From Proxmox VE

VZDump is a utility to make consistent snapshots of running OpenVZ VEs and KVM guests. It basically creates a tar archive of the VE private area, which also includes the VE configuration files.

There are several ways to provide consistency:

• stop the VE during backup (very long downtime)
• use rsync and suspend/resume (minimal downtime)
• use LVM2 (no downtime)

See Vzdump manual, Vzrestore manual and Qmrestore manual

vzdump.conf

see man page for vzdump . options can be put to /etc/vzdump.conf . here is a vzdump.conf from a 2.0 install:

# vzdump default settings

#tmpdir: DIR
#dumpdir: DIR
#storage: STORAGE_ID
#mode: snapshot|suspend|stop
#bwlimit: KBPS
#ionize: PRI
#lockwait: MINUTES
#stopwait: MINUTES
size: 4000
maxfiles: 2
#script: FILENAME
exclude-path: /var/cache/zm/events  

exclude-path:

for exclude-path , this works:

exclude-path: /var/cache/zoneminder/events
exclude-path: "/var/cache/approx/*"

and this on tests done 2011-12-04 does not work:

exclude-path: "/var/cache/zoneminder/events /var/cache/approx"

so just use multiple lines for exclude-path .