NetVault Plug-in for VMware 12.3.3

Known issues

The following is a list of issues, including those issues attributed to third-party products, known to exist at the time of release.

Table 3. General known issues
Known issue	Issue ID
When restoring data to an alternate datastore, the plug-in does not verify whether the datastore is available. Verify that the datastore is valid and has sufficient disk space to accommodate the virtual machine.	DNVMWARE-18 (1714)
The configuration setting [Custom:MountOperationTimeoutSecs], which is stored in the vmware.cfg file, determines how long the plug-in process waits for the mount daemon to respond to a request. The default value is set to 600 seconds during a fresh install and 300 seconds during an upgrade. If the mount daemon is unable to complete a request within the specified interval, the virtual machine is left in a mounted state. If you have many backups running simultaneously or your server is running under heavy load, modify the value for the [Custom:MountOperationTimeoutSecs] setting to avoid this issue.	DNVMWARE-505 (3131)
Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) does not support non-UTF8 locales. On Linux-based clients that use non-UTF8 locales, the plug-in reports the error “Child Process died unexpectedly” and exits abnormally.	DNVMWARE-584 (3340)
You cannot back up virtual machine templates using the Plug‑in for VMware. Workaround: Convert the template to a virtual machine.	DNVMWARE-713 (13728, VMW-202)
The file-level indexing process does not generate indexes for symlinks.	DNVMWARE-977 (21793)
The file-level indexing process does not treat hard links in any special way and generates index entries for them as if they are separate entities. When you restore a saveset that includes a hard link, the plug-in stops responding.	DNVMWARE-978 (21794)
When restoring NTFS sparse files, if the actual allocated size of a data run is smaller than the total size of the data run, the restored file might be corrupted.	DNVMWARE-1456 (29043)
Backups that have Active Block Mapping (ABM) enabled might stop working when memory is exceeded.	DNVMWARE-1584
The plug-in is unable to restore a virtual machine protected by VMware vSphere Fault Tolerance (vSphere FT) to an alternate VMware vCenter Server.	DNVMWARE-1691 (32398)
Backing up a virtual machine succeeds if the Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) fails to open and the Exclude data disks option is selected.	DNVMWARE-1696
If the inventory view is toggled, the selection set is grayed out on the Edit Set and Clone Set operations.	DNVMWARE-1900
ATTENTION: Aborting a restore to the original location deletes the original virtual machine. This issue may result in data loss. Workaround: Before you begin a restore to the original location, clone the original virtual machine.	DNVMWARE-1906
Plug‑in for VMware does not work on CentOS 6.x and RHEL 6.x, because those operating systems do not include glibc-2.14. Workarounds: Upgrade NetVault Backup Client server to CentOS 7.x or RHEL 7.x, or Downgrade the plug-in to Plug‑in for VMware 12.3.0.	NV-1086

Table 4. Third-party known issues

Known issue

Issue ID

When backing up a powered on virtual machine through a VMware vCenter Server, the plug-in may fail to back up the “.nvram”, “.vmx”, and “.log” files. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1019286.

When a snapshot is created on a virtual machine that uses thin-provisioned disks, VMware vSphere (the client and the underlying disk library) identifies the disk as thick. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1020137.

At the time of enabling CBT for a virtual machine, no snapshots must exist on it. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1033816.

If an ESXi 5.x host is managed by a vCenter Server, the virtual machines should not be restored when connected directly to the ESXi host. This restriction is due to a feature introduced in vSphere 5. For more information, see http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vddk/VDDK-500-ReleaseNotes.html#knownissues.

To prevent the migration of a virtual machine while its disks are being accessed for a backup or restore, the plug-in uses VDDK APIs to lock and unlock a virtual machine. This functionality is disabled by default. To enable it, see the user's guide for the plug-in. Currently, the locking functionality has the following known issues:

•

Locking a virtual machine may not always succeed even though API indicates success. This issue is under review with VMware. You can usually ignore this failure.

•

Unlocking is known to fail occasionally. This issue has been documented in the VDDK 5 release notes. For details, review the “EndAccess sometimes does not reenable migration after PrepareForAccess” section in the VDDK 5.0 Release Notes.

•

If the plug-in exits unexpectedly after locking a virtual machine, the virtual machine may be left in a locked state so that it is disabled for migration.

For information about removing the lock and enabling migration for the virtual machine, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2008957.

On a Windows 2012 virtual machine, data corruption may occur during or after a network copy operation. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2058692.

System requirements

Before installing Plug‑in for VMware, ensure that your system meets the requirements outlined in the following table and in the Quest NetVault Backup Compatibility Guide available at https://support.quest.com/technical-documents.

Table 5. System requirements

Requirement

Details

Operating systems

For a list of supported OS distributions and versions, see the VDDK 6.7 Release Notes.

NetVault Backup versions

The Plug‑in for VMware 12.3.3 requires NetVault Backup 12.1 or later.

NOTE: Be aware of the following:

•

If you used the Distributed Jobs feature with an earlier version of the plug-in — the feature was added starting with version 12.0 — you must upgrade your NetVault Backup Server and Client software to 12.3.3 as well as updating the plug-in to take advantage of the enhancements.

•

Existing backup jobs that were created using version 12.0 through 12.3 of the plug-in and used the Distributed Jobs feature continue to function the same way in which they were created.

For complete supported-platform information, see the Quest NetVault Backup Compatibility Guide available at https://support.quest.com/technical-documents.

Packages

On a Windows operating system, the Plug‑in for VMware 12.3.3 requires Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 or later.

Using the plug-in without this package results in a “Failed to get connection to plugin” error.


	NOTE: To use the Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) with OEM ESXi, you require VMware ESXi Foundation, Standard, or Enterprise license. This license can be obtained from OEM or VMware directly.

Upgrade and compatibility

Plug‑in for VMware 12.3.3 requires NetVault Backup 12.1 or later. For complete supported-platform information, see the Quest NetVault Backup Compatibility Guide.

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Cannot browse mounted virtual machines after upgrading NetVault Backup: After installing the plug‑in, if you upgrade the NetVault Backup software, you must reinstall the plug-in on that machine. Otherwise, you cannot open the Drives node of a mounted virtual machine for any new file‑level backups.

•

Restart the NetVault Backup Service if “nvvmwmount.exe” was running during upgrade: If the mount process “nvvmwmount.exe” was running during an upgrade from 2.x, restart the NetVault Backup Service on the client.