I want to know if Virtual/Webmin/Apache/other things installed by Virtualmin directly refer to any hardware parameter, such as the MAC address ?
I ask this because I want to know if there can be any problems if I restored a system image of my VM onto another new VM … Like suppose something messes up on my server, and I have to restore an earlier snapshot of the HDD onto another VM with the exact same specs, can I expect problems ? Or any errors when I boot using the new VM ?
Note that I can ensure that the external router and internal IP for VM, are both the same as before. But still some parameters will change, such as the MAC address.
The MAC address is only one example here which I can think of. I’m sure there are other things changing too in the OS internally, such as HDD IDs, other internal IDs, etc …
It should be no problem to restore your image onto another system.
The only thing I’d be concerned about is if your /etc/fstab file points to a hard drive’s UUID, rather than the actual device name.
However, you mentioned that it’s a VM… that’s rare on a VM, so I suspect you’ll be fine
When it comes to backups though, it’s always good to be sure, so that you can sleep soundly at night. I’d always recommend testing it, so that you can be confident that your backups will work as expected.
Is there any way to take a complete backup of Webmin/Virtualmin, which includes their settings, plus the domains hosted through them, and the hosted domain’s folders, files, databases, emails … ?
This is just if I want to take such a backup, then create a new fresh VM, install Webmin/Virtualmin on it, and then restore this backup ?
While waiting, you might want to use the forum search, or scan through last week’s posts, since this question has been asked (and answered) many times, last time just recently.
Short version: Yes, Virtualmin has a backup function (take a look at “Backup and Restore” in the sidebar), which includes everything related to its virtual servers and its configuration. It doesn’t include Webmin and system settings though. Webmin has separate backup functions, which are not needed if you plan to install Virtualmin manually on a new system and using its backups.
