How can I use dd to back up the whole disk from inside a linux-vserver guest?

Question

I have a Linux-vserver guest I want to dump the whole disk of. I have no access to the host.

I tried:

dd if=/dev/hdv1 | gzip -c | ssh [email protected] 'dd of=/path/to/file.img' bs=2048

but the result was:

dd: opening `/dev/hdv1': No such file or directory

Running df inside the linux-vserver guest gives this result:

root@vs8904:~# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdv1              1511856   1409764     25292  99% /
root@vs8904:~#

But:

root@vs8904:~# ls -al /dev/hd*
ls: cannot access /dev/hd*: No such file or directory
root@vs8904:~#

Is there any tool which will allow me this?

I can not have any access to the host machine hosting this linux-vserver.

Answer 1

Is is a Linux-VServer guest? If so it's only a "advanced" chroot and your guest only have a virtual-disk that is actually a directory on the host. So dd will not work.

Answer 2

If you wish to do a full backup of a Linux-VServer, you need to use rsync and not dd. You should be able to find the relevant documentation on their website.