vSphere-Backup-Manager/README.md

# vSphere Backup Manager

An enterprise-ready web interface and CLI tool to automate, schedule, and manage snapshot-based backups for virtual machines on VMware vCenter/ESXi. Designed for performance, reliability, and security, it includes advanced features such as Change-based checksumming, automated retention policies, and grouped batch executions.

---

## Key Features

- **Grouped Sequential Batch Backups**: Select multiple VMs to execute sequentially in a single job. This protects vCenter/ESXi storage datastores from network I/O congestion and merges execution logs and progress indicators into a single view.
- **SHA-256 Checksum Verification & Cataloging**: Computes SHA-256 signatures immediately after each VMDK/VMX file download and generates a machine-readable `manifest.json` catalog alongside each backup run.
- **Pre-Upload Validation**: Automatically validates local checksums prior to remote transfers (e.g., SFTP) to protect storage vaults against silent write errors or network package loss.
- **On-the-Fly ZST Verification**: Supports stream-decompression on the fly to verify `.zst` archives against original manifest signatures without needing local disk extraction.
- **Safe Force Stop (Cancellation)**: Safely halt running backups via the Web UI. The engine immediately aborts socket downloads and **automatically cleans up the VM snapshot** on the ESXi host before gracefully terminating.
- **Automated Retention Policies**: Define count-based (`keep_count` to keep the last $N$ backups) or age-based (`keep_days` to clean up backups older than $N$ days) retention policies per VM to manage storage space automatically.
- **Resilient Scheduling**: Uses APScheduler to schedule daily, weekly, monthly (with specific weekday or day number rules), or interval backups. Schedules are written to disk (`jobs.json`) and automatically re-registered upon app restarts.
- **Integrated NFS Mount Manager**: View, mount, and manage NFS/CIFS shares directly from the Web GUI, showing real-time mount statuses, total size, used capacity, and free disk space.

---

## Requirements

- Python 3.8+
- System packages listed in `requirements.txt`:
  - `pyvmomi` (VMware vSphere API Python SDK)
  - `requests` (vCenter HTTPS folder API transfers)
  - `paramiko` (SFTP remote storage replication)
  - `zstandard` (High-ratio backup compression)
  - `APScheduler` (Recurring backups scheduling)

---

## Installation

1. **Clone the repository**:
   ```bash
   git clone <repository_url>
   cd backupvmware
   ```

2. **Set up a Python Virtual Environment**:
   - **Linux**:
     ```bash
     python3 -m venv venv
     source venv/bin/activate
     ```
   - **Windows**:
     ```powershell
     python -m venv venv
     .\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
     ```

3. **Install dependencies**:
   ```bash
   pip install -r requirements.txt
   ```

---

## Web GUI Setup

A Flask-based web interface utilizing a premium glassmorphic dark theme to manage backups, schedules, mounts, and real-time logs.

### Running with PM2 (Recommended for Production)

PM2 natively supports Python applications and keeps the server running across restarts or process crashes.

1. **Install PM2** (requires Node.js):
   ```bash
   npm install -g pm2
   ```

2. **Start the Web GUI**:
   Using the provided `ecosystem.config.js`:
   ```bash
   pm2 start ecosystem.config.js
   ```

   *(Optional)* If you are running inside a Python virtual environment (e.g. `venv`), edit `ecosystem.config.js` to point the `interpreter` to your venv's python executable:
   ```javascript
   interpreter: './venv/bin/python3'
   ```

3. **Useful PM2 Commands**:
   - **Status Dashboard**: `pm2 status`
   - **Real-time Console Logs**: `pm2 logs vsphere-backup-manager`
   - **Restart Application**: `pm2 restart vsphere-backup-manager`
   - **Stop Application**: `pm2 stop vsphere-backup-manager`
   - **Enable Auto-start on Boot**: Run `pm2 startup` and execute the command it prints, followed by `pm2 save`.

---

## CLI Usage

You can also execute standalone backups directly from the command line:

### Basic Backup
```bash
python vsphere_backup.py --host vc.example.com --user administrator@vsphere.local --vm MyVM --dest /mnt/nfs-backup --compress
```

### Backup with Remote SFTP Replication
```bash
python vsphere_backup.py --host vc.example.com --user administrator@vsphere.local --vm MyVM --dest /tmp/backups --sftp-host backup-vault.local --sftp-user vault-user --sftp-password vault-pass
```

---

## Manual Restore & Clone

Backups are stored in **native VMware format** (VMDK + VMX), so they can be restored directly to vCenter/ESXi without any conversion.

### Backup File Structure

```
backups/<VM_NAME>/backup-YYYYMMDDHHMMSS/
├── manifest.json                  ← SHA-256 checksums + metadata
├── <VM_NAME>.vmx                  ← VM configuration (CPU, RAM, network, etc.)
└── <datastore_name>/
    └── <VM_NAME>/
        ├── <VM_NAME>.vmdk         ← Disk descriptor (~500 bytes, plain text)
        └── <VM_NAME>-flat.vmdk    ← Actual disk data (full size)
```

With compression enabled, files are stored as `.vmdk.zst` / `-flat.vmdk.zst`.

### Restoring a VM (In-Place)

#### Step 1 — Decompress (if compressed)

```bash
zstd -d <VM_NAME>.vmdk.zst
zstd -d <VM_NAME>-flat.vmdk.zst
```

#### Step 2 — Verify Checksum

```bash
# Compare the output with the value in manifest.json
sha256sum <VM_NAME>-flat.vmdk
```

#### Step 3 — Upload to Datastore

**Option A — vSphere Web Client** (easiest)

1. Navigate to **Storage** → select the target datastore
2. Create or navigate to the VM folder
3. Upload the `.vmx`, `.vmdk`, and `-flat.vmdk` files

**Option B — SCP to ESXi host**

```bash
# Enable SSH on the ESXi host first, then:
scp -r ./backup-20260623020000/<datastore>/<VM_NAME>/ \
  root@esxi-host:/vmfs/volumes/<datastore>/<VM_NAME>/
```

**Option C — PowerCLI**

```powershell
# Copy files to ESXi datastore via datastore browser
Copy-DatastoreItem -Item ".\*.vmdk" -Destination "[datastore1] <VM_NAME>/"
```

#### Step 4 — Register the VM

Right-click the `.vmx` file in the datastore browser → **Register VM**, or use PowerCLI:

```powershell
New-VM -VMFilePath "[datastore1] <VM_NAME>/<VM_NAME>.vmx" -VMHost "esxi-host"
```

#### Step 5 — Power On

```powershell
Start-VM "<VM_NAME>"
```

### Cloning from Backup (New VM)

To restore a backup as a **separate new VM** without affecting the original:

1. Upload files to a **new folder** on the datastore (e.g. `<VM_NAME>-clone/`)

2. Edit the `.vmx` file — change these lines to avoid UUID/MAC conflicts:

   ```
   displayName = "<VM_NAME>-clone"
   uuid.bios = "generate a new UUID"
   ethernet0.generateAddress = "00:0c:29:xx:xx:xx"
   ```

3. Remove any snapshot references if present:

   ```
   # Delete or comment out lines starting with:
   snapshot.redoNotWithParent =
   ```

4. Register and power on:

   ```powershell
   New-VM -VMFilePath "[datastore1] <VM_NAME>-clone/<VM_NAME>.vmx"
   Start-VM "<VM_NAME>-clone"
   ```

### Best Practices

- **Keep a copy** — never restore over your only backup copy
- **Test restore quarterly** — verify backups actually work before you need them
- **Isolated network first** — always boot cloned VMs on an isolated port group to check for IP conflicts before connecting to production
- **CBT resets on clone** — the first backup of a cloned VM will be a full backup (CBT state does not carry over)
- **Snapshot cleanup** — if the backup was taken with snapshots still active, remove orphaned snapshots after restore

---

## Safety & Architecture

1. **Snapshot Isolation**: The backup engine creates a temporary snapshot on the target VM, downloads the locked base files (such as `.vmdk` descriptors, `-flat.vmdk` disk data, and `.vmx` configurations) directly from the Datastore HTTP gateway, and deletes the snapshot immediately afterwards.
2. **SSL Configuration**: Custom certificate verification options (`--no-verify-ssl` or Web checkbox) allow connecting to environments using self-signed vCenter certificates.
3. **Database Integrity**: Job records, statuses, and scheduling data are written safely using thread-safe synchronization locks to prevent state corruption.