Hi,

I am (still) setting up my first VMware site and i am up to the point of getting backups going.

A bit of background:   I have 3 physical servers that connect to an iSCSI SAN.  All VMs are stored on the SAN and everything seems to be running fine.

I also have a Dell TL2000 tape library with an iSCSI card.  I have a configured it into my VMware servers and they can see it OK.

At this point i was a little unsure what i should be doing so if i have gone the wrong path please tell me.

I then went into vCenter, selected the VM that will be running my backups and edited it's settings.  I then selected to Add hardware, selected SCSI Device, and selected Tape IBM (The options where Tape IBM, CD/DVD TEAC and Unknown DP).

When i start the VM (Windows 2008R2) i can now see the tape drive as a device.

I then installed Backup Exec expecting it to detect it as a robotic library but it doesn't.

I can't seem to find any tech docs from Dell about setting the library up so i am a little stumped as to where to go from here.

Anyone have a solution or a step-by-step that i can follow?

Thanks to everyone.

Ian

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

My company is running VmWare Vsphere center server 5.0.0.  Just about everyday we get an alert that the backups failed.  I am new to Vmware and I am not sure why this is happening.  I have included one of the alerts below so that hopefully someone can help me figure this out.  Please excuse me if I leave something out as I have explained I am new to Vmware.  If anyone needs more info please let me know.

Backup has failed. Please check the log for additional information.

1    Information    1/13/2013 7:30:03 PM    Task 'Back up 'mokautil'' changed its state from 'idle' to 'running'.

2    Information    1/13/2013 7:30:03 PM    Task 'Back up 'mokautil'' was started.

3    Information    1/13/2013 7:30:13 PM    Backing up a group of VMs.

4    Information    1/13/2013 7:30:19 PM    Task 'Back up 'mokautil'' changed its state from 'running' to 'idle'.

5    Error    1/13/2013 7:30:19 PM    Task 'Back up 'mokautil'' failed: 'Failed to create a backup.

Additional info:

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

Error code: 3

Module: 435

LineInfo: 555b5abba09500ab

Fields:  $module : C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\vmProtect\Windows Agent\vmms.exe

Message: Failed to create a backup.

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

Error code: 32786

Module: 114

LineInfo: 28314c961de7d3b2

Fields:

Message: Failed to prepare for backing up.

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

Error code: 32768

Module: 114

LineInfo: 28314c961de7d32c

Fields:

Message: Instances list is empty.

--------------------'.

Hi,

For few days VDP has not been able to complete integrity check launched from

web client so I tried running it manually:

1. Stop all VDP services (dpnctl stop)

2. Unmount the mount point (umount /data0X)

3. Run xfs_check (xfs_check /dev/sdxy)

4. Mount data0X (mount -a)

5. start services (dpnctl start all)

6. stop maintenance services (dpnctl stop maint)

7. create checkpoint (avmaint checkpoint --ava)

8. Run full hfscheck (avmaint hfscheck --full --ava)

8b. check hfscheck (avmaint hfscheckstatus --ava)

9. Start maint (dpnctl start maint)

Ref: https://communities.vmware.com/message/2271165

But every time I end up with error:

Last hfscheck failed with result MSG_ERR_HFSCHECKERRORS : started Tue Jan 14 16:02:19 2014 ended Tue Jan 14 20:42:22 2014, nodes queried/replied/total(1/1/1)

VDP version is 5.5.5.180

Any ideas what to try next?

Clean install is also possible, but I'd like to know the root cause for this and avoid it in the future.

Thanks!

After I installed the vDP, I see the following picture in https://vdp-host:8543/vdp-configure/

Is there a way to find the reason: what exactly failed?

Hello,

I have a problem with some guest on an esxi 5 host.

When I try to backup these VMs via the vadp (tsm for ve) I get the following error on the esx:

The guest OS has reported an error during quiescing. The error code was: 5 The error message was: 'VssSyncStart' operation failed: IDispatch error #8454 (0x80042306)

I searched for a problem on the guests but could not find a solution.

So I tried to take a manual Snapshot via the vShpere client.

I noticed, that I was able to take a snapshot of these VMs with the memory flag = 1 and the quiesce flag = 1.

The problem only occurs when I try to take a snapshot with memory flag = 0 (quiesce works with both, 1 and 0).

Can anyone help me with that problem?

Hi guys,

I was wondering , if or how I can change the VDP Backup User on my VDP Appliance. Is there a way to change the user after the installation is completed?

Or do I have to reinstall VDP to get it done properly?

thx for any advise

Flo

Hi,

Couple of questions and need some advice please.

Network Plan

Host 1 - 2 x 3Ghz Qurd Core CPUs with 16GB Ram, 2 x 1TB Raid 1

VM - Windows 2012 Standard - PDC, Exchange, DNS, DHCP

VM - Windows 2008 R2 - Running Phone System

Host 1 - 2 x 1.8Ghz Qurd Core CPUs with 16GB Ram, 2 x 1TB Raid 1

VM - Windows 2012 Standard - ADC, File Server, DNS

I am hoping that vmware essentials will allow to me use Veeam FREE Backup Software. to take backups manually on the above to host servers.

I will be setting up Windows Backups (Bare Metal Backups) to network storage on a daily bases and want to use Veeam to take VM Backups manually when required, I know ideally i would purchase the paid version of Veeam and to automatic backups but trying to keep costs down at the moment and Veeam seems expensive as i would need to purchase 4 licences for each host / CPU

Hi,

There has already been some discussions about monitoring Failed backups in VDP, but I couldn't find any appropriate solution. I've checked Alarms Definitions in the vCenter and there is no defined alarm for the Failed backup event among the nine "VDP: [xxx]" alarms. Is there really no automation available for VDP to notify user of a failed backup?

The only thing that seems to work for now is the e-mail Summary Report where you can see the number of Failed backups ... however, this is only a passive monitoring (should the backup operator read this report every single day and make sure there is no failed backup? )... I would like to be alerted somehow when a backup for a particular VM fails.

@VMware: are there any plans to integrate Failed backups monitoring into the vCenter alarms?

@anybody: Has anybody found some other workaround? Maybe by parsing avamarclient logs by Nagios or by parsing the Summary Report e-mail by Nagios?

I'm having trouble with my 1TB vdp appliance, the appliance configure status webpage is showing all services are running but when I login to the appliance and run the command  dpnctl status is shows gsan as degraded.

• I can't get backups to execute manually and they didn't run to schedule overnight.
• The appliance is showing disk usage around 36% but no backups are listed in the restore tab in vSphere web client.
• A manual integrity check completed successfully yesterday

I tried stopping/starting the gsan using dpnctl stop gsan, dpnctl start gsan but it returned to degraded fairly soon afterwards

I tried changing hte backup window so its not in maintenance mode to see if that would let me execute manual vm backups but that didn't work

I've also increased the RAM on the appliance from the default 4GB to 6GB

Can anyone tell me if gsan degraded is user fixable or if not will the appliance correct it itself and if so how long (minutes, a few hours, 0.5 days, more)

There are two ways of changing the IP address of a VDP appliance:

1- via vdp-configure web app

2- via VM console (the blue TUI inteface)

The correct one is the 1- option. If you will do it via 2- (like I did ) you'll end up with broken VDP. This method only changes settings on the network interface while it doesn't change avamar settings ... To fix it you'll have to manually edit IP address in the following files:

/etc/hosts

/etc/sysconfig/network/x-ifcfg-eth0.dpnnetutilbgaux_save

/etc/sysconfig/network/x-ifcfg-eth0.dpnnetutilbgaux_orig

/etc/x-hosts.dpnnetutilbgaux_orig

/space/avamar/var/dpnnetutil.xml

/space/avamar/var/probe.xml

After this reboot the appliance and it should be back to normal.

Anyway, this SHOULD be written in "VDP Administration Guide" and/or noticed in some KB ... or even better ... after VDP is initially configured, changing IP address via VDP console (the blue TUI inteface) should be disabled ... hopefully VMware will fix this someday.

Hey All,

Experiencing an issue where my jobs for VMs running on local disk are failing due to what appears to be a timeout on the take snapshot action. So at first I thought it was a timing issue, so I looked at that. It takes about 1 minute for quiesed snapshots to actually happen.

I found the other articles that mention you should change the --subprocesstimeout=600 parameter to the /usr/local/avamarclient/var/avvcbimageAll.cmd file, so I did that with no luck. I also tried increasing the snapshot removal time, with no luck.

Still, after applying this and rebooting the appliance no dice, even though the snapshot is completing before the VDP task, it's still failing.

VMware KB: vSphere Data Protection backup jobs fail intermittently

I had another VM work just fine that was on a local SSD, but any disks that are otherwise located on slow local magnetic disk fail.

Looking at the logs, it would appear the most interesting entry is bolded and underlined below, which leads me to the following article, which says, your storage sucks, figure out why your snapshots are taking so long. Anyone have an idea how to increase the timeout when snapshots are being "TAKEN" as opposed to being removed? Next up will try removing queising from the config.

VMware KB: Backing up vCenter Server with vSphere Data Protection (VDP) fails with error: Soap fault due to Connecti…

2015-01-23T11:42:45.635+04:00 avvcbimage Info <19704>: DataStore Storage Info:ESX4_Local_ESXi_Installable capacity=1995012308992  free=1682109890560

2015-01-23T11:42:45.635+04:00 avvcbimage Info <19716>: DS Capacity=1995012308992  FreeSpace=1682109890560  / HD committed=57196542066    unCommitted=29917971642    unShared=57196542066

2015-01-23T11:42:46.584+04:00 avvcbimage Info <16001>: Found 2 disk(s), 0 snapshots, and 0 snapshot files, on the VMs datastore.

2015-01-23T11:42:46.584+04:00 avvcbimage Info <0000>: isExitOK()=0

2015-01-23T11:42:46.599+04:00 avvcbimage Info <19680>: vmAction runBackupScript: ()

2015-01-23T11:42:46.599+04:00 avvcbimage Info <19681>: vmAction runBackupScript: script is skipped because it is null

2015-01-23T11:42:46.600+04:00 avvcbimage Info <0000>: [IMG0009] Pre-snapshot script:  completed successfully

2015-01-23T11:42:46.600+04:00 avvcbimage Info <9692>: a VM snapshot has been requested

2015-01-23T11:42:46.600+04:00 avvcbimage Info <14627>: Creating snapshot 'VDP-1422031366f2a36877d42af6c1a25a994c67b393fa02286299', quieceFS=1

2015-01-23T11:42:46.635+04:00 avvcbimage Info <14631>: Snapshot 'VDP-1422031366f2a36877d42af6c1a25a994c67b393fa02286299' creation for VM '[ESX4_Local_ESXi_Installable] <VMNAME>/<VMNAME>.vmx' task still in progress, sleep for 2 sec

2015-01-23T11:42:48.662+04:00 avvcbimage Info <14631>: Snapshot 'VDP-1422031366f2a36877d42af6c1a25a994c67b393fa02286299' creation for VM '[ESX4_Local_ESXi_Installable] <VMNAME>/<VMNAME>.vmx' task still in progress, sleep for 2 sec

2015-01-23T11:42:50.689+04:00 avvcbimage Info <14631>: Snapshot 'VDP-1422031366f2a36877d42af6c1a25a994c67b393fa02286299' creation for VM '[ESX4_Local_ESXi_Installable] <VMNAME>/<VMNAME>.vmx' task still in progress, sleep for 2 sec

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Warning <16004>: Soap fault detected, Query problem, Msg:'SOAP 1.1 fault: SOAP-ENV:Client [no subcode]

"Name or service not known"

Detail: getaddrinfo failed in tcp_connect()

'

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Error <17773>: Snapshot 'VDP-1422031366f2a36877d42af6c1a25a994c67b393fa02286299' creation for VM '[ESX4_Local_ESXi_Installable] <VMNAME>/<VMNAME>.vmx' task failed to start

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <19680>: vmAction runBackupScript: ()

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <19681>: vmAction runBackupScript: script is skipped because it is null

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <0000>: [IMG0009] Post-snapshot script:  completed successfully

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage FATAL <0000>: [IMG0003] The VMX '[ESX4_Local_ESXi_Installable] <VMNAME>/<VMNAME>.vmx' could not be snapshot.

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <9772>: Starting graceful (staged) termination, Create Snapshot failure. (wrap-up stage)

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Error <0000>: [IMG0009] createSnapshot: snapshot creation  or pre/post snapshot script failed

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Error <0000>: [IMG0009] createSnapshot: snapshot creation/pre-script/post-script failed

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <0000>: isExitOK()=202

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <40370>: snapshot created:false NOMC:false ChangeBlTrackingAvail:true UsingChBl:true, ExitOK:false, cancelled:false, fatal: true

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <0000>: vcbimage_progress::terminate

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <16041>: VDDK:VixDiskLib: VixDiskLib_EndAccess: Disk access completed.

Basically the article says, your storage sucks, deal with it and get better storage.

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <16041>: VDDK:VixDiskLib: VixDiskLib_Connect: Establish connection.

2015-01-23T11:43:12.796+04:00 avvcbimage Info <16041>: VDDK:VixDiskLibVim: VixDiskLibVim_AllowVMotion: Enable VMotion.

2015-01-23T11:43:12.798+04:00 avvcbimage Info <16038>: Final summary, cancelled/aborted 0, snapview 0, exitcode 202: plugin error 02

2015-01-23T11:43:14.907+04:00 avvcbimage Info <17819>: VixDiskLib vMotion reservation successfully released

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

----- END avvcbimage log 2015-01-23 11:43:17 EST  (1 warning, 4 errors, 1 fatal error)

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

I expanded the space on the VDP 6 appliance from 2TB to 4TB by expanding the files (from 3 to 6).  But it is still showing over 80% full and growing after several days.  It should be around 40% now.  How can I force it to rebalance the backups between the new files or at least to acknowledge that it can use the new space?  It does say the capacity is 4.1TB, but it says the deduplicated size is 3.3TB which is totally bogus.

According to status.dpn, the garbage collection just ran.  It took nearly 2 hours and "recovered 12.09 GB".  So garbage collection didn't rebalance the files.

hfscheck ran yesterday successfully, so that didn't rebalance.

It has been thru a half dozen 12 hour maintenance windows. no luck.

All services are running, the only alarm is the VDP: [002] The VDP appliance is nearly full.

So how to I get it to rebalance?

Dear Community

I am trying to install the VMware VDP for SQL Server agent, however the installation fails before it actually starts with the following error

Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo.dll version does not match the latest SQL Server installation found on the system. Please update your SQL SMO DLL before running this installer again.

Required version: 10.x.x.x

The server has SQL Server Express 2008 R2 installed.

I have searched through the entire server and I have found the following versions of that particular DLL

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\110\SDK\Assemblies: v11.0.2100.60

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\SDK\Assemblies: v11.0.2100.60

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\SDK\Assemblies: v10.0.1600.22

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\SDK\Assemblies: v1.050.2500.0

As far as I know, only one version of SQL has been installed and it came with my Solarwinds Orion installation.

Some help is greatly appreciated.

Hi everybody!

I need some help on VDP appliance 6 and client for Exchange.

I've installed VDP for Exchange Server Client on an Exchange 2010 SP3 server and registered it using avregister.bat specifying dns name for VDP Appliance; the registration process ended successfully as per avagent.log

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <7502>: Registration of client /clients/SERVERDNSNAME with MCS VDPDNSNAME:28001 successful.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <8422>: Creating clientlogs directory 'C:\Program Files\avp\var\clientlogs'

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <5928>: Registration of plugin 3023 update successful.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <5928>: Registration of plugin 3001 Windows successful.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <5928>: Registration of plugin 3018 Exchange VSS Writer 2007 successful.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <5928>: Registration of plugin 3027 Exchange GLR successful.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <5928>: Registration of plugin 3015 VSS successful.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <5619>: Registration of client and plugins complete.

2015-10-20 09:17:37 avagent Info <7189>: first work request delayed for 180 seconds.

2015-10-20 09:20:37 avagent Info <7190>: first work request delay finished.

Everything looks ok but when I try to create a new backup job from VSphere web client I receive a msgbox stating "There are no registered Microsoft Exchange Server available".

I have to say that VDP Appliance backup user is in a different Active Directory forest than Exchange server and VMwareVDPBackupUser.

I'll appreciate any type of help

Hi

I've been having trouble with the VDP Appliance in Version 6.1. Its a fresh install, running on a Windows vCenter 6.0.0 Build 3018524 and using a Buffalo TeraStation NAS as backup destination.

The problem starts when I try any kind of backup job. Before that everything works as intended. Creating jobs, managing the appliance etc. Once I start a backup job the appliance kind of freezes. In the web client it wont load any data

Sometimes in runs into the error that the time snyc. isnt working properly. Although I have checked vCenter Server, the hosts and the appliance. They're all configured with the proper ntp server and syncing properly. The VDP appliance is also showing the correct time. Restartet the tools services aswell.

At some point the Web Client looses the connection to the appliance.

Connecting over SSH to the appliance sometimes runs into timeouts aswell. Restarting the VDP appliance takes about 20-30 minutes.

UPDATE:

After literally a hour I was able to connect back into the appliance within the the web client. My test backup job started gradually counting up to 38% (Its 20GB small and really shouldnt take a hour to backup). After a few minutes it disconnected again.. the task stopping at 38%.

One thing to note: The VDPs virtual install disk is running on the same datastore as where its backing up to. Could this be the problem im having? I cant really any other problems within the config.

David

Hi Guys,

We are currently running an Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Fail-Over Cluster build on 2 VM's running on vSphere 5.0.

Because the cluster volume disk is connected by iSCSI we are not able to back-up this disk with our default tooling: Veeam B&R.

Currently we are protecting this volume on SAN level by Remote Snapshots. Actually i am looking for a user friendly way to protect and recover data from this cluster volume disk.

I am just curious about how and with which tooling you guys should back-up this cluster volume disk.

Cheers!

Hi,

I've got this alarm "VDP: [004] The VDP appliance datastore is approaching maximum capacity" because the datastore where i have the VDP virtual disks is almost with the exact size of the virtual disks.

I've disabled the alarm, but everytime i reboot the VDP appliance the alarm recreated and enabled.

Is there any way to make VDP not recreate this alarm definition?

We have deployed the OVA file and started the box. THe boxes gives a IP and advises us to connect to: https://<IP address>:8543/vdp-configure

All we get is a display page:

This web page is not available

Going to the IP without the port on the end displays:

Service unavailable!

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.

Error 503

Have tried redeploying the VM to see if anything happens and have also turned off our proxy settings.

any ideas?

I have deployed a second VDP appliance v6.1 in a DR site and want to use it as a replication target. I have noticed that the appliance is not pushing hard and is not sending a lot of data through the link. The replication is happening on the weekend when no one is using the link between the sites and we have 1Gb connection between the two sites. I reached out to our network guy and i asked him to monitor the traffic between the two appliances, He told me that we have enough bandwidth, but looks like the appliance is not pushing hard enough or the appliance is not sending a lot of data through the link. He mentioned something like 1Mb/s as a transfer rate. The replication job starts then stuck on 92% in the source site and 98% in the distention site and the replication task fails if it took it more than 24 hours.

Any one had the same issue? Is there a limitation set on the appliance or a configuration file that we can modify to make it send more data than 1Mb/s ?