Hello,

I would like to know if it's possible to exclude files or folders when you snapshot a VM.

We want to try to save some space.

We work on Windows environment (2003, 2008 and R2) and vcenter 4.1, Vmware Backup Host and Netbackup 7.

JF,

Hi dudes,

I can't do the backup of virtual machine (VMWARE Vsphere Hypervisor 4.1) using "VMWARE Standalone Converter 4.3". I tried to move this to another VMWARE Vsphere Hypervisior 4.1.

When started the process, Standalone Converter failed in 1% and return the message:

FAILED: Unable to create a VSS snapshot of the source volume(s). Error code:
2147754774 (0x80042316).

I tried to repair the vmware standalone converter, reboot the VM, restart all the services manually, the destination VMWARE Vpshere has disk space necessary for the copy ....

i didn't found any answer in the internet.

I dont know what happend !!!! please help!

thanks!

Hi gurus,

we currently encounter problems with one of our Windows 2008 64bit machines (not R2!).

The server is backuped with VDR 1.2.0.1131. At the beginning the snapshot is taken - everthings fine so far. But after the snap completed and the backup is running, disk D inside the guest system becomes readonly!

This RO flag isn't remoed anymore, even after the backup completed and the server is not usable anymore. The following errors are displayed in the logs of the windows server:

System Log:

• The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.
• Application popup: Windows - Delayed Write Failed : Exception Processing Message 0xc000a082 Parameters 0x000007FEFD1A722C 0x000007FEFD1A722C 0x000007FEFD1A722C 0x000007FEFD1A722C
• {Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file D:\Notes\data\pid.nbf; the data has been lost.  This error may be caused if the device has been removed or the media is write-protected.

Application Log:

• Volume Shadow Copy Error: VSS waited more than 40 seconds for all voumes to be flushed.  This caused volume \\?\Volume{6e198479-c63d-11df-b53f-806e6f6e6963}\ to timeout while waiting for the release-writes phase of shadow copy creation.  Trying again when disk activity is lower may  solve this problem.
  
  Operation:
     Executing Asynchronous Operation
  
  Context:
     Current State: flush-and-hold writes
• Volume Shadow Copy Service error: The I/O writes cannot be held during the shadow copy creation period on volume D:\. The volume index in the shadow copy set is 0. Error details: Open[0x00000000], Flush[0x00000000], Release[0x00000000], OnRun[0x80042314].
  
  Operation:
     Executing Asynchronous Operation
  
  Context:
     Current State: DoSnapshotSet
• The VSS service is shutting down due to idle timeout.

Does anybody has seen this error before and can assist to fix this?

Thanks and best regards

Marco

HI,

I am really struggling to get my VDP plugin running in webclient 6.5 after the upgrade.

I Can se the VDP plugin 6.1 under Administration--> plugins, but not on the start page of the web client.

all the services on the VDP are running, I have tried to remove the extensions com.vmware.vdp and tried to re-register the VDp on vCenter bit it does not work. Anybody that can help me with this issue.? I am out of ideas... I am using Winows based vcnter.

We had a failure overnight, I don't know what caused it but all hosts (9 in total) went into a half failed state in that they weren't responding in vCenter but could be pinged. I couldn't restart the management agent from the console so was forced to restart them via iLO.

Once I got all hosts back up, we've been left with one single datastore showing as "Inaccessible" and nothing I seem to do will kick it back into life. I'm not overfly familiar with the logs but it appears to be timing out

VMKernal.log

cpu38:68195)LVM: 15061: Failed to open device naa.600c0ff0001e3c7457b0c45a01000000:1 : Timeout

The Datastore is located on an HP MSA 2040, other volumes from said SAN that are mounted on various ESX hosts elsewhere or Hyper-V Servers have remained up so I know the SAN itself is OK.

I've rebooted all hosts in the cluster (one by one) just to be sure they came up cleanly

The iSCSI targets for this volume all seem to show Active but I did try to remove the targets and re-add them successfully

I had a spare server that I've built from scratch that once I added the iSCSI targets displayed the Datastore in the same Inaccessible state

First thing first, here is the background information.

1. vSphere has been upgraded from 4.1 to 5.0 update 2 and the problem started. We use Symantec Netbackup 7.5 with NBD transport mode.

2. We have mixed storage of HDS (VMFS) and Netapp (NFS). So far the issue only exhibits on Netapp NFS datastores. Most of the VMs being backed up are running on netapp too. Don't know if it helps but it is better to have more information.

3. We have large amount of VMs (400+) being backed up nightly, most of them are incremental backup. Before backup start, Netbackup calls vCenter to create a snapshot. After backup completes, Netbackup again calls vCenter to remove snapshot.

The problem we have is sometimes random VMs would have delta files (vmname-000001.vmdk) left behind in the VM folder. It is not used by vmx file which means it is completed orphaned so I can remove it manually. And manual removal seems to be the only way to get rid off the orphaned delta files (I am still searching for a script to identify and remove such files. I am grateful If you can share). I tried create a new snapshot then delete all, I also tried "consolidate" option in snapshot manage. Neither of them helped.

The reason why I know it is happening on random VMs is we have a script to search through each datastore for delta files (trust me regular script to search snapshot doesn't work). And every day we have different affected VMs. And funny thing is normally the orphaned delta files are only 16MB or 17MB.

In the screenshot above, the delta file vmname-00002.vmdk is the orphaned file I am talking about. Looking at the vmx file, it is pointing to the base/flat file which is normal. Because the snapshot is considered as "deleted/cleaned". We know this by looking at the vCneter history.

I have created a ticket to VMware support but was told Symantec is needed because we or VMware supoport can't manually reproduce the issue in house. They believe something is wrong while netbackup calls the API. Symantec support is engaged too but they don't seem to have a clue either.

I am wondering if anyone knows where else to look.

I have recently setup a small new virtual environment.  One of the key features is a vDP backup appliance running on a host at physically separate location, with backups being performed over the network.  This allows for backups that are protected from disasters like fire.

I am trying to backup 3 VMs from one host to this backup appliance, using a single backup job.  Two of them are able to backup fine, but one VM is always erroring out with this error:

VDP: Backup job (Main Backup) failed to backup client Main Server.  Execution error: E10007:Miscellaneous Error.

I haven't been able to find much more of value, except poking around some text logs in the vDP appliance I saw some SSL communications errors in the nfcssl protocol.

I should also add that the VM in question is a Windows Server 2008 R2 standard guest OS.  I have set disk.EnableUUID to false, and I'm using vshadow.exe in a script file to prep the VSS for backup during the snapshot process.  However, one of the other VMs that is successfully backing up is the exact same server OS and configuration, and it is working fine.

Both hosts are Dell servers running ESXi 5.1.

Also, this VM is also the largest of the 3 VMs, with a 1 TB partition with about 100GB utilized.  At one point it had an RDM disk attached, but after reading that can cause problems I have detached it and still get the error.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Brant

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

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!

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

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!

Hi.  I am trying to find independent information/reviews regarding Symantec's Backup Exec 2010 Agent for VMware Virtual Infrastructures as compared to Veeam or VDR.

I'm currently doing PoC testing on Veeam, and so far things look great.  However, I will have to update my Backup Exec media server anyway to 2010 to perform granular Exchange, SQL, and AD restores. 

Trying to compare only image level restores (Veeam and Symantec 2010 Agent for Virtual...) :  From what I can tell, Symantec's new agent will give me basically the same capabilities as Veeam which would mean an easier implementation and a single interface to perform all backups and restores.

Since pricing for this agent will be almost identical to that of Veeam, I really have to rely on my understanding of the productions advantages and disadvantages.

Has anyone out there used both products or has come across information regarding Symantec's agent?

Thanks in advance.

Terry

I have some VMs that I take weekly snapshots of.  I only want to keep one snapshot at a time, so when it is time to take my new snapshot, I delete the previous one and then take a new one.  Is there any reason why I could not take snapshot #2, then after that is complete, delete snapshot #1?  I have searched and am unable to find any reason why I should not.

Thanks!

Hello VMware Community,

I have some issues with VMware Data Recovery (vDR) when trying to schedule backup tasks for big VMs.

If I start the task manually it runs flawless.

But when I schedule a task it stops at ~00:00 and throws the attached errors/messages.

ESX Version: 4.1
vDR Version: 1.2.0.1131
VM OS         : Win 2003 SRV x64 (~400GB VMDK)

Pls dont tell me that huge VMs like this are sensless in an iSCSI enviroment...

In order to solve this I'm thinking about scheduling the task via /etc/crontab, etc. "inside" the vDR appliance.

But its rough to get some Docu for it.

Anyone can help me?

Regards,
Tobias

Hi all,

Can we recover this lost (-flat.vmdk)?

In the datastore, I cannot do "ls" to the -flat.vmdk..it's says: "ls: ./[vm]-flat.vmdk: No such file or directory"

Unfortunately, those have not been backup yet.

I do search with google, but dont have any good solutions yet.

My questions:

1. Do this possible? recovering -flat vmdk that has been missing?

2. Any 3rd party software that can be able to do this?

Hello,

In about a month I will be running an IT project for a conference and to do so I will take with me my conference server which is a VM (Windows 2008 r2) usually running on a ESXi. To export it I did a V2V and put it on a laptop. Everything works fine. However by taking this off my ESXi I'm loosing the ability of snapshoting it. This VM will be run by VM Player.

Also, to lower the risks I bought to same laptop in case of crash of the first one. Now I would like to find a way to snapshot or backup my VM without having to turn it off or suspend it which is impossible for me during the time of the conference.

Does anyone of you has an idea on how I could do that?

Thanks for you help!

Superjojo74

Hi,

I'm fairly knew with VMware and VDR.  My VDR appliance version is 1.2.0.1131.  I'm backing up to a Windows Storage Server (2003, R2) which has two, 500GB partitions which are shared using the default sharing mechanism in Windows (CIFS).  In VDR I have two destinations which simply connect to the network shares (the two 500GB partitions on the storage server).

The performance of backups and recoveries is good.  However, full integrity checks not only take a long time (up to 24 hours) but cause the Storage Server to be so unresponsive that other tasks, such as data restores, have to wait until the integrity checks complete.

The storage server uses SATA drives and so I'm hoping that the simple answer to this is not to simply upgrade to faster performing disk technology.

Researching similar issues, it seems that I have a few options to try.

1.  Change the IrpStackSize value size on the storage server.  http://communities.vmware.com/thread/213924?start=0&tstart=0

2.  Tweak the datarecovery.ini file.  http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSeriesId=420496&prodTypeId=18964&objectID=c01918186

3.  Use NFS instead of CIFS.  http://communities.vmware.com/message/1769144#1769144

4.  Upgrade the VDR appliance version?

Again, since I am fairly knew at this I would appreciate some further guidance and expert advice.

Thanks for your time

I have a custom quiesce script in my linux virtual machine.

The scripts are  /usr/sbin/pre-freeze-script and /usr/sbin/post-thaw-script.

The pre-freeze-script quiesces the DB and touches a file ( say /etc/vm.bkp) and the post-thaw-script frees the DB quiesce and removes the file.

The logic being that if the file /etc/vm.bkp is present then this indicates that the machine has been restored from vDR backup.

The issue I face here is that I can see that the files are being created and deleted , but when I restore the backup from vDR the files are missing.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Update:

----------------

The issue is resolved now but have more question.

I had to add a sleep to ensure that the file gets created in the snapshot.

When I call touch in pre-freeze-script, and did not remove it in post thaw-script, the file was not found in the snapshot

But a sleep of 30 seconds ensured that the file was created and present in the snapshot.

Any idea why a sleep would be necessary in pre freeze script when ideally it should have just worked?

Update 2:

----------

Found an answer, apparently linux buffers io so as to avoid repeated disk access. Since we are creating a snapshot, the delay in write causes the files to be missed in the snapshot. Calling "sync" command forced the kernel to write the buffered io to disk and I was able to get the file to be created before the disk snapshot was taken.

Hi everybody,

i couldnt help myself starting this conversation.

i was very suprised for VDR being shutdown.

i knew VDR would be updated, but was not expectng so soon, since the latest 2.01 was released not so long ago.

i found out VDP was out when updating to vsphere 5.1 and there was no VDR plugin to vcenter.

Anyway i am really dissapointed in VDP, to say the least!

First it depends on SSO and the vmware web client. i couldnt believe: i had to use the slowest gui i have ever used, (not as slow as backup exec 2012 thought!) so much more complicated.

second, you cannot choose the partitions to backup! This is unbelievable! the use i gave VDR was to backup the boot partitions of windows vms!

the other partitions usually have data, that are daily backed up to tape.

so at this time with VDP i have to backup a vm with 700GB in disks, when with vdr i only backup up C: partition with 50GB! hilarious

third, i am obliged to choose between aplliances, that cannot be expanded. In VDR you could mount a partition with any size, anytime!

now i must choose the 2TB VPD appliance because i didnt want to risk not having enough storage in the future, and didnt want to bother having to install more VDP appliances ( they come configured with 4 CPU!)

fourth, it is way harder, not to say impossible, dont know for sure, to reuse a damaged VDP disks, to recover all previous backups.

in VDR all you need was to keep the data partition intact, run a new vdr appliance, mount the data partition from the previous VDR, check integrity and ready to go! VDR lets you use a external disk to store in a safe, using it like tapes!

fifth, minor issue: when backing up, VDP inserts VM costume field "com.vmware.vdr.is-protected" as true

for these reasons, i am forced to use backup exec, without the miracle of deduplication to backup only boot partitions.

i hope vmware solves these major issues very soon, dedup is precious, and VDR was just right.

thanks

when I try to login everytime,I got the error:"can not locate the VM".First,I thought my login acount was not correct,but I tried every kinds of acounts,such as administrator,admin@System-Domain,System-Domain\admin,but I can not yet,Is there a bug with th version of data protection?(but I get the newest version).Is there anyone who encounting this problem?