snapshot is completed.
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On a Linux virtual machine, copy the pre-freeze-script and post-thaw-script to the /usr/sbin directory.
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Copy suspend_logwriter and resume_logwriter scripts to a location where MAXDB database can execute them (preferably to a directory under MAXDB home).
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pre-freeze-script
post-thaw-script
resume_logwriter.sh
suspend_logwriter.sh
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Scripts can be used to take a snapshot of a VM with the Oracle application. These scripts enable VMware to suspend I/O updates to the Oracle database until the VMware Linux guest snapshot is completed.
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On a Linux virtual machine, copy the pre-freeze-script and post-thaw-script to the /usr/sbin directory.
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Copy the pre-freeze-script.sql and post-thaw-script.sql scripts to a location where the Oracle database can execute them (preferably to a directory under Oracle home).
These scripts change the entire database to backup mode.
If the virtual machine has the Oracle iDataAgent installed on it, you can also use the consistent-archivelog-backup.rman script as a sample to run archivelog backup. This script gets a consistent snapshot, all the latest archived logs, and the current control file.
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pre-freeze-script
post-thaw-script
pre-freeze-script.sql
post-thaw-script.sql
consistent-archivelog-backup.rman
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Scripts can be used to take a snapshot of a VM with the Sybase application. These scripts enable VMware to suspend I/O updates to the Sybase database until the VMware Linux guest snapshot is completed.
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On a Linux virtual machine, copy the pre-freeze-script and post-thaw-script to the /usr/sbin directory.
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Copy pre-freeze-script.sql and post-thaw-script.sql scripts to a location where the Sybase database can execute them (preferably to a directory under Sybase home).
These scripts execute Sybase quiesce commands that stop updates to the databases.
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pre-freeze-script
post-thaw-script
pre-freeze-script.sql
post-thaw-script.sql
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Scripts can be used to take a snapshot of a VM with the MySQL application. These scripts enable VMware to suspend I/O updates to the MySQL database until the VMware Linux guest snapshot is completed.
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On a Linux virtual machine, copy the pre-freeze-script and post-thaw-script to the /usr/sbin directory.
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Copy the quiesce.py and unquiesce.py scripts to a location where the MySQL database can execute them (preferably to the /usr/sbin directory).
A Python script is used to quiesce and unquiesce the databases. Python and MySQL-Python modules must be installed on the client computer.
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pre-freeze-script
post-thaw-script
unquiesce.py
quiesce.py
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