VM Backup hotadd method concept using VCB v1.5u1 and ESXi 4 local datastre

[AlbertWT]

Hi All,

I’d like to get clarification in using VCB v1.5 update 1 ESXi

VM backup with –hotadd method in vSphere 4 (All server is ESXi 4)

The goals is to make the backup of VM faster since most of the

VM is in the MD3000i_SAN VMFS and between the ESXi host is direct connection to

the both ESXi1 and ESXi2

The setting is as follows:

1. Windows Server 2003 x64 Std. VM +
   VCB Framework deployed on the ESXi1 and ESXi2 local SATA Datastore, namely VCBProxy01and VCBProxy02 all only got 40 GB HD size

2. Empty VM created on both ESXi1
   and ESXi2 namely VCBProxy01(VCB-HELPER) and VCBProxy02(VCB-HELPER).
   All without hard disk

Network diagram:

Command that I issued:

*vcbmounter -h

virtualcenterHOST -u Administrator -p AdminPASSWORD -a ipaddr:server1.domain.com

server2.domain.com server3.domain.com -r D:\OUTPUTDIR -t fullvm –L 6 –m hotadd*

but then I got error:

Error: Unexpected extra arguments encountered.

VMware Consolidated Backup -- Virtual Machine Mount Utility Version 1.5.0.4948 (build-150805)

Any idea of how to do the hotadd method of multiple VM (online & offline) through command line please ?

Kind Regards,

AWT

[rahqa · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You cannot pass multiple VM arguments in one command. It has to be only 1 VM. In your case, looking at the parameters, i guess you are passing the VM names and not the ip address. if you give -a ipaddr it has to be the ip address of the target VM to be backed up. Else to pass the VM name it has to be -a name:vm-name.

So once again, you cannot pass multiple VM names in one single VCBMounter command. So to run the backup for multiple VMs you should be running multiple command line instances with the corresponding target VMs name / ip address. Hope this helps.

Thanks

Rahul

[AlbertWT]

Hi Rahqa,

Thanks for the reply, so in this case one batch file per VM right ?

If somehow there are 40 VMs inside that SAN_VMFSis there any limitation that i can run the backup job simultaneously or i should create onelong batch file which backup the VM sequentially ?

Kind Regards,

AWT

[AlbertWT]

Here's the one line script that i use:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop>vcbmounter -h vcenter -u Administrator -p p455w0rd -a name:mossdev01 -r C:\OUTPUTDIR -t fullvm –L 6 –m hotadd

Current working directory: C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop

HOSTINFO: Seeing Intel CPU, numCoresPerCPU 1 numThreadsPerCore 1.

HOSTINFO: This machine has 1 physical CPUS, 1 total cores, and 1 logical CPUs.

Error: Unexpected extra arguments encountered.

VMware Consolidated Backup -- Virtual Machine Mount Utility Version 1.5.0.4948 (build-150805)

Copyright (C) 1998-2009 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.

Usage:

vcbMounter -h <url> -u <username> <operation>

how come this is just one line to test one VM backup hot add in the VCBProxy VM it failed ?

ping command is success using that name.

so in this case i could not copy paste those bold line and change it for all of my 51 VMs.

any idea please ?

Kind Regards,

AWT

[rahqa]

Hi Albert,

The error is because of the pattern. You should mention verbosity only towards the end. You can see that in the help, given in the fail error itself. ( Usage:

vcbMounter -h )

So your command should be given as :

vcbmounter -h vcenter -u Administrator -p p455w0rd -a name:mossdev01 -r C:\OUTPUTDIR -t fullvm –m hotadd -L 6

hope that helps

Thanks

Rahul

[AlbertWT]

Hi Rahqa,

Thank you,that script is now working :-o)

I've created one VM one script, there can be maximum of 8 VCB backup at a time ? --> cmiiw.

Kind Regards,

AWT