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crazex
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Getting VCB to work with Backup Exec 11d

I have been having a bunch of problems getting the Backup Exec Interoperability Module to work with VCB. First off, here is an outline of the environment that it is running in:

Windows 2003 Server SP2 - VCB Proxy server

Attached to a FC SAN - No multipathing

All VMFS volumes are visible to the Proxy, using the same LUN #'s as the ESX cluster

An NTFS LUN mapped to the server in order to mount the snapshots

esxRanger, Backup Exec 11d, and VCB installed on the server

BEIM extracted to the VCB folder, and configured with the proper settings

Now on to the main issue that I am having. I have created a script that will mount the volume to the proxy, using the BEIM/vcbMounter. When I run the script manually, it takes the snapshot of the VM, and mounts it to the proper place. I also have a script that unmounts the volume, which again works perfectly fine when I run it manually. Now when I try and run these scripts using the pre/post command features in Backup Exec, the VM is not snapped, and thus never mounted to the mount point. The backup then fails due to an invalid directory. This makes sense since the snapshot is never mounted.

What I don't understand, is why the scripts work properly when I run them manually, but never execute when I run them via Backup Exec. I currently have the Backup Exec services running as the same domain admin account that I use when I RDP into the server. At first I thought that maybe the account that BE was using didn't have the appropriate rights. Has anybody gotten this to work? I'd really like to get this working, so that I don't need to put agents into all of my VMs. I've already gotten esxRanger working to make Full VM backups, so I'd like to use VCB to do my File Level backups.

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
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Jeff1981
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We had a similar problem, which we solved by the following steps:

\- adding the account which the VCB mounter uses to the local admin group on the BackupExec server

\- Making sure that all the BackupExec services run under the SystemBackup account, except for the Remote Agent (which should also be installed on the BackupExec server itself) which must be set to run under the Local System account

Further more, look for the following files in your C:\Windows\Temp dir on your BackupExec server:

pre_[i]jobname[/i][i]date[/i][i]followupnumber[/i].log

post_[i]jobname[/i][i]date[/i][i]followupnumber[/i].log

These are the logs of the pre and post jobs in which you'll find more information about what goes wrong.

Good luck!

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davidbarclay
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There is a some "fun" to be had getting this to work. BackupExec has a habbit of trying to run the script locally on the backup server instead of the target. VCB makes this worse because the "target" directory isn't there until the script runs (chicken and the egg).

Try putting a placeholder pre command on your backupexec server that spawns notepad - then try again. If notepad open on your backup exec server you knows whats happening!

Dave

crazex
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I will give this a shot, when I get back into the office on Monday. Would this still be the problem even though, the backup exec job server, and the VCB framework are both on this one box? I can get backup exec to run the script that launches the esxRanger backup without any problems.

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
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crazex
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Well as expected, Backup Exec, did open notepad. However, I don't think this solves the problem, as my proxy server is also my Backup Exec server, so the fact that it is trying to launch on the same box seems irrelevant. Somebody out there must have had some success with this, so any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm sure that it is just something small that I am missing, but I have gone over my setup multiple times, and I just can't figure it out. I just don't understand, why the Pre/Post command scripts for the esxRanger backups work, but not the VCB backups.

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
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Jeff1981
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We had a similar problem, which we solved by the following steps:

\- adding the account which the VCB mounter uses to the local admin group on the BackupExec server

\- Making sure that all the BackupExec services run under the SystemBackup account, except for the Remote Agent (which should also be installed on the BackupExec server itself) which must be set to run under the Local System account

Further more, look for the following files in your C:\Windows\Temp dir on your BackupExec server:

pre_[i]jobname[/i][i]date[/i][i]followupnumber[/i].log

post_[i]jobname[/i][i]date[/i][i]followupnumber[/i].log

These are the logs of the pre and post jobs in which you'll find more information about what goes wrong.

Good luck!

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crazex
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Turned out that the BEIM had C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\ hard coded in as the path. I had installed VCB to the D:\ drive, so by moving it back to C:\ I was able to get it to work. Now I just need to figure out why it is only backing up at 350-400 MB/min across the FC connection.

-Jon-

-Jon- VMware Certified Professional
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AlbertWT
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Sounds promising using BE with VCB as it is can be integrated as freeware, so how did you go with it ?

Kind Regards,

AWT

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