VMware Communities : Thread List - Backup & Recovery

Data Recovery: restore while source VM is gone

dingding — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:26:06 GMT

how to restore a VM when source VM is not there. should i create a VM first?

Unable to backup Virtual Machine from VDR

Ace007 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:59:10 GMT

Hello.

I am trying to take backup for Window XP virtual machine in VDR, from vsphere client. the destination is network share with full permissions and plenty of free space.

The error message in the logs. = Failed to create snapshot for XP, error -3941 ( create snapshot failed)

Please help. Thanks in Advance.

VCB & Symantec Exchange 2007 Agent

ramiatvmtn — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:01:00 GMT

Hello,

we are in the stage of deciding to purchase vSphere Suite for our organization but have some doubt regarding VCB.

Currently we have Exchagne 2007 MB server on a physical server and we are using Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 with Exchagne Agent for Backup. This Agent allows individual Mailbox restore for each user (as shown in attached).

Now I've heard alot about VCB benefits and if am not wrong with VCB i do not need to install seperate Agents on each VM for Backup software to do its job rather VCB presents the VM snapshot and backup software will then do the backup, am i right?

most importantly here now is will i still be able to do individual mailbox restore with VCB only? or do i need the exchagne agent still? this particular picture of how to get this individual mailbox restore working is not clear to me and how VCB works and around which needed component is not clear at all. Could someone just tell me how to achieve Exchagne or even Active Directorly single Object / Mailbox restore with VCB AND/OR Symantec requred agents.

so basically do i need VCB + Symantec Exchange Agent or just VCB or VCB and somethnig else?

Lastly, is it possible to have VCB and Symantec Server on same physical server? any problem?

Thanks in advance.

VDR with vsphere , Failed to create snapshot for XXX, Fehler -3941 ( Erstellen des Snapshots fehlgeschlagen)

sscheller — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:56:51 GMT

Hi,

does someone know why this error 3941 occured?

"Failed to create snapshot for XXX, Fehler -3941 ( Erstellen des Snapshots fehlgeschlagen) "

I´d like to make a backup from our fileserver (2 discs, first 12GB, second 600GB) over VDR.

But after 10 minutes, vdr stop the job.

Any idea why?

I also can´t make a hot clone from this maschine, same problem.Timeout for snapshot.

Thanks for your help

Bye

Snapshots left on VMFS after VDR backup failed - how to merge/delete?

iPhun — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:39:53 GMT

These days some backups did not finish successfully and I had to force the VDR appliances down. Now there are still delta files since the snapshots could not be removed successfully. I merged the snapshots via Snapshot Manager (deleting the one called _datarecovery) but there are still some files on the VMFS.

Anyway, the base disks do not seem to have snapshots (vmware-cmd hassnapshots returns 0). Has anyone experienced the same issues? How do I get rid of the the snaps, as they fill up the data store?

This VM has a 20 GB disk configured, it consumes ~34 GB and I do not know how to remove the failed snaps for the backups:

~~root@esx02 vm043.example.com~~# ls -lsah
total 34G
64K drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3.1K Nov 20 15:49 .
1.0M drwxr-xr-t 1 root root 2.9K Nov 20 17:38 ..
3.7G -rw------- 1 root root 3.7G Jul 20 10:48 vm043.example.com-000001-delta.vmdk
64K -rw------- 1 root root 351 Nov 20 15:48 vm043.example.com-000001.vmdk
2.0M -rw------- 1 root root 1.3M Nov 20 15:49 vm043.example.com-000002-ctk.vmdk
9.8G -rw------- 1 root root 9.8G Nov 20 17:38 vm043.example.com-000002-delta.vmdk
64K -rw------- 1 root root 463 Nov 20 15:49 vm043.example.com-000002.vmdk
64K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 37 Nov 20 14:10 vm043.example.com-5f20edf3.hlog
64K -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13 Nov 20 14:30 vm043.example.com-aux.xml
21G -rw------- 1 root root 21G Jul 13 19:56 vm043.example.com-flat.vmdk
64K -rw------- 1 root root 8.5K Nov 20 14:11 vm043.example.com.nvram
64K -rw------- 1 root root 515 Nov 20 15:48 vm043.example.com.vmdk
64K -rw------- 1 root root 547 Nov 20 15:49 vm043.example.com.vmsd
64K -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3.0K Nov 20 16:50 vm043.example.com.vmx
64K -rw------- 1 root root 275 Nov 20 16:50 vm043.example.com.vmxf
1.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 926K Nov 4 12:56 vmware-30.log
1.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 70K Nov 4 16:02 vmware-31.log
1.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 133K Nov 5 15:24 vmware-32.log
1.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 70K Nov 5 16:24 vmware-33.log
2.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.7M Nov 20 13:50 vmware-34.log
1.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 71K Nov 20 14:10 vmware-35.log
1.0M -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 247K Nov 20 16:51 vmware.log

Any hints are very welcome...

Clone to Template Fails - No room on datastore

VMSystems — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:35:36 GMT

We have a vSphere Essential License. I have cloned a few virtual machines with no problems IE Clone to template but I'm having an issue with some recent changes I made. I know what the problem is, I just don't have the answer if there is one.

We have one VM that I have connect to an iSCSI data store. This is strictly for data storage IE mail files etc. Now when I go to clone the VM, I get the message "File is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore 'datastore1' I realize that this is because the LUN I connected is 1.25 TB and my datastore with my VM's is smaller than that (750 GB free), but I was under the impression when I mapped the datastore for file storage that it would not be connected to the VM.

Is there a solution to this or am I going to be stuck unable to make a template or clone of this VM without adding some room somewhere? The actual useage at this point is under 4 GB when I look at it in the datastore inventory in vCenter.

No VMware VSS on 2k8 R2?

rjtd — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:00:27 GMT

Hi,

While I can see a "VMware Snapshot" service on my Win2k8 VMs, there is no such thing on Win2k8R2 even with ESX 4.0 U1 (VSS provider selected on VMware Tools Installation). I wonder if VMware will create crash consistent (VSS enabled) snapshots of the VMs or not.

I can't see anything on the logs, even when I enable the "quiesce" option.

Thanks.

VCB Snapshot issue only with Server 2008 R2

AWharmby — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:17:06 GMT

Dear all,

We have VCB running smoothly for some time backing up close to 100 VM's. This is pure vcbmounter script based to the VCB proxy server.

However one two of the newer VM's (Server 2008 R2) fail to be backed up/snapshoted with this error:

"Cannot create a quiesed snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit........ etc"

Our environment is ESX4 / vSphere.

I have tried reinstalling VMware tools, recreating the VM, some post suggested deleting a regkey for VSS but this only made all the VSS writers disappear, reinstalling with the VGA driver but nothing so far has worked. vMotion works fine and the issue is replicable by doing a snapshot without the memory option ticked and ticking the quiese option.

Any ideas?

Which Backup Tool (on a budget) ?

tfindlay — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:46:47 GMT

I can there are a LOT of people asking similar questions, but havent found an answer that fits my needs. So here goes....

I have ended up with 3 physical hosts... and a vShpere Essentials Plus licence

HostA = ESXi4 + iSCSI SAN

HostB = ESXi4 + iSCSI SAN + Local Storage - Physicallly 1-2km away hooked up via direct fibre

HostC = Win2K3 with vShpere on it

I know I've got VCB somewhere in this, and I started playing with GhettoVCB but found it unreliable, I had to keep tweaking it to work right. So I looked for a commercial tool, and got handed around teams of consultants who came up with some package for $30,000 (pft!)

So I started looking at Veam Backup, the demo on their site looked easy as, but I couldnt get it installed and running here. So I've started looking at VCB Wrangeler and other stuff, but nothing that seems to do quite what I want.

My goal is to simply take a hot snapshot on HostA and then copy it from the SAN to Local disk on HostB. Both HostA and HostB are accessing the same SAN. If the building with HostA burns down or gets flooded, I simply start from the snapshot on HostB and the machine is right where it left off.

I dont want to faf around with tapes or other crap, we dont have any 3rd party backup stuff, and we're not licenced for vMotion or vStorage motion or anything.

So whats the simplest, lowest maintence way to get the job done ? will VCB do it from HostC ?

CIFS errors - CIFS dedupe stores ready for production environment?

riaanb — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:08:54 GMT

We are still busy evaluating VDR and I have had some stability issues which I think can be attributed to us using a CIFS share as a destination for the dedupe store.

In brief, the dedupe store is on a shared drive on the vCenter Server.I first noticed that I lost connectivity to the vCenter Server (RDP, via vCenter client and I also do not get ping responses). Other VM's on the same host as the vCenter Server do not have any networking issues. I noticed that the backups and restores of VDR were failing and did a Integrity check, that failed, I rebooted the VDR appliance and checked that I could access the CIFS mount (from the VDR console)- I could.

I have the following in the VDR logs:

11/17/2009 2:29:11 PM: Executing Integrity Check
11/17/2009 2:29:11 PM: To Backup Set /192.168.250.149/vdr-backups/...
11/17/2009 3:37:49 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/11/2009 9:51:29 AM for ClarospinClone
11/17/2009 3:37:53 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/14/2009 11:04:58 AM for ClaroTS
11/17/2009 3:37:55 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/15/2009 11:05:45 AM for ClarospinClone
11/17/2009 3:37:57 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/11/2009 9:51:09 AM for ClaroASTClone
11/17/2009 3:37:58 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/12/2009 2:37:49 PM for ClarospinClone
11/17/2009 3:38:00 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/16/2009 11:22:47 AM for ClaroSC
11/17/2009 3:38:01 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/14/2009 11:05:02 AM for ClarospinClone
11/17/2009 3:38:02 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/15/2009 11:05:43 AM for ClaroTS
11/17/2009 3:38:05 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/14/2009 11:05:03 AM for ClaroASTClone
11/17/2009 3:38:06 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/15/2009 11:06:12 AM for ClaroASTClone
11/17/2009 3:38:07 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/12/2009 2:38:25 PM for ClaroASTClone
11/17/2009 3:38:12 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/15/2009 11:06:07 AM for ClaroAST
11/17/2009 3:38:13 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/12/2009 6:00:02 PM for ClaroAST
11/17/2009 3:38:14 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/11/2009 6:00:06 PM for ClaroTS
11/17/2009 3:38:16 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/11/2009 10:36:57 AM for ClaroASTClone
11/17/2009 3:38:17 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/14/2009 11:04:59 AM for ClaroSC
11/17/2009 3:38:20 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/12/2009 6:01:35 PM for ClaroTS
11/17/2009 3:38:21 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/11/2009 6:00:02 PM for ClaroAST
11/17/2009 3:38:24 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/14/2009 11:04:55 AM for ClaroAST
11/17/2009 3:38:28 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/14/2009 11:05:38 AM for Moss-converted
11/17/2009 3:38:28 PM: Integrity check failed for the restore point created on 11/15/2009 11:05:56 AM for Moss-converted
11/17/2009 3:38:28 PM: Backup Set "/192.168.250.149/vdr-backups/" will be locked until the restore point with errors are deleted and integrity check succeeds.
11/17/2009 3:38:29 PM: 21 task errors
11/17/2009 3:38:29 PM: Completed: 112 files, 224.6 GB
11/17/2009 3:38:29 PM: Performance: 3328.4 MB/minute
11/17/2009 3:38:29 PM: Duration: 01:09:17 (00:00:12 idle/loading/preparing)
11/17/2009 3:47:05 PM: Stopping VMware Data Recovery

I noticed that when I initiate integrity checks or access different sections of the VDR plugins (i.e. look at th elogs and then the reports tab the vCenter Server and VDR appliance stop responding and also fails to respond to ping requests.

In /var/log/messages on the VDR appliance I see the following:

Nov 17 16:22:06 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 302
Nov 17 16:22:06 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 301
Nov 17 16:22:51 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: server not responding
Nov 17 16:22:51 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 313
Nov 17 16:23:06 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 314
Nov 17 16:29:06 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: server not responding
Nov 17 16:29:06 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 356
Nov 17 16:29:06 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 357
Nov 17 16:30:36 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: server not responding
Nov 17 16:30:36 localhost kernel: CIFS VFS: No response for cmd 50 mid 373

Which seems to explain the lockups (other people list these errors as something they see when their *Nix servers lock up - (top google entry: http://blog.dhampir.no/content/cifs-vfs-no-response-for-cmd-n-mid)

All of this brings me to my question - is dedupe stores on CIFS shares ready for production or should I revert to virtual disks on the VDR?

Thanks

riaan

VDR 1.1 and Server 2008 R2 - cannot quiesce virtual machine

mammer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:58:20 GMT

Just upgraded to VDR 1.1 and still cannot backup Windows Server 2008 R2. Still getting the same error.

Failed to create snapshot for <vm>, error -3960 (cannot quiesce virtual machine)

Is there something that needs to be set on the VM?

Can't connect to Data Recovery Appliance

daniellynn — Tue, 05 May 2009 14:12:03 GMT

I keep running into this one error trying to set up Data Recovery. I have it installed and the appliance imported. I go into the Solutions and Applications section and the VMware Data Recovery screen. I put in the IP of the appliance and click connect. It asks me for the password for the vSphere server and while that prompt is up, it shows an "Authentication failed" error. Once I enter that password, every time I click connect for the rest of my vSphere session, I'll get this error:

Error: Could not log onto the server. The connect attempt timed out. Please make sure that the Data Recovery Appliance is turned on

It is, of course turned on and I can go to the web interface, log in and click around fine. Not sure what I could be missing. Is there a specific port it's trying to connect on that I could test out? I'm at a loss as to why it would break at this point.

-Daniel

Although Early: How is new VDR 1.1 going?

Stevester — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:16:15 GMT

Good Day Everyone,

I know that VMware just released its new VDR 1.1 backup solution. However, I would like to know, how is it performing? Is anyone having any issues?

Thanks
Stevester

vdrfilerestore and vm with multiple drives

duhaas — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:14:08 GMT

I have a vm, that has a 60GB partitioned disk, c and d. when i go to mount that disk using the filerestore utility, its not showing me the d drive, just the c drive???

Slow vStorage API, Service Console Backup Performance in ESX4

OrionSoG — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:54:30 GMT

I am currently testing backup solutions for VMware vSphere 4 and have found that the current vStorage API and Service Console performance is slow compared to the capabilities of my iSCSI SAN:

(vStorage API and Service Console Backup performance = 2MB - 10MB/s transfer speeds)

(iSCSI performance = 100MB - 130MB/s transfer speeds)

Veeam v4 with VCB performs at 130MB/s but Veeam v4 using vStorage API performs at 2MB-10MB/s.

Vizioncore vRanger4 DPP performs at 2MB-10MB/s using the Service Console for communication. (vRanger4 does not currently support VCB. Support is expected in v4.3 at end of year)

I have even performed standard Symantec Backup Exec, Remote Agent, backups, which perform at Gigabit speeds (as usual) over the data network.

There is apparently an issue with bandwidth "throttling" on the vSphere Service Console and vStorage API, as illustrated in this VMware article: Degraded service console backup performance after upgrading to ESX 4.0

Has anyone else experienced this performance issue, and has anyone been able to resolve the poor vStorage or Service Console performance within the aforementioned Backup products?

Best Regards,

Matthew

Anyone else having these VDR issues?

JRArseneau — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:08:32 GMT

I love the fact that VMware is providing VDR as part of the vSphere package. It's definitely a step in the right direction, albeit I'm still inclined to think this software hasn't been put through the ringer in terms of proper QA. I'm just trying to put out a feeler to see how many others have experienced some of the same issues I'm having.

To start, I'm backing up my VMs via a network share on a standalone Windows 2003 server that has a NAS attached to it.

Some of the issues I've noticed:

1) Backups take an inordinate amount of time. I can understand the first backup, but my VMs don't change very much from day to day. Most of the data being manipulated is located on RDMs are these are backed up using Tivoli, not VDR (I use VDR solely for the OS partitions). Each partition is approximately 25GB, there are 15 VMs and my backup window (10pm - 6pm) isn't sufficient to complete the process.

2) Integrity checks for the backups are taking a crazy amount of time and will usually stop due to my window being closed (see point #1)

3) I'm getting inconsistent "failures" for certain VMs (the report will simply state that a VM failed to backup, not much else). It also varies per night and not always the same VMs (not exactly sure if this is related to #1 where the window is closing while VDR is executing)

4) I had the most difficult time setting up the remote share from the VDR appliance in vSphere. The username and password would never be accepted (even though if I tried the same share with the same user/pass on a Windows machine, it would work fine). I finally narrowed down the problem to the simple fact that the VDR appliance can't handle passwords that have special characters in them (this password had an "@" and a ","). Looking at the console while attempting to mount the share would spit out a CIFS error -22. Changing the password to include only numbers and letters was sufficient to work around this issue.

5) Snapshots not being created for no apparent reason and thus failing the VDR process. I'm fully able to do a manual snapshot with or without the memory state, so I'm not sure why VDR can't do it. This issue is very intermittent. I had it often when I first setup VDR, but now it only happens every so often (without any type of consistency).

I think that's all I can think about for now..

How to recover VMDK from Backup Exec 12.5 VMWARE agent

RXJ — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:33:49 GMT

Hi,
Appreciate if someone can help me out to sort the following issue

My customer is backing up the ESX using Backup Exec 12.5 VMware agent.
The ESX has a VM DC which hold the backup exec agents login credentials.

last week we took the tape offsite and created the following DR setup to recover the ESX server.
Build a ESX box (v 3.5) and a Windows 2003 box installed Backup Exec 12.5 with the agent on the Windows box. SAN allocated for the ESX server.
Now when we try to restore the VM's it is asking for the DC credentials. I tried promoting the windows server to a DC and creating the same credentials but doesnt work.

can someone advise me how i can recover the ESX with the above scenario

Potential VDR+CIFS Workaround

JRArseneau — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:26:39 GMT

Hey everyone,

Like many, I too have been experiencing some rather unpleasantries while using VDR (as some of you may have read in my posts on this board). However, I recently discovered a workaround while using CIFS shares that has gotten my backups (and integrity checks) to not only work, but work consistently and quickly for the past 3 weeks. While I am happy that my backups have been working, I'm hoping I don't jinx myself by sharing this workaround that has worked in my environment.

A little backstory on this... After having redeployed the VDR appliance for the Nth time, I was issue my first test backup on a new repository while logged into a root session when, almost serendipidously I discovered that the appliance was outputting various CIFS errors when executing any kind of job on any of my test CIFS shares. After a little research, I discovered that you can essentially throttle the SMB protocol by disabling Opportunitistic locking. Essentially, opportunistic locking (for those who don't know) caches the files on the client side in order to improve performance. I figure it was worth a shot to disable (which normally results in lower performance) the OpLocks on the linux filesystem and see what the end result was. After all, I haven't had any success for more than 3-4 days using VDR up to this point (since May might I add), so really, there was nothing to lose.

To my astonishment, not only did the errors stop appearing, but the backups and integrity checks were occuring on schedule and without issue. To this day (3 weeks later), I've ramped up the VMs that get backed up in my nightly job and have consistently gone through the backup process.

So how did I disable OpLocks?

You will need to login to the VDR appliance as root and issue the following command:

echo 0 > /proc/fs/cifs/OpLockEnabled

This will disable Opportunistic Locking (until the system is rebooted). You can add this to an init script if it works for you and you want to make sure it gets disabled every time you reboot the appliance. Issuing a :

cat /proc/fs/cifs/OpLockEnabled

will confirm whether or not it is enabled or disabled (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled). Remember that when you reboot the appliance, it will default to 1.

As I've said, YMMV, but it has worked for me and I'm not up to 15 VMs being backed up every night without issue. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and this by no means excuses VMware for the current state of VDR, but I'm just happy I've getting some backups done. I'd be interested to see if I'm just having dumb luck or this could actually help some people.

PS: When I did this I started with a fresh repo. I can't speak to the effect of using an existing repository.

cmd.exe copy speed limitation -> Powershell

xadox — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:06:28 GMT

We are using vcb FullVM to backup our VMs now cmd.exe has the copy speed limitation to about 1GB per minute.

Can the use of Microsoft PowerShell break this limitation?

Failed to create snapshot for XXXX, error -3902 ( file access error)

tomtux — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:52:23 GMT

Hi all,

We're using VDR 1.0.2. Often I get the the following error until I reboot the vdr-appliance:

Failed to create snapshot for XXXX, error -3902 ( file access error)

When I get this error-message, I although can create a snapshot manually. We' re using a CIFS-Share for our vdr-backup-destination.

Any hints?

Thanks a lot.

Tom

File Level Restore "unmounting disk" issue

Smeagol — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:08:40 GMT

Hi, Win2008 (NOT R2) server running the flr client 1.02 I get this error

C:\>vdrFileRestore.exe -a 192.168.100.40
0: Restore point
Date: "Thu Sep 17 12:35:55 2009"
1: Restore point
Date: "Thu Sep 17 14:51:33 2009"
2: Restore point
Date: "Thu Sep 17 14:53:11 2009"
Please input restore point to mount from list above
2
Opening disk "Test Server.vmdk"...
Unmounting disk "E"...

Basically it seems to mount and unmount immediately.

Any clues why!?

Next version of VDR??

TedCrilly — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:31:00 GMT

Does anybody know when 1.0.04 may be on its way? Due to integrity checks and recatlogs taking 24-48 hours, or running indefinitrly, this product (VDR 1.0.3) us being unusable! From reading the groups, a lot of others have the same problem.

VDR schedule reboots

mammer — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:37:45 GMT

It seems I need to reboot my VDR appliance daily in order for my backups to work until VMWare comes out with a fix.

Does anyone know how to make a working cron job in the VDR appliance to schedule a daily reboot?

Selecting VM for VDR Backup strangeness?

mattteamICO — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:43:05 GMT

!file:///C:/Users/matt/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png!!file:///C:/Users/matt/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.png!

Hi There,

Quick question.. I am setting up VDR backup and some certain VM's show up as shown highlighted below when selecting them to backup. i.e. VMName, with both the vmdk, and the VM again when the tree is expanded. As you can see the other VM's don't do this.. just a few. Is this a bug, or is there something specific about this VM that i can' see?

Regards,

Matt

VDR 1.0.2 - error message during recatalog error -2241 destination index invalid/damaged

olof.christensson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:41:31 GMT

Hi, We are getting this error message during recatalog. -2241 destination index invalid/damaged

Is it possible to recover from and if so - what should i do?

Data Recovery backup job fails with error -3902

rlaor — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:18:23 GMT

Whenever I run the Data Recovery backup job it creats the VM snapshop and then immediately removes it and fails with the following errors:

6/2/2009 9:11:24 PM: Normal backup using Backup Job 1
6/2/2009 9:13:22 PM: Failed to create snapshot for VM1, error -3902 ( file access error)
6/2/2009 9:13:22 PM: Task incomplete

This happens for any VM.

Does anyone have an idea why it fails?

Thanks in advance,

Roy

VMware Data Recovery 1.1 is available now!

azmir — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:21:10 GMT

I am happy to announce the availability of VMware Data Recovery (VDR) version 1.1. We highly recommend every VDR customer to upgrade to this release. Note that VDR 1.1 is supported on both vSphere 4.0 and vSphere 4.0 Update 1.

A) What's new in VDR 1.1:

• GUI File Level Restore (FLR) client for Windows virtual machines – this is the fully supported version of the FLR client to allow granular restore of individual files. This new functionality complements the full virtual machine restore capability that has been available since VDR 1.0.

• Support for backing up Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 7 virtual machines (requires upgrading to vSphere 4.0 Update 1 for VMware Tools support)

• Datarecovery.ini support – this file allows customization of the VDR parameters such as how frequent integrity check and reclaim operations run, maximum concurrent backups allowed and disabling any file level restore operations.

• The VDR appliance is now a HW7 virtual machine, runs 64-bit CentOS 5.2 as the guest OS and has updated VMware Tools.

• OpsLocks is disabled by default when connecting to CIFS shares as a backup destination. In certain instances, disabling OpLocks improves stability of storing and retrieving data from CIFS destinations.

• Ability to add network shares using fully qualified domain name or IP address.

• Enhanced documentation set – the VDR Admin Guide now provides more detailed information on using, understanding and troubleshooting VDR.

B) Top issues resolved in VDR 1.1

• Improved integrity check performance – while the performance improvement is very data dependent (size of dedupe store and number of restore points), everyone should see an improvement in integrity check performance compared to VDR 1.0.x.

• Elimination of spurious damaged restore points and side effects (such as locked dedupe stores until damaged restore points are manually deleted).

• Elimination of reoccurring error -3902 after vCenter Server connection has been restored.

• Various vSphere Client to VDR appliance client connection problems including when there is a VM in inventory with too many IP addresses assigned.

C) Some things to keep in mind when upgrading to VDR 1.1

• Before shutting down the VDR 1.0.x instance, check the backup appliance for the store.lck folder, which is found in

/VMwareDataRecovery/BackupStore/store.lck.

If this folder exists and you are certain there are no other instances of Data Recovery using this deduplication store, delete the store.lck folder. This will eliminate any issues post VDR 1.1 upgrade issues around “Trouble writing files, error -1020 (Sharing violation)” and “Could not restore the Data Recovery appliance configuration” errors.

• Follow the steps outlined in the release notes around the 1.0.x to 1.1 upgrade steps, especially if you want to retain existing restore points.

VDR 1.1 documentation (Release Notes and Admin Guide) can be found here:

http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vdr_pubs.html

VDR 1.1 binaries can be found here

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/datarecovery11/ZHcqYmQlcHBiZGUlcA==

Thanks!

Open Files, databases

morpheus4711 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:56:15 GMT

Hi,

i only wanted to ask you about backing up open files like database ;(SQL , Pervasive...)

We are using here VMWare Image Backup. I read about the open files, that this should work,but nothing about databases.

Does it work, can i backup them while they are in use?

best regards and thanks for your answer

Andreas

Backup Exec 12.5 Backup Strategy

tysonmoore — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:02:27 GMT

I am running Bakup Exec 12.5. Here is what I need to back up in my VM enviroment, and all the servers are running Server 2008 x64:

6 SQL Database Servers
1 Exchange 2007 Server
2 Domain Controllers
2 File Server
1 Microsoft Team Foundation Server
1 Microsoft Build Server
11 Web Servers
1 VCenter
3 Application Servers

My Question is what type of strategy should I use to back up all of the VM's? Should I create multiple jobs for each type of server? Should I even do VM backups or just run the agent individually on each VM and then backup each one? How should I go about doing this?

Thanks,

Tyson Moore

VCB Batch Logging/History/Mail or VDR Mail Notification

benny-ulsamer — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:39:19 GMT

Hi there,

im looking for a nice solution to backup our VM environment. First: The solution should be at no cost. I know that there are products like vranger and so on, but there is no budget for something like that...

First: I tried VMWare Data Recovery. Is a nice tool but i have some "problems" with it:

I havent found any way to send mail notifications. I found that there is a operations_log.utx file under /var/vmware/datarecovery in the data recovery VM. Has anyone tried to export and edit this file and send as a email-report or something like this? This would be nice, so i don't have to look every day in the "Data Recovery" Tab if the backups are successful...

Because of that the Data Recovery Utility is just licensed in Advanced and higher versions of vSphere i'm looking for a solution to backup standard esx-hosts.

So i started to script something with VCB.

My goal is to get a script which can backup machines from any host connected to Virtual Center. The script should be a batch script because of that other administrators understand what i've scripted. At this time my script creates per task a backup of all virtual disks connected to the vm over lan to a backupshare.

What i want to have:

I want to have a backuphistory. I set the maximum backup time to hold backups into a variable. Then every time a backuptask runs the backupfolders will be renamed (backup1 will be backup2, backup2 will be backup3 and so on) and the backupfolder with the name of the "hold backups" value should be deleted. So i get a history... Anyone experience with this?

Then i would write what my script is doing into a logfile which should be send per email with blat.exe. Here i need a opportunity to create logfiles with virtualmachinename and date in the dataname and an opportunity to delete logifles after a defined timeframe.

Here my script:

REM *********************
REM * Backupjob XP *
REM *********************

REM Laufwerks- und Pfadvariablen werden gesetzt...
set RootLaufwerk=C:
set BackupLaufwerk=Q:
set Backupshare=\\fileserver\VCB

REM Allgemeine Variablen werden gesetzt...
set vcserver=vc.testdom01.local

set user=vcbuser
set pass=vcbuser

set vcbpath=%ProgramFiles%\Vmware\Vmware Consolidated Backup Framework

REM Variablen der zu sichernden VM werden gesetzt...
set vmname=XP

set moref=vm-304
set backupfolder=%vmname%

REM Backuplaufwerk wird verbunden...
net use %BackupLaufwerk% %Backupshare%
sleep 5

REM Bereinigung der alten Backups...
%BackupLaufwerk%
if not exist %backupfolder% goto backup
rd /s /q %backupfolder%
goto backup

REM Durchführung des Backups...
:backup
%RootLaufwerk%
sleep 5
"%vcbpath%\vcbmounter" -h %vcserver% -u %user% -p %pass% -a moref:%moref% -r %BackupLaufwerk%\%backupfolder% -t fullvm -M 0 -F 0 -m nbd -L 4
%RootLaufwerk%
sleep 5

REM Backuplaufwerk wird getrennt..
net use %BackupLaufwerk% /delete

REM Backupjob beeendet.

How to compare VMDKs filesystem

vcbtester1 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:46:00 GMT

Hi All,

Have 2 sets of almost identical VMDKs which contain around 50-60GB of data (regular filesystem with lot of excel, ppts, mp3s, pdfs)

I would like to compare this VMDKs which contain NTFS data and see if there is any difference in disk usedspace and number of files/folders.

Is there any tool or such anywhere which can be used for this comparison/reporting of filesystem by reading directly from the VMDKs?

Please recommend any options. All suggestions are welcome.

Thanks,

Samad

vcbmounter.exe speed

LarsOeschey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:32:09 GMT

Hi,

I have written a script with the Perl CLI SDK to backup some VMs from our ESX servers. From within the script I'm using vcbmounter.exe with this commandline:

{quote} "c:\path\vcbmounter.exe -h vspherehost -u user -p password -a name:vmname -r w:\path\to\backup -t fullvm -F 0 -M 1 -m nbd"{/quote}

Now a 28Gb VM takes 80mins to backup, which seems a bit long for me. Converter only needs 28mins for it.

Can I somehow speed vcbmounter up? Do I use wrong/bad parameters?

Lars

(and what are the correct tags for code/quotes? There's no buttons in this editor...)

VMDKs not getting saved by VCBackup for V7 VMs

PACEDE — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:46:28 GMT

Hi there,

we did an upgrade from VI3 to vSphere4 a couple of weeks ago.
This week I created some new vms which now are version 7 vms.
Those vms are running great and haven't got any problems.

One drawback is, that we're no longer able to creat VCBackups from those V7 machines, because the VMDKs won't get saved.
The only files getting backed up are .log, .vmx, .vram and .da.

Here is what VCbackup logs:

~~2009-11-19 11:12:33.978 'App' 684 info~~ Current working directory: D:\Jobs\VCBBackup
~~2009-11-19 11:12:33.978 'BaseLibs' 684 info~~ HOSTINFO: Seeing Intel CPU, numCoresPerCPU 4 numThreadsPerCore 1.
~~2009-11-19 11:12:33.978 'BaseLibs' 684 info~~ HOSTINFO: This machine has 1 physical CPUS, 4 total cores, and 4 logical CPUs.
~~2009-11-19 11:12:34.447 'BaseLibs' 684 info~~ Using system libcrypto, version 90709F
Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16/BERVM09A16.vmx":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16/BERVM09A16.nvram":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-7.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-2.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-3.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-4.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-5.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware-6.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

Copying "_CX_Oracle_02 BERVM09A16//vmware.log":
+ 0%=====================50%=====================100%+
+ **************************************************+

We are using this command to initiate the backup:

vcbmounter.exe -h vcenter.ourcompany.local -u backup -p ultrasecurepassword -a name:%1 -r "E:\VCBBACKUP\TODAY\%DATE%_%1" -t fullvm -L 2 > D:\Jobs\VCBBackup\VCBLog\%date%\%1.txt

Older VMs are getting backed up without any problems.
Have you got any suggestions?

Regards,
John

Vsphere VCB

Thomy23 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:44:08 GMT

Hi Guys

I'm relatively new to Vsphere and i want to integrate our new VSphere Cluster (3 x Dell R710) with our companies TSM backup solution. I found out that there is VCB integration with TSM, but the only document i found was written for ESX3.5

Is there any doc for vsphere or can you tell me if there are any differences than in ESX3.5 ? By the way, is there a possibility to create the VCB Proxy as a VM inside the Vsphere Cluster (because it must have access on the shared storage /SAN)?

Greets Thomas

vDR not seeing new cluster

fgl — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:14:45 GMT

I created a new cluster (2 hosts) under the same datacenter as my other cluster (6 hosts) but for some reason the vDR does not see the new cluster as it doesn't even show up on the list to choose from. I've already tried rebooting the vDR appliance and the vCenter VM. Anyone else experienced this?

VCB error

mach03 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:32:59 GMT

hello we are using a script in the crontab that is backing up the virt. machine to a nfs volume
for a long time a works very fine since last weekend different esx hosts (3.5 update 4) shows
an error that the vmx-file contains unknow virtualhw.version = "4"

17:45:08: (BACKUP) FEHLER - unbekannte vHW(=) bei /vmfs/volumes/4aa7bfbd-4298d3e2-accc-001cc4467212/WNPQT001/WNPQT001.vmx

example of vmx file that is not working

#!/usr/bin/vmware
config.version = "8"
displayName = "WNPQT001"
sched.cpu.shares = "normal"
memSize = "3600"
sched.mem.shares = "normal"
guestOS = "winnetstandard"
scsi0.present = "true"
scsi0.virtualDev = "lsilogic"
scsi0:0.present = "true"
scsi0:0.name = "WNPQT001.vmdk"
ethernet0.present = "true"
ethernet0.virtualDev = "vmxnet"
ethernet0.connectionType = "monitor_dev"
ide0:0.present = "true"
ide0:0.deviceType = "atapi-cdrom"
ide0:0.fileName = "auto detect"
ide0:0.startConnected = "FALSE"
powertype.reset = "default"
powertype.poweroff = "default"
powertype.poweron = "default"
draw = "gdi"
ethernet0.generatedaddress = "00:50:56:8e:28:f7"
uuid.bios = "50 21 00 2d 1e 35 a4 5e-0a d5 91 f9 32 cf 0b 78"
checkpoint.cptconfigname = "WNPQT001.vmss"
floppy0.startconnected = "false"
priority.ungrabbed = "normal"
uuid.location = "56 4d e8 5c f6 62 ac a3-4e b2 56 c5 ea 25 e7 d2"
suspend.directory = "."
ethernet0.addresstype = "vpx"
ethernet0.networkname = "VLAN_736"
priority.grabbed = "normal"
usb.present = "false"
floppy0.filename = "/dev/fd0"
virtualhw.version = "4"
powertype.suspend = "default"
isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "true"
tools.syncTime = "FALSE"

scsi0:1.present = "true"
scsi0:1.name = "WNPQT001_1.vmdk"
scsi0:1.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"

numvcpus = "2"

scsi0:0.deviceType = "scsi-hardDisk"
ide0:0.autodetect = "true"
extendedConfigFile = "WNPQT001.vmxf"
virtualHW.productCompatibility = "hosted"
tools.upgrade.policy = "manual"

scsi0:0.redo = ""
scsi0:1.redo = ""
scsi0:0.mode = "persistent"
scsi0:1.mode = "persistent"
nvram = "WNPQT001.nvram"
sched.cpu.units = "mhz"
scsi0:0.fileName = "WNPQT001.vmdk"
scsi0:1.fileName = "WNPQT001_1.vmdk"

guestOSAltName = "Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition (32-Bit)"
sched.cpu.affinity = "all"
toolScripts.afterPowerOn = "true"
toolScripts.afterResume = "true"
toolScripts.beforeSuspend = "true"
toolScripts.beforePowerOff = "true"

annotation = "Logon Portal Evaluierung"
migrate.hostlog = "./WNPQT001.vmss.hlog"
sched.cpu.min = "0"
sched.mem.minsize = "0"
sched.mem.max = "3600"
sched.swap.derivedName = "/vmfs/volumes/4aa7bfbd-4298d3e2-accc-001cc4467212/WNPQ T001/WNPQT001.vmss.vswp"
hostCPUID.0 = "0000000168747541444d416369746e65"
guestCPUID.0 = "0000000168747541444d416369746e65"
userCPUID.0 = "0000000168747541444d416369746e65"
hostCPUID.1 = "00020f120002080000000001178bfbff"
guestCPUID.1 = "00020f120000080000000001078bbbff"
userCPUID.1 = "00020f120002080000000001078bbbff"
hostCPUID.80000001 = "00020f1200000e4600000002e3d3fbff"
guestCPUID.80000001 = "00020f1200000e4600000000e3d3fbff"
userCPUID.80000001 = "00020f1200000e4600000000e3d3fbff"
evcCompatibilityMode = "FALSE"

vicfg-cfgbackup restore fails, "invalidbundle"

dturner71 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:07:28 GMT

Running licensed ESXi 4 installable fully patched. I put the host in maintenance mode and run "vicfg-cfgbackup.pl --server vmnode1 -l c:\temp\vmnode1.tgz" from the RCLI. This is what I get:

Uploading config bundle to configBundle.tgz ...
Performing restore ...
Restore failed: fault.InvalidBundle.summary
Exiting maintenance mode ...

Any ideas on this?

Thanks in advance....Dan

VDR - clear logs

mammer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:36:49 GMT

Is there a way to clear old log events in VDR?

Veeam Backup Vs PHD esXpress

ufo8mydog — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:46:49 GMT

Hi all

I've been looking at VM backup options recently for vSphere. After messing around with our current solution (Commvault) it turns out that they are still using the old VCB framework according to this article:
http://www.backupcentral.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=259&Itemid=47

Things like mounting the restore to the proxy server first before restoring back to the SAN volume and no Linux file level restore are dealbreakers, so Commvault can't be considered a serious contender in this market segment at this stage.

It looks like the choice is therefore between Veaam Backup and PHD esXpress. Could current customers/vendors comment on the two solutions? The environment comprises of 12 sockets and growing towards 200 VMs (ranging from 10GB - 150GB). For example, if you could comment on:

1) Value for money. Which tends to be more cost efficient?
2) Backup and restore efficiency
3) Functionality/reporting/management tools
4) Consistency of restores
5) Any single points of failures or caveats/gotchas that should be taken into consideration?
6) Does the solution feel that it is of 'enterprise' or 'production' quality?

Basically some real life experience using the tool in a production environment would be great. The target is a hardware dedupe datadomain appliance so the dedupe function would be done in hardware.

VMware Data Recovery could not add the specified network share.Please ensure your network credentials are valid

fixit — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:22:45 GMT

Hi,

I wonder if someone could help me out here?

When trying to add a network share within VDR I get the following error:

Data recovery could not add the specified network share.Please ensure your network credentials are valid.

This is what I receive on the VDR console:

Status code returned 0xc000006d NT_STATUS_LOGON_FAILURE
CIFS VFS: Send error in SessSetup = -13
CIFS VFS: cifs_mount failed w/return code = -13

I have tried using the ip address and UPN name rather than hostname and logon name (as is suggested), but no luck. I have tried creating shares on both MS server 2003 and 2008. Adding shares locally works fine.

Thanks in advance

VDR 1.2 major issue. Anyone see this one?

jguide — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:38:43 GMT

I opened up a support case but haven't heard back yet.

My backups work fine on virtual machines with a single hard drive.
When I try to backup a virtual machine with 2 hard drive the 2nd hard drive fails to attach to the backup server.
More specifically during reconfigure virtual machine I recevie the error "Failed to power on SCSI 0:2. Failed to add disk SCSI 0:2
Then after a while of the job spinning it's wheels it fails to remove the snapshot file and in snapshots it doesn't think it is using one. It is, and is on a 2nd one actually.
This error is Remove Snapshot "Unable to access file <unspecified file name> since it is locked.

Then I am pretty much screwed and have to fix the VM to get it back to not working off a snapshot.
I also have to remove the 1st hard drive that did attach to the backup server manually.

this is only happening on systems with more then 1 hard drive. With 1 hard drive everything works fine.

Mysql service problem with VCB

FrantzCollini08 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:26:46 GMT

Hello to all,

I have a big problem with MySql service when VCB script starts: i have noticed that when vcb script starts, the Mysql service doesn't work....(the state of this service is started but I didn't connect to the databases....So I insert a new row in my VCB script for restart Mysql service but the problem is that when mysql service doesn't work,the applications didn't save the new data into DBs and it's a big problem....For me it's a VCB problem...How can i solve it? Thank's to all for the answers..

VMware Data Recovery step-by-step for newbie's

AndreLei — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:07:17 GMT

Firstly I have to say that this post was born due to my frustration with VMware Data Recovery. I was lucky or unlucky enough to be target by few different bugs in all releases, up to 1.0.2.

VDR promises to deliver virtual machine disk-to-disk backup and recovery solution with integrated de-duplication that was before only found in expensive enterprise class products.

I use VDR as a backup solution for VMs that do not require more than a backup per month (Operational System, Application Binaries, etc…). Critical application data is backed up by the enterprise class backup system. VMware clearly states that VDR is not a replacement for VCP (VMware Consolidated Backup) or your traditional backup tool.

My intent here is to go through the steps from configuration to limitations, issues and troubleshooting. There is a large collection of documents on the net so the objective here is to put together a key research index for newbie's. I’m not going to re-invent the wheel when someone else already did all the work.

Installation
This is always the easy part when talking about VMware products. The virtual appliance is imported from a OVF and with some basic configuration is ready to begin backups. An IP must be configured and a VMDK must be added to the virtual appliance as a target for the de-duplicated data.

@vladan did a great job recording VDR installation process
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtxGa2rb78A (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAB9iTXJ1Pg (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qjprEjKXBc (Part 3)

Two good Step-by-Step posts about deployment from @ccostan
How to install the VMware Data Recovery Appliance (vDR) - http://www.vmwareinfo.com/2009/08/how-to-install-vmware-data-recovery.html
Configuring a Network share for VMware Data Recovery (vDR) - http://www.vmwareinfo.com/2009/08/configuring-network-share-for-vmware.html

I use a NFS/CIFS enabled SAN so it was easy to decide what path to take to store backups and the de-duplication store. If you are not as fortunate you may consider using one of your old servers running OpenFiller or FreeNAS.

VMware highly recommends that you use virtual disks (VMDKs) or RDMs for dedupe stores since the performance behavior is well-understood and consistent.

More info at http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1551

How it Works

“+Unlike VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB), which is an enabling technology and not an actual data backup product, VMware Data Recovery is a standalone product that creates hot backups of virtual machines to any virtual disk storage attached to an ESX/ESXi host, or to any NFS/CIFS network storage server or device and is not meant as a replacement for VMware Consolidated Backup.+”

VDR was built using the VMware vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP) and implements a Virtual Appliance (CentOS) and a VI Client Plug-in. The deduplication method used is VMDK block based instead of file based. I am not a storage guy so I might be wrong here but I don’t see how block level deduplication could provide in anyway benefits comparable to file level dedup.

“What VMware decided to implement for VDR dedupe is (take a deep breath) - block based in-line destination deduplication. Deconstructing it means the following:

1. We discover data commonality at the disk block level as oppose to the file level.
2. It is done as we stream the backup data to the destination disk as opposed to a post-backup process.
+3. The actual dedupe process occurs as we store the data on the destination disk as opposed to when we are scanning the source VM’s virtual disks prior to the backup.+”

“+We chose this dedupe architecture because it fit best with what we were trying to achieve with VDR and what the vSphere platform provided to us. What were these reasons? Stay tuned to this space……+”

The following two posts from VMware employee Azmir Mohamed will provide you with more in-depth technical details on block based in-line destination deduplication technology.

VMware's Backup and Recovery product - http://blogs.vmware.com/uptime/2009/06/vmwares-backup-and-recovery-product.html
VMware Data Recovery Taking Advantage of vSphere 4 - http://blogs.vmware.com/uptime/2009/07/vmware-data-recovery-taking-advantage-of-vsphere-4.html

Limitations

VDR will not backup virtual machines with Fault Tolerance enabled
VDR does not support VC Linked mode
Virtual Machines with hardware version lower than 7 will take longer to be backed up.
The deduplication feature cannot be disabled so all backups done by VDR are deduplicated
Not compatible with VI3 hosts. VDR requires the presence of a VMware vCenter Server 4
VDR will not backup your VM if it is stored in a RDM not in virtual compatibility mode
VDR is available only for Essentials Plus, Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus
Each VDR appliance supports only 100 virtual machines

If you know additional limitations let me know and I will include here.

Issues and Troubleshooting

I had few issues with VDR plug-in not being able to communicate to the appliance and also with CIFS shares. As a result I had to re-deploy the appliance and reconfigure the network a number of times. Few of those times I was forced to delete the de-duplication store.

Even the recently baked 1.0.2 release presented similar bugs. Luckily the VMware community is always very involved and helping us to find the solutions.

Potential VDR+CIFS Workaround - http://communities.vmware.com/thread/227997?tstart=30

Snapshot issues have also been identified. In short – VDR leave hidden snapshots behind during the backup process. You will find more information on Scott Lowe’s and Carlos Costanzo blogs.

Summary
As mentioned before VDR is still its early versions. VDR is a good step for VMware promising to deliver recovery solutions aligned with de-duplication before only found in expensive enterprise class products. However the product is not mature enough and should not be used as the only backup solution.

I’m still using VDR as a backup solution for VMs and VMDKs that does not require more than one backup per month (Operational System, Application Binaries, golden image etc…). The application data is backed up by our enterprise class backup system.

Useful Documentation
VMware Data Recovery 1.0.2 Release Notes
http://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdr_102_releasenotes.html
VMware Data Recovery Documentation
http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vdr_pubs.html
VMware Data Recovery FAQ
http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMware_Data_Recovery_FAQ_4.21.09.pdf
VMware Data Recovery Dedupe Store Setup Guideline
http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1551
File Level Restore Usage
http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10670

andreleibovici
http://virtualcloud.wordpress.com

restoring an vm to a different host

CMCC — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:35:55 GMT

I'm having this error when I try to restore a VM

~~2009-11-12 16:19:36.075 'App' 3076449088 info~~ Current working directory: /
/usr/sbin/vcbRestore: line 1: 6315 Aborted LD_LIBRARY_PATH=:/usr/lib/vmware/hostd VCB_PASSWORD="$PASSWORD" /usr/lib/vmware/vcb/vcbRestore -h "$VCHOST" -u "$USERNAME" -s "$legacy_dir" --

Please help me! I don't know what else to try.

Thanks

file level restore for linux systems for VMWare Data Recovery

seniornwb — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:03:10 GMT

Hi,

I was trying to dig up some information about the file level restore feature for VMware data recovery, specially for linux systems.

For example, is it limited to specific linux systems, specific linux filesystems being used within the guest.

For example, can it backup Novell NSS filesystems on linux.

I checked the documentation, but I can't seem to find any info in there about it.

Kind regards,

Hen

ComVault Simpana 8 with VCB

ralphh936 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:33:42 GMT

I've sent an e-mail to convault but does anyone have a link to the comvault vcb certification kit or integration module?...we can't seem to find it on the CD's we have...

Thanks R,,,

VDR and Firewall ports?

abbasi — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:23:50 GMT

Do any ports require to be open for VDR to function through a Firewall. I have 2 ESX in my DMZ but the VDR jobs always fail for them. I see that VDR takes the snapshot but then it fails to copy the snapshot

vcbmounter failed to mount the vm

phisaj — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:37:50 GMT

i'm facing a problem in vcb 1.1.0 backup. it unable to mount the vm into the vcb proxy server. pls see the below log

D:\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework>vcbmounter -h x.x.x.x -u vcb -p 12345678 -r F:\ -a ipaddr:10.20.7.40 -t fullvm -L 6
~~2009-11-11 20:50:13.937 'App' 916 info~~ Current working directory: D:\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework
~~2009-11-11 20:50:13.937 'BaseLibs' 916 info~~ HOSTINFO: Seeing Intel CPU, numCoresPerCPU 1 numThreadsPerCore 2.
~~2009-11-11 20:50:13.937 'BaseLibs' 916 info~~ HOSTINFO: This machine has 2 physical CPUS, 2 total cores, and 4 logical CPUs.
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.281 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Connecting to host 10.20.7.25 on port 443 using protocol https

~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.281 'vcbMounter' 916 trivia~~ Initializing SSL context
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.281 'BaseLibs' 916 info~~ Using system libcrypto, version 90709F
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.296 'App' 916 info~~ Vmacore::InitSSL: doVersionCheck = true, handshakeTimeoutUs = 120000000
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.296 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Sending soap request to ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: retrieveContent
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.312 'BaseLibs' 916 warning~~ SSLVerifyCertAgainstSystemStore: Subject mismatch: VMware vs 10.20.7.25
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.312 'BaseLibs' 916 warning~~ SSLVerifyCertAgainstSystemStore: The remote host certificate has these problems:

The host name used for the connection does not match the subject name on the host certificate

~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.312 'BaseLibs' 916 warning~~ SSLVerifyIsEnabled: failed to read registry value. Assuming verification is disabled. LastError = 0
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.312 'BaseLibs' 916 warning~~ SSLVerifyCertAgainstSystemStore: Certificate verification is disabled, so connection will proceed des
pite the error
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.515 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Received soap response from ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: retrieveContent
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.515 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Connected using API Namespace vim25.
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.515 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Authenticating user vcb
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.515 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Sending soap request to ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: login
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.531 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Received soap response from ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: login
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.531 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Logged in!
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Performing SearchIndex find.
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Sending soap request to ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: retrieveContent
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Received soap response from ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: retrieveContent
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Sending soap request to ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: findByIp
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Received soap response from ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: findByIp
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Got VM MoRef
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Got access method
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Got coordinator object
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.546 'vcbMounter' 916 info~~ Attempting data access.
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.562 'vcbMounter' 916 error~~ Error: F:: Is not a writeable directory.
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.562 'vcbMounter' 916 error~~ An error occurred, cleaning up...
~~2009-11-11 20:50:14.562 'SOAP' 916 trivia~~ Sending soap request to ~~TCP:10.20.7.25:443~~: logout

pls help me in this regards

Vshpere 4.0 Data Recovery Issue(Failed to create snapshot for VM1, error -3941 ( create snapshot failed)

jackyareva — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:18:21 GMT

When I tried to use data recovery to backup one virtual server to the storage(I set up a space to store the backup image in the storage), it will display the error message
Failed to create snapshot for vm1, error -3941 ( create snapshot failed)

I also backup some the other virtual server, the other servers all running normally, just this server occur issue.(all the servers are running windows 2003 and join to the domain)

Can anyone give me some suggestion about it?

Thanks a lot

VMX only backup - supported agents (e.g. TSM)

ukCloud9 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:07:19 GMT

Hi,

I'd like to be able to restore the virtual machine configuration, in case I delete it by mistake. This is just the .vmx type files, rather than the guest data, as that is handled by an agent inside the guest itself. (The hosts are covered by reinstall. kickstart/host profiles)

I'd prefer to go with a supported backup tool, rather than writing my own scripts, if possible. (I think we have IBM TSM on this site)

Has anyone set up TSM to backup just .vmx files?

Also I wondered what VMware's view was on backup agents in the service console. (I thought at one point it was not encouraged, or supported)

Thanks.

bring to compliance

dingding — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:49:07 GMT

in the backup tab, when i right click a backup job, i find a menu item: bring to compliance. how to use it?

Issue backup up Windows 2003 VM's

Eire09 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:54:31 GMT

Hi Guys,
I'm having issues backing up all my Windows 2003 VM's. However Windows 2008 VM's are mounting and backing up with no issues.

This week is the first time I've had issue backing up VM's in 6 months so it looks like something perhaps from vmtools updates have caused this issue. Maybe I'm wrong!!

I'm using Symantec backup exec 12.5 & VCB 1.5.

Any suggestions on how to resolve this? The Windows 2003 are not even mounting so the issue is with vcbmounter.

Thanks in advance

Disaster Recovery solutions (and ideas?) for VMWare vSphere4?

fcsjpatterson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:25:08 GMT

I've been tasked with coming up with various options for getting our VMs down to our DR site. Everything from "Poor Man's" to higher-end. We have IBM DS4700 SANs in both locations with SAN Volume Controllers. We're removing the SVCs because they do not function as-sold for reliable DR. So, we're considering all options. We've looked at Falconstor, but my boss doesn't like the price tag or at least wants other options before deciding. Going back to Enhanced Remote Mirroring on the DS4700's is an option, but it is a bit of a pain having to resignature the disks on the DR-side. Not a huge issue however as it seem that any SAN disk-replicating technology will most likely require datastore resignaturing (correct me if I'm wrong). Does VMWare have any VM-specific replicating options to DR site Datacenters or do I need to look into vReplicator from Vizioncore to replicate individual VMs? Was looking at VMWare Data Recovery, but that seems to be more of a localized backup appliance rather than a DR oriented appliance. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Whatever option we find needs to have some sort of bandwidth throttling option to lock it in at certain bandwidth during certain hours of the day. Our DR site is also a production office so we do not want to overwhelm our pipe. Thanks!

--John

SMVI or NetBackup

CharlesSchlesinger — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:30:23 GMT

My organization is looking to deploy vmware, and the last piece of the puzzle is backups. We are looking at either using NetBackup or SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure based on the equipment and infrastructure we already have in place. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions regarding which way to go with this?

Thanks!

Backup report script required

vDeepak — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:52:43 GMT

Hi all , i am using vranger pro 3.3.0.2 for taking backup of my VIRTUAL MACHINES and i am using vsphere at host end. i am enabling option of VCB under vranger options and this operation succesfully takes backup my VM.

what i need is to have a script which i put under schedulde task so that i have automated mailer for scuessfull and failed jobs.
my backup job runs at 7 pm everyday.

preferably i am lookinig for vb script.

Issue backing up VM

quaium — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:20:16 GMT

If this is in the wrong section then apologies, it's my first post here.

We currently have a virtual environment setup with 3 ESX servers, vCentre, a SAN and a backup solution including a HP MSL2024 and a backup to disk SAN. We are using Symantec Backup Exec 12.5D and back up individual VM's. There are a total of 10 VM's and all are backing up fine apart from one server which keeps giving the following error message:

The job failed with the following error: An error occurred while running the VMware 'vcbMounter' command to back up a virtual machine. See the job log for details.

The job log has the following entry:

+<vm_vcbmounter_job_start>VMware vcbMounter job started to export
virtual machine 'Server5'. 03 November 2009 at 16:28:16</vm_vcbmounter_job_start>++<vm_vcbmounter_job_failure>VMware vcbMounter job to export virtual
machine 'Server5' failed to execute or complete. 03 November 2009 at
16:28:35</vm_vcbmounter_job_failure>+

<OperationErrors Type="error">

<UMI>V-79-57344-38220</UMI> +- Backup of the virtual
machine 'Server5' failed. VMware VCB framework reported the following error
Error: Other error encountered: Snapshot creation failed: Another task is
already in progress.+

</OperationErrors>

Can anyone shed some light on this and how we go about fixing the error. All the other VM's on the ESX are backing up fine, it's just this one server. Could it be an issue with the server itself?

Thanks in advance.

backup software compatability guide

dingding — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:25:47 GMT

where is the backup software compatability guide? i heard of some backup software support vStorage API now, so when we do VCB backup, we never need holding tank now, this will reduce the backup time. but i want to know which backup software vendor support this functionality.

VCB on a linux host.

ahmedvienna — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:53:51 GMT

Hello,

Can I install the VCB on a Linux physical machine so that it would act as my proxy?

Ahmed

Restoring vm in ESXi 4.0

raimundasjan — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:19:33 GMT

Hello all,
currently i have two esxi hosts, one of them is esxi 3.5 u4 and other esxi 4.0. I have configured free backup solution with esxi_backup.pl script and successfully tested it backing up and restoring virtual machines on the same esxi 3.5 u4 host. Now i'm trying to move my vm's to the new esxi 4.0 host to upgrade old esxi 3.5 (i'm doing this becouse i need 64 bit support on guests, but when i was installing my first esxi host i forgot to enable Intel VT in BIOS), but when i move vm backup to my new esxi 4.0 server the vm does not start displaying error "coul'd not find file xxxxx-000003.vmdk". I have tryed to change virtual disk name in vmx file to xxxxx.vmdk and it works, but the state of vm is not from last snapshot but from the first install.
I would like to ask what do i need to do to load my vm with last snapshot.
Thanks

Datacentre Failure

singhpdeep0007 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:03:27 GMT

Hi,

What we can Plan for VMware Infrastruture in Complete Data Centre Failure...Let's say I have all VM on the Local Drive of Server and ESX also installed on the same drive. and esx crashed how we can recovery the Virtual machine from the same...

Thx.
PS

VDR will not complete a backup of a VM stuck at xx%

abbasi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:28:59 GMT

VDR was in the process of backing up 5 machines and has been stuck at various % for 7 days. The problem is that it is still writing to the snapshots. So now my snapshots are getting large. I have had issues in the past with trying to remove large snapshots on running machines where it corrupted the entirfe machine so I am getting nervous.

After this I think I am discontinuing the use of VDR until the next major upgrade and then wait till 6 months after that.

VDR Damaged Restore Points

paulfozfoster — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:57:21 GMT

Hi,

I recently set up VDR v1.0.2. I installed the appliance onto a "data recovery" datastore that's located on a 4TB Buffalo TS-RIGL/R5 iSCSI NAS unit (only 2TB are assigned the data recovery datastore). The reason for this was to keep the backups away from the main VM datastore, which is located on our SAN, which means that if something happened to the SAN, we can quickly restore the VM's from the backup appliance's VMDK/dedupe store, which is 1TB in size to the remaining 1TB of space on the datastore.

I configured this at the start of October and everything has been working well, with test restores to the data recovery datastore proving a success.

I went away for a few days training last week and when i returned i noticed that the VDR software was reporting that there were no restore points. I restarted the appliance and started a Data Integrity Check, which took almost a day to run. Once it had finished i could see the restore points again, but all of them apart from the most recent for each VM are now flagged as damaged and are now unuseable and need to be deleted.

The VDR docs tell you how to delete a damaged restore point, but don't dive any indication as to what might've caused them in the first place.

Anyone know what could cause this and is there a way to repair them instead of deleting them all and starting again?

Paul

usage of QueryChangedDiskAreas

dayra01 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:33:01 GMT

Hi All,

I need some info regarding QueryChangedDiskAreas API introduced with vSphere. Can this API be used to get used blocks related to a disk.

say, i have a VM with one disk. for this VM, i enabled changeTracking. now that i created a snapshot for it. this created a changeId. Now, i call QueryChangedDiskAreas API with changeId set to '*'. It is returning me DiskChangeInfo structure with only one entry, pointing to my entire VM length.

another scenario, i have a VM enabled with changeTracking. this VM has got few snapshots. Now that am trying to retrieve only used blocks for this VM. How can this be done??

Please let me know your comments.

Thanks,
-Raghu.

Backup of data store and VMs on Netapp

mark_a_k — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:14:52 GMT

I am having some difficulty backing up our VMs that are stored on a Netapp filer. I was wondering if anyone using a netapp filer with VMs on a FC lun could tell me how they are performing backups? I am intesrested in some commments on my following 3 issues from anyone with some experience with these products.

I have the following products purchased:
Snap Manager for VI
FlexClone
Netbackup NDMP license

ISSUE 1
The difficulty that i see is that the NDMP backup produces a backup which consistes of 2 large files. These two large files are my 2 ESX datastores. The 2 datastores are located on 1 FlexVol containing 2 FC Luns. I cannot recover any individual files or VMs. I think that this pretty much makes the NDMP backup of 2 FC Luns containing ESX data stores useless (unless i want to recover the whole datastore). Therefore I think that i will have to use VCB backups to backup the individual VMs and keep them for long term backup (we purchased NDMP license and no VCB).

ISSUE 2
We have Snap Manager for VI configured and working successfuly to take snapshots of the VMs located on the 2 data stores. If i want to backup a snapshot I would usually enter the name of the snapshot in the file list sucah as /vol/vol2/.snapshot/hourly.1 Snap Manager for VI uses its own naming convention for snapshots which is a long and unique name. Therefore if i want to backup a snapshot created by SMVI I have to enter the name of the snapshot which changes daily into the backup software file list. This is not practical on a daily basis for automated backups. Backups of these SMVI snapshots are required for consistent backups.

ISSUE 3
FlexClone has been recommended to aid with backups so that a Volume can be mounted and then used for backup. Simple in theory for non-FC luns but in this case the FC luns contain VMFS datastores so the backup cannot take place until the FlexClone is presented and mounted to the ESX server. A flat file backup of the Datastore using Linux client may be possible at this stage. To perfrom VCB backups at this stage the VMs would have to be added to the ESX inventory and brough online. A lot of manual work here and not ideal on a daily basis.

VDR Snapshots fail with VMware tools VSS support installed

ydnA — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:07:38 GMT

Hi Guys

I'm getting:

Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot
operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen
virtual machine. (under VDR Configuration, log, it says "error -1 ( unknown)")

...when I try to VDR a vm with the VMWare tools VSS support installed. If I remove vss support, it will work but from what i've read that would mean that the backup does not truncate logs etc. I've created a new VDR machine, created freshly installed servers to test on, even added the vm hostnames and ip's to VDR's host file, i've tried a LOT of stuff. Any still that error.

Has anybody successfully resolved this issue?

Thanks

Andrew

Cron Issues again with GhettoVCB.sh script

Stevester — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:25:13 GMT

Good Day Everyone,

Once again i am having cron issues with GhettoVCB.sh script. When i was under VI3, i had to define and insert environment variables into the crontab in order to get it to work. I have now moved to vSphere and supposedly the variables dont need to be defined. However this is not working, with or without the defined variables.

Here is my crontab entry:

SHELL=/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
16 7 * * * /vmware/ghettoVCB.sh /vmware/testvm

Can someone assist?

Stevester

Backing up a single ESXi v4 Server

GregBradley — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:42:22 GMT

My customers mostly started out with several boxes with one of them having a tape drive, Seagate Backup Exec, and installing agents for the other servers, Exchange, SQL, etc. As most of the functions were virtualized onto one server (HP ML370G5, now going to G6) I was continuing to put the agents on the MS servers and continue as before. I was keeping one old server and using it for the tape backup unit.

I'm thinking there is a better way. The versions of Backup Exec are getting old and should be updated.

I'm demoing v12.5 which says it backs up VMWare. No info on doing this if you just have a single server running ESXi. It wants to "connect" tot he ESX host with a user name and password. Is this possible with a single ESXi machine?

Most customers would be happy keeping one old server for the tape and backup software since I frequently have something that doesn't virtualize very well - like the customer that has a bunch of parallel dot matrix printers or some such old technology.

I was thinking of one upgrade to v12.5 and an agent for ESX that backs up the entire ESXi machine.

Tape drives are getting too-small for many. I can go to bigger SAS DAT drives and put it in the ESXi machine if that works better.

I don't have a problem buying something additional from VMWare but would prefer to minimze the number of boxes so don't want to go to seperate management servers, etc.

Am I approaching this correctly?

Failed to create snapshot for <VM-Name>, Error -1 (Unknown) on VDR v1.0.2

AlbertWT — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 01:04:28 GMT

Hi All,

I'm experiencing in backing up to VDR internal disk on my ESXi local data store,

all of the VM is in the SAN_VMFS which connect directly into the ESXi 4 servers. the VDR appliance is reside in the ESXi host local datastore.

The Error that i get is: Failed to create snapshot for <VM-Name>, Error -1 (Unknown)

Anyone know how to fix this issue please let us know here :-|

Thanks.

Kind Regards,
AWT

VDR and High I/O SQL Server

jjahns — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:36:24 GMT

This probably goes beyond support, so I am just testing this.

Here is a description of my environment.
We have a SQL 2000 server running on a Windows 2003 x64 VM. MDFs are located on a separate VMDK. LDFs are located on a separate VMDK. Both of these have been made independent persistent VMDKs, so they do not get snapshot.

Using the freeze scripts, I was able to use osql to call a stored procedure I created for backing up the databases on the VM, and then pause the MSSQLSERVER service so the snapshot can occur. Once the snapshot gets done, the MSSQLSERVER service is set to continue. This seems to be working very well without killing the applications on the VM that use the database instance.

I have not tested this in VDR yet. But I worry that deduplication may not matter here, since I am overwriting the same bak file for the backup of each database. WIll VDR be that smart and know what to do? Or will the block arrangement for that bit of data be completely different and it backs it up again?

Am I alone in this method? Can someone shed some insight?

vData Recovery deleted the vmdk files that I didn't "tick" to backup

sportsystems — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:27:30 GMT

We have recently migrated to ESXi 4.0 from ESX 3.5, and the upgrade went smoothly. We decided to adopt vDR as initial testing has been positive, it has been backing up several of our VM's without any problems, until last night when I set it to backup only the C: drive and H: drive VMDK's of a multi-disk server, it seems to have gotten itself confused and in the process has deleted the unticked "data" disks completely - without trace.

Our VM (called "fs1") has 5 disks which were allocated accordingly (each disk in it's own datastore+LUN on the SAN)...

C: 20GB (vmstore1/fs1.vmdk) OK
E: = 450GB (filestore1/fs1file1.vmdk) deleted!
F: = 500GB (libstore1/fs1lib1.vmdk) deleted!
G: = 500GB (libstore2/fs1lib2.vmdk) deleted!
H: = 500GB (libstore3/fs1.vmdk) OK

As you can see, the two that are named the same were untouched, but the 3 that were not ticked got wiped out!

I went onto the "unsupported" console to verify with my own eyes as the datastore browser can give varying results... none of the extra disks from this particular VM were there... the folder structure was there, but the vmdk and -flat files were missing.
I know this sounds crazy, but it's the only coincidental thing I can find that may have been the cause - that and the two disks happen to be named the same (which is why they were both ticked in the vdr Backup screen as it wasn't obvious which disk was which).

I've yet to create a support ticket as I'm busy recreating the data stores and doing a restore. If I get chance I'll try to recreate this in a dev lab, or if someone else could I would be greatful.

Edit just to say, the only errors that appeared in the events was this by the vDR backup user around the time the VM went offline (due to losing its disks), an error -3941 failed to create snapshot:

"Create virtual machine snapshot
fs1
File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size
supported by datastore '<unspecified datastore>"

fullvm and file server:storage1

marcosdarosa — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:43:47 GMT

Good afternoon,

It is possible to perform backup and file fullvm of a virtual machine that is located on the local disk of the server ... server: storage01?

Att

Marcos da Rosa

Trouble reading from destination volume, error -2241 ( Destination index invalid/damaged)

AllBlack — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:24:14 GMT

Hi guys,

I have started seeing this error everytime the daily integrity check is ran.

9/6/2009 3:36:40 PM: Executing Integrity Check
9/6/2009 3:36:40 PM: To Backup Set /...
9/6/2009 3:36:40 PM: Trouble reading from destination volume, error -2241 ( Destination index invalid/damaged)
9/6/2009 3:36:40 PM: Backup Set "/" will be locked until the restore point with errors are deleted and integrity check succeeds.
9/6/2009 3:36:40 PM: Task incomplete

Backups are still being completed by the looks of it. I had a look at all my restore points and they look OK to me.
It is my understanding a red cross should indicate corruption.
Any ideas?

Please consider marking my answer as "helpful" or "correct"

VDR evaluation - backups fail due to licensing issue

riaanb — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:46:34 GMT

I have been asked to evaluate VMware Data Recovery. I have downloaded and installed vSphere Server (4.0.0 Build 162856), configured my hosts (running evaluation ESxi (4.0.0, 171294) instances) and installed the VDR plugin (1.0.2.0)

However, when a backup runs it fails with "The host 192.168.250.51 for VMware Data Recovery appliance is not licensed, backups cannot not be performed."

Both the vSphere Server and the host is running in evaluation mode (as per the licensing report in vSphere Server. The software was installed using downlaods from the same link after registering for a vSpere evaluation.

Should I be able to evaluate VDR? Any suggestions on how to get it working?

Thanks

--

Riaan

VDR - Multiple VMDKs with the Same Name

ben13 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:34:27 GMT

So according to the release notes for VDR 1.0.2 here (http://www.vmware.com/support/vdr/doc/vdr_102_releasenotes.html) you will see the following note:

Multiple VMDKs with the Same Name not Handled Properly \\\\ A
virtual machine can have multiple VMDK files with the same name that
are stored on different LUNs. In such a case, Data Recovery would only
restore one of the disks. Data Recovery now restores all disks.

However I've just installed the newer version of the VDR appliance and it appears that the backups are not seing additional disks that have the same name but are on different LUNs. Can anyone else confirm if 1.0.2 fixed this for you?

As some examples/background info:

Situation 1 we have a server called vc-sus-01 with 2 disks,disk 1 is vc-sus-01.vmdk (16Gb) and is on LUN1, disk 2 is called vc-sus-01.vmdk(40Gb) and is on LUN2. When I setup the backup job it does see both vmdk files correctly but after the successful back job runs and I look in the log I see this:

10/28/2009 5:00:08 PM: Normal backup using Test Job
10/28/2009 5:00:29 PM: Copying vc-sus-01
10/28/2009 5:00:44 PM: Performing full back up of disk "vmfs_lun01\vc-sus-01/vc-sus-01-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add"
10/28/2009 5:20:06 PM: Task completed successfully

Which to me indicates it never tried to backup the 2nd 40Gb disk? When I go into restore rehersal I only see one disk will be created and if I select it it says total amount to restore 16Gb which indicates it doesn't have that 2nd disk.

Situation 2 is similar to above except the disks are named differently and on different SANs tech though I don't know that would matter? In this case I have a server called "server2" which also has 2 disk except in this case I've either moved both disks to the same LUN at some point or renamed one disk. Either way it has disk 1 is server2.vmdk (16Gb) on a different SAN, Disk 2 is server2_1.vmdk (80Gb).

10/28/2009 6:00:08 PM: Normal backup using Test Job
10/28/2009 6:02:08 PM: Copying Server2
10/28/2009 6:02:25 PM: Performing full back up of disk "vmfs_D1\server2_1/server2-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add"
10/28/2009 6:49:46 PM: Performing full back up of disk "vmfms_lun09\ server2/server2_1-flat.vmdk" using "SCSI Hot-Add"
10/28/2009 7:29:40 PM: Task completed successfully

So in the 2nd scenario it seems to work fine. When I go into restore rehersal for it I see 2 disks will be created and if I select it it says total amount to restore 96Gb which indicates it doesn't have that 2nd disk.

I know I can go and rename the disks but I have quite a few boxes and some with 3-4 disks on different LUNS all with the same name. As far as I know this was supposed to be fixed in 1.0.2 but I'm not seeing it. Everything else has been working fine for weeks just this little issue and I know I can fix it by doing a bunch of manual work but wondered if I was missing something. FYI I also did try to create a new job just in case it was something in the config of the imported jobs when I installed the new appliance but it didn't make a difference.

VDR job starts at wrong time

andi303 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:21:49 GMT

Hello all,

it seems that VDR inverts my settings for the backup timeslot. I'm using the default values (backup at night) , however, VDR starts the backup during the day. The time (and timezone) is set correctly.

Anyone else with the same problem?

Regards,
Andreas

vcbmounter error : X is not a writeable directory

vega1x1 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:41:06 GMT

I am trying to setup a simple disk based backup for our lab vsphere esx servers using a batch file running vcbmounter and I am running into a weird issue. The vcbmounter command to backup the virtual machine works fine if I choose a local drive as the VM backup location(-r option) but if I try to write the backed up VM images to a mapped drive on the proxy server the backup fails with an error that reads "<location X: is not a writeable directory>." I have checked NTFS permissions and gone as far as assigning everyone full control at both the share and NTFS level. Any help resolving this issue is greatly appreciated.

Networker Virtual Edition Client

AllBlack — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:13:34 GMT

Hi,

Is anyone making use of this? I was asked to look into it but I am not able to configure auto-discovery.
I get the following error:

Starting Auto Discovery Process for tur-vcenter1
Monitoring Auto Discovery for tur-vcenter1
Auto Discovery for tur-vcenter1 failed
Failed

Monitoring Auto Discovery Completed

I get no indication as to why it fails. I have no knowledge of networker so I am not even sure where to look for the appropriate logs.

Cheers

Please consider marking my answer as "helpful" or "correct"

VMware Consolidation Backup

kazumasa — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:12:16 GMT

Is it possible to use proxy server(VMware Consolidation Backup) with windows 2008 server?

VCB for Linux?

AndyShinn — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:42:25 GMT

I don't know where I saw it before. But I seem to remember a vcbmount script for Linux. Are there complete VCB scripts for linux that would allow me to create backup scripts, mount full VMs, and back them up in Linux without needing the Windows VCB proxy?

VCB Won't Work To New vSphere Host

rhill — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 22:01:16 GMT

I have searched and tried everything I can think of but still cannot get the latest VCB(1.5.0.4948 build-150805) to work against a new vSphere server. The problem to me appears to be a certificate issue. VCB works fine against my old 3.5 host.

I am using VCB with BackupExec 11d 7170 on Windows 2003 server. Here is the pre job log:

failed to prepare vmname for backup, PrepareForBackup() returned error 18
Error checking for virtual machine. Check hostname, user name and password.
Exit Code: 18

If I bypass the backupexec program, The vcbMounter (version 1.5.0.4948) error is:

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework>vcbMounter.exe -h usvs1.domain.com -u v
cbuser -p {password} -m "nbd" -a name:{vm name} -t "fullvm" -r g:\mnt\vcb
~~2009-10-31 14:12:56.007 'App' 2764 info~~ Current working directory: C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware
Consolidated Backup Framework
~~2009-10-31 14:12:56.007 'BaseLibs' 2764 info~~ HOSTINFO: Seeing Intel CPU, numCoresPerCPU 1 numThrea
dsPerCore 2.
~~2009-10-31 14:12:56.023 'BaseLibs' 2764 info~~ HOSTINFO: This machine has 2 physical CPUS, 2 total c
ores, and 4 logical CPUs.
~~2009-10-31 14:12:57.023 'BaseLibs' 2764 info~~ Using system libcrypto, version 90709F
~~2009-10-31 14:12:57.117 'BaseLibs' 2764 warning~~ SSLVerifyCertAgainstSystemStore: The remote host c
ertificate has these problems:

The host certificate chain is not complete.

~~2009-10-31 14:12:57.117 'vcbMounter' 2764 error~~ Error: Other error encountered: SSL Exception: The
remote host certificate has these problems:

The host certificate chain is not complete.

The vSphere host certificate was loaded using Internet Explorer 7. I placed it in the computer's certificate trusted root certification authorities. But when look at the certificate in certificate manager it says Windows does not have enough information to verify this certificate. Under certificate path, it says "The issuer of this certificate could not be found. "

I can log onto the server with the VMware client using the vcbuser backup account. It has a the same rights as on 3.5. I can also SSH into the server with that account.

Can anyone provide any guidance or advice on my issue?

Thanks in advance,

Robert

ESXi 4.0 upgrade broke my backup solution, fix or alternate plan for small business?

pgray007 — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:44:40 GMT

I was using ESXi 3.5, and Adaptec 39160 SCSI card and a Dell LTO2 tape drive to backup our 4 VMs from inside a Win 2003 SBS server using SCSI passthrough and Backup Exec 12.5, all of which worked well. I upgraded to to ESXi 4.0 and it appears the Adaptec 39160 is no longer supported (shame on me for not checking the HCL more thoroughly). We're also moving to SBS 2008 so I am unsure what wrinkles that will add to the equation.

We are a small business, to which virtualization has been a godsend, but we're using relatively low-end hardware, with a whitebox server and locally connected SAS storage and obviously face the economic constraints of a small business. Ideally I'd like to just replace the 39160 card if that is possible, and there's something that will work with Backup Exec on a Win 2008 VM, but if that's not the best solution we could probably pony up $1-2K for a more robust/supported solution, or just put together a standalone backup server with some leftover hardware if that's the best approach. If there is a replacement SCSI card that would work, a specific model number would be very appreciated!

VDR Schedule

ccesario — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:02:42 GMT

Hello, I'm testing the new VDR, and I`m having a bit problem.

My schedule backups don't start automatic (in schedule day/times) .

But if I start backup job manually the backup start with success.

Somebody have idea about this ?

its attached any sshots of my config

thanks

Carlos

Vmware data recovery vs vmware consolidated backup

vhii81 — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:14:53 GMT

I am just reading up on the new stuff on vmware and am just wondering whats the difference between these two?

It seems so much easier to use vmware data recovery compared to VCB. Perhaps the only difference is the lan-free option?

Thanks

restore via Vibe

steveharder — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:02:01 GMT

Hi,

I'm testing the vibe tool from netapp for backing up VM's

I did manage to backup the VM's but having some problems testing the restore procedure.

in one of the forums I found the commands but it say to install OpenSSH as vibe works best with it.

I can't find OpenSSH for windows any more and when trying to work with Putty/Plink it gives me some errors

I found a link explaining the workaround but I'm not a script person and would like to know if someone can help me.

I ned to know what those it means or how to do it in the cfg file - Then call the SSH.bat from the command line or configuration (.cfg) file.

This is the script -

Workaround:

Copy and save the following batch file as SSH.bat to the VIBE directory. Then call the SSH.bat from the command line or configuration (.cfg) file.

@Echo Off

REM Author: NetworkAdminKB.com

REM Created: 2008-11-25

REM Modified: 2008-11-28

REM

REM Purpose: Allows plink.exe to work as expected by NetApp VIBE

REM

SetLocal

Set CMDLog=Cmd.Log

Set CmdLine=%*

Echo %cmdLine% >> %CMDLog%

Set CmdLine=%CmdLine:'=%

REM Echo %cmdLine% >> %CMDLog%

If "%CmdLine%"=="-V" (

C:\Progra~1\Putty\plink.exe -i "C:\Progra~1\Putty\netapp-private.ppk" %cmdLine%

ping 127.0.0.1 -n 1 >NUL

) ELSE (

C:\Progra~1\Putty\plink.exe -i "C:\Progra~1\Putty\netapp-private.ppk" %cmdLine%

)

Tape Backup Integration with VMware Data Recovery (VDR) - How to guide

Peter.Grant — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:07:56 GMT

Hi all,

This is just a FYI as I've had quite a few people ask me about it.

Here is an article about how to backup to tape using VDR. It's actually very simple, there's no rocket science here but it might be useful to have it outlined again.

Tape Backup Integration with VMware Data Recovery (VDR)
http://xtravirt.com/xd10131

Pete

VDR /RDM

ccesario — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:10:02 GMT

Hello, I have one Vm Machine with RDM Virtual Disk attached to this machine.

I can make the backup (using VDR) of this machine AND this RDM Disk ?

Thanks

Carlos

GhettoVCB.sh on ESX4 for backup VM: sintax error

mardux — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:47:42 GMT

hi to all.

after upgrade from esx3.5 to esx4, my old backup script (vmbk.pl) is unsupported.

now i want test and use a new script, ghettoVCB.sh, for backup of my VM.

with a old version of ghetto (Date: 11/01/2008), the script is working fine, but with last version (with new feature COMPRESSION) the script return a sintax error:

~~root@esx03 ~~~# ./ghettoVCB-completo.sh vmbcklist
: command not foundo.sh: line 5:
: command not foundo.sh: line 8:
: command not foundo.sh: line 15:
: command not foundo.sh: line 18:
: command not foundo.sh: line 20:
: command not foundo.sh: line 21:
: command not foundo.sh: line 26:
: command not foundo.sh: line 29:
: command not foundo.sh: line 34:
: command not foundo.sh: line 37:
: command not foundo.sh: line 42:
: command not foundo.sh: line 44:
: command not foundo.sh: line 47:
: command not foundo.sh: line 50:
: command not foundo.sh: line 53:
: command not foundo.sh: line 56:
: command not foundo.sh: line 59:
: command not foundo.sh: line 61:
: command not foundo.sh: line 63:
: command not foundo.sh: line 65:
'/ghettoVCB-completo.sh: line 66: syntax error near unexpected token `{
'/ghettoVCB-completo.sh: line 66: `printUsage() {
~~root@esx03 ~~~#

at line 66 the code is this:

66 printUsage() {
67 SCRIPT_PATH=$(basename $0)
68 echo -e "\nUsage: ${SCRIPT_PATH} VM_FILE_INPUT\n"
69 exit
70 }

can you help me??

very thanks

Snapshots & Backups

curiousagain — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:32:15 GMT

Hi all,

I have some questions regarding snapshots and backups (data recovery tool), please try to help:

1. If I'm taking snapshots of VM with 10 GB hard drive every day, will the folder with all snapshots exceed the 10GB size eventually? If yes, how will I know that my storage will be enough?

2. Do I need to keep all snapshots or can I delete all of them and keep only the last one? If I can keep only the last one, is it possible that this snapshot will be bigger than 10GB?

3. Regarding Backups, what are the differences between snapshots and backups (data recovery tool)?

4. If I'm planning to backup servers (data recovery tool) over the network, will it extremely load it?

Thanks in advance.

Snapshot question while trying to using VDR 1.02

dean.kirby — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:56:46 GMT

Hello,

I wondering if anyone has seen this error before while using VDR 1.02: "Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen
virtual machine."

This happens whenever I try to use VDR to perform a backup but if I use vRanger, it works fine. The guest is a 2008 Ent SP2 Server running on vSphere. This seems to be my only VM giving me grief...at least so far. I appreciate everyone's input.

TIA,

Dean

How to use vStorage API ?

AlbertWT — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:54:42 GMT

Hi All,

I've heard that vStorage is a feature of vSphere 4.0 which can take backup of the VM directly without using VCB-Proxy.

Is anyone know how to utilize it ? as far as i know that only commercial 3rd party backup software can utilize it, not using any script or freeware solution.

Kind Regards,
AWT

cannot backup powered off VM's with VDR

ehinkle — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:29:51 GMT

Just tried to backup a powered off VM on a ESX host using VDR and it failed because it could not create a snapshot, why is that I can manually create a snapshot of a powered off virtual machine?

Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

kot99 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:25:21 GMT

Then i try to backup VM using VDR the following error occured:

Create virtual machine snapshot
Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit for holding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

How can i fix this issue ?

Please help...thanks.

vcenter vcb role and search virtual machine

dsumsky — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:46:50 GMT

Hi folks,

I'm trying to solve the following issue with VCB. I have defined a VCB role with the following priviledges:

Virtual machine->Provisioning->Allow read-only disk access

Virtual machine->Provisioning->Allow virtual machine download

Virtual machine->State->Create snapshot

Virtual machine->State->Remove snapshot

Then, I have a user vcbadmin with this role and I try to perform a testing file level vcbmount from vcenter server vc-server , e.g.:

vcbmounter.exe -h vc-server -u vcbadmin -p pass -a moref:vm-692 -r f:\vcb\test -t file -m nbd

That works perfectly. But when I want to enumerate all VMs managed by vc-server, it fails:

vcbvmname.exe -h vc-server -u vcbadmin -p pass -s any:

The produced warning is "No matching VMs found." When I specify the particular machine,it works again:

vcbvmname.exe -h vc-server -u vcbadmin -p pass -s moref:vm-692

If I try it with user with Administrator role, it works smoothly. Does somebody know if I just need to extend the VCB role with some additional priviledge to success or if I need to be a user with Administrator role after all? How can I enumerate VMs managed by vcenter server with unpriviledged user who has assigned VCB role?

Thank you very much, Dave

vSphere includes VMware Data Recovery...correct?

SlickBag — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:22:13 GMT

I was looking at the VMware Data Recovery Product and it looks pretty cool...until I saw you had to purchase it. Then I saw this:

"VMware Data Recovery is included in vSphere Enterprise Plus, Advanced, and Essentials Plus Editions"

But we own "Enterprise". So I don't get it...why does Advanced include this product, but Enterprise does not? Isn't Enterprise a step up from Advanced? So shouldn't Enterprise also include this? I feel this is a bit unfair - but hopefully this is just a mis-print.

File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore <unspecified datastore>

glemmestad — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:37:55 GMT

Hi,

Getting the following error message on running backups through vStorage API (or VCB):

File <unspecified filename> is larger than the maximum size supported by datastore '<unspecified datastore>

Now, I know what you're thinking. VMDK size is probably maximum of allowable on VMFS data store, for example 256GB VMDK on a VMFS with 1MB block size.

All EMC Clariion FC storage configured in the following way: two 1TB LUNs with 1MB block size (LUN1 and LUN2), rest (usually around 1.5TB) configured with 8MB block size (LUN 3). Max VMDK on 1MB LUN is 256GB, max VMDK on 8MB LUN is 2TB.

The 1TB LUNs are used for OS disks of various VMs (that's why we used a small blocksize). The large LUNs are used for large data disks, like D: drive on a large databaseserver where the disk needs to be bigger than 256GB.

The VM in question is configured as follows: HD1 is 24GB and located on LUN1. This is also where the config file is located. HD2 is 600GB and located on LUN 3 (the one with 8MB block size).

The error message above appears as soon as you try to take a snapshot of the VM. Now, this presumably happends because the snapshot process places the snapshot-files on LUN1 (with 1MB block size). This also includes the delta file for the 600GB disk. This is probably why it fails. But.... why? Sure, the snapshot file of the 600GB could THEORETICALLY grow to 600GB (and therefor not fit on LUN1), but the chances of this growing to 256GB is virtually impossible.

Might as well mention that these error messages happen on all VMs where they have the OS disks on a "small LUN" and large data disks on different LUNs. They also never failed when on VI 3.5 update 2; but appeared as soon as the servers were upgraded to vSphere 4. The way to "fix" the problem is to move the 24GB OS disk and config file to a LUN that has 8MB block size; then snapshots work. But that is not a solution I can live with.

I thought I would air this issue on the community before engaging VMWare support.

Backup of ms cluster vm in ESX servers

JCKL — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:14:19 GMT

Hi,

I got a problem in backup the ms cluster in VM.

I have a 2 nodes ms cluster run in the ESX. The OS of the cluster are store in HP EVA and the Cluster share disks are store in EMC.

Since mscluster vm do not support the snapshot. Can I use the VCB servers to backup the whole cluster(2OS+cluster disk)? I ask this because VCB will make a snapshot before backup.

Or is there any method to backup?

Thanks

Multiple Data Recovery Appliances?

rob.ellison — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:53:47 GMT

Is it possible to have multiple Data Recovery Appliances connected to the same vSphere vCenter server?

i don't think the limit of 8 concurrent backups is enough for our needs.

VCB restore using Convertor Standlone fails for larg(ish) VCBs.

MattMarcos — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:13:42 GMT

Hi there. We use VCB to backup our VM's. We just use the standing vcb mounter scripts and they work a treat.

The restores are giving us grief. Trying to restore a largish VM (100GB+) will result in a failure in convertor.

We are tyring to restore our VCBs to another ESX4i server in a DR/DEV environment test.

We use a VCB proxy server connected via 2Gb FC to our SAN. Running Convertor on this vcb box to try and import the VM into another host on the LAN.

I see it pinned to one point in the logs.

Found this in vmware-converter-agent-1.log

32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 58, xfer rate (Bps): 4315920
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 59, xfer rate (Bps): 4315920
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:29:54.487 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.378 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 59, xfer rate (Bps): 276284705
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.378 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.425 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 68, xfer rate (Bps): 276284705
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:05.425 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 68, xfer rate (Bps): 7108809
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 info 'task-5'~~ ConvertTask updates, state: 1, percentage: 69, xfer rate (Bps): 7108809
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:30:47.705 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ASSIGN: info, task-5

32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 verbose 'App'~~ ,0 NfcNetTcpWrite: timed out waiting for socket to be ready (101)
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 warning 'App'~~ ,0 NFC ERROR NfcNet_Send: requested 272, sent only 9 bytes
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 warning 'App'~~ ,0 NFC ERROR NfcFileSendMessage: hdr send failed:
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.752 02532 warning 'App'~~ ,0 NFC ERROR Network error -- Failed to send header message
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:40:53.814 02532 error 'App'~~ blockLevelCloningTaskImpl,1005 File transfer failed.
32 task-5 Dst error: Network error -- Failed to send header message
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 error 'task-5'~~ TaskImpl has failed with MethodFault::Exception: converter.agent.internal.fault.NfcConnectionFault
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 verbose 'PropertyProvider'~~ RecordOp ADD: event27, task-5
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 info 'App'~~ diskBasedCloneTask,331 Skipping post-cloning since the disk-based cloning operation did not complete successfully.
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 info 'App'~~ cloneTask,278 Skipping post-cloning since the clone task did not complete successfully.
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 info 'App'~~ vmiImportTask,1408 Removing destination VM
32 task-5 ~~2009-10-22 15:41:00.439 02532 verbose 'App'~~ Destroying managed VM

Can't find anything wrong with the network though.

Any ideas?

cheers,

Matt.

VMWare data recovery and Server 2008 R2, 64 bit

kgill — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:11:41 GMT

Hello,

Is there any issue with using the VMWare DAta Recovery plugin and MS Server 2008 R2 (64 bit)? Everytime I try to back up a VM with the 2008 R2 OS on it it comes back with the error:

Failed to create snapshot for VMName, error -1 ( unknown)

The status message in the Recent Tasks pane says:

Cannot create a quiesced snapshot because the create snapshot operation exceeded the time limit forholding off I/O in the frozen virtual machine.

When I use the same app to back up a regular 32 bit version of 2008 it works fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Linux Quiescing Scripts

jjahns — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:43:21 GMT

Note: I found this out investigating a problem I had, but to go ahead and make this general.

The custom quiescing scripts do not go in /usr/sbin, per the documentation for VCB. They go in /etc/vmware-tools. Maybe this is leftover from the older versions of VCB, I don't know. I found this out by accident. Tried everything else, and wanted to know where the other scripts for powering on and off were.

Documentation probably needs to be updated.

Enjoy