This has happened several times in the past. Each time requiring tech support from VMware.  I'd like to be able to do this myself.

A virtual machine has a lock file present in its directory.  The VM cannot be consolidated.  Can't take snapshots, and can't back it up with VDP.

VMname.vmx.lck is in the directory in the datastore.

When I go to the VDP appliance, I see that it has an extra disk attached to it.

It has a disk belonging to the VM that can't be consolidated.  This disk is located in the directory with the lockfile.

In the past, I've been able to remove these extra disks that get stuck to VDP (by editing VDP-- and removing the disk.  A VMware tech told me to try this approach).

But in this case,when I try to remove the disk from VDP I get the following error

"Cannot remove virtual disk from the vitual machine because it or one of its parent disks is part of a snapshot of a virtual machine.)

I can't just delete the disk lock either (at least not when browsing the datastore)-- access is denied.

I'm sure others have experienced this.

Any ideas?

Dear all, I have been knocking my VDP about trying to fix it. It had lost data02, and I got that back by running a filecheck discarding the metadata stuff. So, I was then able to gain access to the rollback, but rollback failed.

Now the status looks like this:

root@vdp:~/#: dpnctl status

Identity added: /home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid (/home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid)

dpnctl: INFO: gsan status: up

dpnctl: INFO: MCS status: down.

dpnctl: INFO: Backup scheduler status: down.

dpnctl: INFO: axionfs status: up.

dpnctl: INFO: Maintenance windows scheduler status: enabled.

dpnctl: INFO: Unattended startup status: enabled.

dpnctl: INFO: [see log file "/usr/local/avamar/var/log/dpnctl.log"]

I found this article: Starting the MCS service in VMware vSphere Data Protection 5.1.x fails with the error: gsan rollbacktime does not match … and attempted to run the command specified in there, but it is not successful.

I get this:

root@vdp:~/#: dpnctl start mcs --force_mcs_restore

Identity added: /home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid (/home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid)

dpnctl: INFO: Restoring MCS data...

Permission deniedPermission denied at /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.10.0/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/XML/LibXML.pm line 587.

Could not create file parser context for file "/usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/mcserver.xml": Permission denied at /usr/local/avamar/lib/MCServer.pm line 128

dpnctl: ERROR: cannot restore MCS data without a password for MCS administrative user id

dpnctl: ERROR: MCS restore did not succeed, so not restarting MCS

dpnctl: INFO: [see log file "/usr/local/avamar/var/log/dpnctl.log"]

So my question is really... How do I specify the password for the MCS administrative user id so that I may force MCS up again?

If I try to start MCS using dpnctl start mcs I get the following:

root@vdp:~/#: dpnctl start mcs

Identity added: /home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid (/home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid)

dpnctl: INFO: Starting MCS...

dpnctl: INFO: To monitor progress, run in another window: tail -f /tmp/dpnctl-mcs-start-output-6153

dpnctl: ERROR: error return from "[ -r /etc/profile ] && . /etc/profile ; /usr/local/avamar/bin/mcserver.sh --start" - exit status 13

dpnctl: INFO: [see log file "/usr/local/avamar/var/log/dpnctl.log"]

This is what the dpnctl.log looks like:

root@vdp:~/#: tail /usr/local/avamar/var/log/dpnctl.log

2016/06/30-12:50:18 [ "/bin/cat /tmp/dpnctl-get-mcs-status-status-5787 2>&1" exit status = 0 ]

2016/06/30-12:50:18 dpnctl: INFO: "[ -r /etc/profile ] && . /etc/profile ; /usr/local/avamar/bin/mcserver.sh --test" exit status = 13

2016/06/30-12:50:18 rm -f /tmp/dpnctl-get-mcs-status-status-5787 /tmp/dpnctl-get-mcs-status-output-5787

2016/06/30-12:50:18 dpnctl: INFO: "rm -f /tmp/dpnctl-get-mcs-status-status-5787 /tmp/dpnctl-get-mcs-status-output-5787" - exit status 0

2016/06/30-12:50:18 dpnctl: INFO: [see log file "/usr/local/avamar/var/log/dpnctl.log"]

2016/06/30-12:50:18 rm -f /usr/local/avamar/var/dpnctl.lck

2016/06/30-12:50:18 ======= dpnctl 7.1.80-129 (1.139), running as admin, RETURNING at 2016-06-30 14:50:18 CEST =======

2016/06/30-12:50:18 [user "admin"] program (pid 5787) exit status = 1 (error)

2016/06/30-12:50:18 ======= dpnctl 7.1.80-129 (1.139), running as root, ENDING at 2016-06-30 14:50:18 CEST =======

2016/06/30-12:50:18 [user "root"] program (pid 5729) exit status = 1 (error)

Not a lot to work with here... Logfile has absolutely no info that I can understand...

Message was edited by: Ludvig F Aarstad: added more info

Wow, it was as simple as typing su - admin before running the dpnctl start mcs force_mcs_restore command...

Message was edited by: Ludvig F Aarstad: Added solution...

Hi All,

Does anyone know how vdp works when backing up a vm. I mean if i have a vm with 2 vmdk as below :

Vmdk 1 size 100gb thick (used space is 30 gb)

Vmdk 2 size 500gb thin (used space is 200 gb)

How much is the initial full backup size for vm above using vdp 6 ....???i cannot find any documents regarding this matters =(

Every day, during the backup window receives about 10 alerts like this.

Backups take longer than 12 hours to finalize

Does anyone have any idea how to solve this?

VMWare announced the End of Availability (EOA) of VMware Data Protection (2149614).

This is quite disappointing, as many customers might have opted for using VDP after the announcement that VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced became part of VMware vSphere (and did no longer require purchase of a separate license):

"Starting March 1, 2015, VMware vSphere Data Protection Advanced will be consolidated into VMware vSphere Data Protection ... All functionality available with vSphere Data Protection Advanced, previously available as a standalone product, is now included in VMware vSphere Data Protection 6.0."

If I understand it correctly, customers that are using VDP now need to change their backup policies and again need to purchase from VMWare:

"Beginning today, Dell EMC is offering you a complimentary migration to the more robust and scalable Dell EMC Avamar Virtual Edition."

Comments welcome!

Tom

I was attempting to increase disk size on the primary disk of a VM. I followed instructions to delete all snapshots. After I noticed that the disk type went from Thin provisioned to Thick provisioned. After increasing the disk size in the VM properties I powered on the machine and received multiple errors:

An error was received from the ESX host while powering on VM <NAME>.

Failed to start the virtual machine.

Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/NUMBER/NAME.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

The system cannot find the file specified

VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk "/vmfs/volumes/NUMBER/NAME-000003.vmdk". Verify the path is valid and try again.

Module DiskEarly power on failed.

Cannot open the disk '/vmfs/volumes/NUMBER/NAME_4-000004.vmdk' or one of the snapshot disks it depends on.

The system cannot find the file specified

VMware ESX cannot find the virtual disk "/vmfs/volumes/NUMBER/NAME.vmdk". Verify the path is valid and try again.

I have attempted to follow the instructions to recreate the vmdk file, but have had no success. Is there any other option to get this machine back?

Hi, would like to check is it possible to have 2 backup products backing up via vSphere VADP using CBT?

A scenario will be backup product A performing full & incremental backup of VMs using VADP, and another product performing VM incremental replication.

Thanks.

HI everybody,

since 2 Weeks our 2 VDP have some problems with the service "Backup scheduler is not running".

This service stop suddenly and regularly. The backup-Job works without errors.

I tried to manually start the service, but this is only a workaround cause after some time, the service goes again down.

Do you have the same problems? How I can solve this issue?

Version of VDP: 6.1.5.13

Thx in advance, greetings Omar

Hi,

I'm trying to restore single files from VDP backup of linux machines (vSphere Data Protection Linux File Level Restore - VMware vSphere Blog).

Everything is at the most recent release. When I try to mount the backup in the flash client (https://VDP_APPLIANCE:8543/flr) I get this error:

Failed to get disks: Failed to determine the partition type. Verify that all the disks on the VM have valid/supported partitions 

I tried with nodes with various disk structures, but the error is always the same:

NAME   FSTYPE LABEL UUID                                 MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1 ext4         749c6053-e217-4446-a753-bcfdc426df8c /
├─sda2 swap         b82985f9-e84f-41f3-8a29-9424bc14d513 [SWAP]
└─sda3 ext4         c0d3298e-e1bc-4e67-beef-c18176965959 /tmp
sr0

NAME             FSTYPE      LABEL        UUID                                   MOUNTPOINT
sda
└─sda1           xfs                      8b6d50d8-cfb8-4020-bfe8-3be977eba7c9   /boot
sdb
└─sdb1           LVM2_member              DohVGH-Nz0v-6LQq-Kjn7-VDRJ-yGfh-9jv7LP  ├─vglocal-root xfs                      c5999e7e-4711-4fbb-a166-0fe81594233f   /  └─vglocal-swap swap                     10ad0584-2a34-4cce-9007-11dece9c1c84   [SWAP]
sr0

NAME            FSTYPE      LABEL UUID                                   MOUNTPOINT
fd0
sda
├─sda1          xfs               5e350928-01d7-43b9-b325-ecad28742610   /boot
└─sda2          LVM2_member       3jZTd6-ic0Z-u8vZ-s7Qq-ZRa5-kvBg-Kimgfq  ├─centos-root xfs               6c10a246-9514-4491-a7fd-a74861638507   /  └─centos-swap swap              fb55c267-2440-4b4d-9671-de8d295cf121   [SWAP]
sr0

VDP manual says that at least ext4 (first try) should be supported. By the way, is it possible that XFS (the default RedHat filesystem) is not supported at all?

Thank you very much!

Where to download VMware vSphere Data Protection 6.5 version?

Hello,

Every now and then he gets an email notification saying "The vSphere Data Protection alert is triggered. VDP6: VDP: [008] File level restore services are not running"

I can not find anything in the logs. He just writes that the mechanism of sending the above message has been triggered but in general all of the services work.

The problem is so much weird that messages come at random.

Once it is so that you get a daily message and once there is peace for a week.

Hi,

We are seeing troubles accessing VDR from the Web Client.  When go to the vSphere Data Protection plugin tab, and click [Connect] for our VDP instance, getting the following error:

     ERROR:

     The VDP appliance is not responding. Please try your request again.

     Would you like to be directed to the VDP configuration screen to troubleshoot the issue?

Reconfiguring VDP trough vdp-configure appears to connect properly to the vCenter -- [Test Connection] returns success. Does not fix the issue however.

Setup:

- Sphere 5.1.0

- VDP 5.1.1 0.5 TB appliance

Don't know if it is related, but in vdr-server.log we are seeing the below pattern repeating over and over. 

2013-08-28 13:54:50,476 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.ConnectionService: Retry after 5 seconds ...

2013-08-28 13:54:55,477 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.ConnectionService: Trying to establish connection with vCenter.

2013-08-28 13:54:55,477 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.VDRExternalServerAccessConfig: loading default values forcefully: true

2013-08-28 13:54:55,477 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.VDRExternalServerAccessConfig: Get mc access...

2013-08-28 13:54:55,487 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-service.AdapterUtils: MCS Web Services URL: https://vdp-02.vlab.local:9443/services/mcService  MCUserId="MCUser"  MCUserPswd="*****************************"

2013-08-28 13:54:56,655 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-service.ServiceInstance: ServiceInstanceMoref desc=Service Id: urn:uuid:123EEFAE88AFBCA74D1377712498579 name=urn:uuid:123EEFAE88AFBCA74D1377712498579 value=SERVICE

2013-08-28 13:54:56,816 WARN  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.VDRServer: VDRServer.Unable to find the vCenterClient in 10.45.99.12 domain which has VirtualMachines as sub domain

2013-08-28 13:54:56,816 ERROR [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.VDRServer: VDRServer.getVCenterClient cannot obtain VCenterClient

java.lang.NullPointerException: VCenterClient list is empty

    at com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer.getVCenterClient(VDRServer.java:441)

    at com.emc.vdr.server.VDRExternalServerAccessConfig.getFromAdapterDefault(VDRExternalServerAccessConfig.java:86)

    at com.emc.vdr.server.VDRExternalServerAccessConfig.getFromPropsDefault(VDRExternalServerAccessConfig.java:126)

    at com.emc.vdr.server.ConnectionService.run(ConnectionService.java:40)

    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

2013-08-28 13:54:56,816 ERROR [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.VDRExternalServerAccessConfig: Unable to fetch the vCenter credential from web service: null

2013-08-28 13:54:56,822 ERROR [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.ConnectionService: Unable to get the vi access: no protocol:

2013-08-28 13:54:56,822 INFO  [com.emc.vdr.server.VDRServer$1]-server.ConnectionService: Retry after 5 seconds ...

BTW, yes, did see the other discussion : VDP not usable after reboot   But this appears to be a different issue -- we did not attempt to change any port numbers or anything like that. 

Anyone else seeing this? 

Any thoughts on what might be wrong??

Cheers,

PeterB

Hi everyone

Now my VDP 5.5 can not start management service. I try starting many time and also try rolling back but it's still not come back to running stage.

Screenshot below show me everytime I try to start. When I press yes, management service be restored and then failed at last.

Do you have any idea ? This problem cause me to fail to open VDP on Vsphere web client. I have more than 40 VMs backup stuck on the VDP.

Help me please

Thanks in advance

Pannikin

I am guessing these are just some of the "quirks" of VDP 5.5.6.56 and being sorta free I am not expecting everything to run smoothly...but there are a couple of things I would like to see if they can be resolved. Below is a quick list of the issues encountered out of the gates...

1. Backup jobs scheduled times are not correctly reflected in the "next run time". Seems to get the date right but not the time. Edit again and refresh makes no difference. Jobs seem to start at the correct time but the GUI is displaying it incorrectly. VMware Tools is set to sync with the host for the VDP VMs, under configuration the correct date/time and timezone are shown and also checking the output from date command on the VDP box appears to be correctly set.

2. The backups of vCenter Servers running on Windows Server 2012 fail. However it says the last successful backup was OK in the reports in the bottom window frame after completing the backup job. I can restore the VM successfully, boots up no issues. Is this just a misrepresentation of the success/failure of the backup? Are there detailed logs on the VDP appliance?

I'm trying to understand if a snapshots of a windows 2008 R2 VM that's running inside an ESXi 5.1 with  just a scsi disk is application consistent or not.

Reading here it seems yes, it's app consistent but there's a couple of things that I do not understand.

What does it mean: Restore must be done using the backup application’s guest agent. https://communities.vmware.com/The vSphere APIs for Data Protection provide no host agent support for this.

If I restore the entire VM, is this consistent or not?

We have a schedule backup to backup VM server every day. But until last week it was no response while backup at 92%. Then the backup job could not complete.

Actually, there was similar error before, but I created new schedule backup. Then problem could be fixed.

Does it related to VM server’s size or any setting? The server contains 2.22TB HD.

Could you provide any experiment? Thank you again!

Hi, Everyone.

Hope you could help me with this issue. Here are the scenario that I have

Scenario: This is newly built vdp server, it doesn't have so much in it. Right now when I go to vsphere data protection->configuration, the status is stuck on Admin. I have tried performing dpnctl stop gsan & start gsan. It automatically switch back to degraded after few seconds. I have manually perform integrity check but the same issue arise.  I have posted below the disk usage on our VDP for reference.

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda2        32G  6.0G   24G  20% /

udev            1.9G  148K  1.9G   1% /dev

tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm

/dev/sda1       128M   37M   85M  31% /boot

/dev/sda7       1.5G  184M  1.2G  14% /var

/dev/sda9       138G  4.9G  126G   4% /space

/dev/sdb1       512G   52G  461G  11% /data01

/dev/sdc1       512G   51G  461G  10% /data02

/dev/sdd1       256G   51G  206G  20% /data03

If more information is needed, please let me know and I'll provide those information.

Hi all,

I have problems with SQL backup using VDP.

I install the backup agent on the SQL Database servers, one of which appears in VDP. Left does not appear? So I can only backup a database server.

Updated and tested patches, firewalls.

How to solve that problem?

Thank you very much.

VU

I am having an issue trying to do a file restore using VDP 6.1. This is a fresh install and haven't been able to successfully restore a file. I log into the file level restore web client from a VM that is being backed up. I can log in and mount the backups but after I choose a file/folder to restore the window with the Restore Destination is blank and can't choose anywhere to restore.

I have tried multiple things based on my research. I have tried two different VMs (both being backed up), Windows 2008 R2 and Windows 2012R2. I have also tried a variety of usernames using basic and advanced login. I have used the same vcenter username in the advanced login, and for the local credential I have used a variety of domain admins, domain users, local admin of host, and various logins from vsphere. I have tried a variety of browsers also, Google Chrome (most recent version), Mozilla Firefox (most recent version), and IE 11 with the url in the trusted sites.

I am not sure if this is a permission issue with the local credential or a flash compatibility issue. Any help will be greatly appreciated, been banging my head on this for multiple days.

Hey Guys,

I'm trying out the new VDP 6.0 to see if it can replace our existing backup solution and so far so good except for File Level Restores.

I manage to get the VM's backed up and I know that in order to do a "File Level Restore" or FLR, I have to connect to https://<IP_of_your_VDP_appliance>:8543/flr from the VM itself.  I would like to know if I can do a restore from another machine like my own workstation?  This would make it a little easier for me or the helpdesk guys to perform restores but I can't figure out how to do this. 

Anyone?

Nick