Introducing NetVault Backup Plug-in for VMware
Installing the plug-in
About plug-in editions
Deployment overview
Prerequisites
Installing the plug-in
Removing the plug-in
Configuring the plug-in
Adding a server
Reconfiguring a server
Removing a server
Supported transport modes
Configuring default settings
Enabling or disabling CBT on virtual machines
Defining a backup strategy
About CBT
Enabling CBT on individual virtual machines
Disabling CBT on a virtual machine
Manually disabling CBT on a virtual machine
Enabling or disabling quiescing of virtual machines
About quiescing virtual machines
Enabling quiescing of virtual machines
Disabling quiescing of virtual machines
Removing backup preferences for a virtual machine
Unlocking a virtual machine
About backup methods and types
Data backed up and restored for different disk types
Backup and recovery strategy
Using the image-level backup method
Performing image-level backups
Restarting a backup job
Resetting CBT on a virtual machine
Monitoring job progress
Using the file-level backup method
Restoring image-level backups
About restoring image-level backups
Restoring a full virtual machine or individual virtual drives
Relocating a virtual machine to an alternate ESXi Server
Restoring a virtual machine to an alternate vCenter Server
Renaming a virtual machine during restore
Performing file-level restores from image-level backups
Restoring virtual machine disk and configuration files
Searching for files in savesets
Viewing media list
Restoring file-level backups
About restoring file-level backups
Restoring file-level backups using shared network drives
Restoring file-level backups using the native Plug-in for FileSystem
Searching for files in savesets
Viewing media list
Troubleshooting
Common errors
NetVault Backup Service fails to start on Windows
NetVault Backup Service fails to start after the machine is restarted
NetVault Backup Service starts, but stops immediately on Linux
Linux Hybrid version of the plug-in does not run on 64-bit OS
Crash occurs during a backup
CBT-based image-level backup fails
SAN transport reports errors when multiple backups access the same datastore
Default SCSI controller type on RHEL 7 and RHEL 6
File-level backups do not back up data for a reparse point
Restore job fails when using SAN transport
Restore job fails to add a virtual machine to the server inventory
Backup jobs of virtual machines protected by vSphere FT fail intermittently
Diagnosing virtual machine issues
SOAP messages
Generating VDDK logs
Third-party contributions
Removing the snapshot and mount folder manually
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The plug-in creates a snapshot named “BKB_SNAP” on the virtual machine. |
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If the Working Directory contains the mount folder for the virtual machine, remove it. |
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If you were using an advanced transport mode, such as san or hotadd, navigate to the <system_drive>/windows/temp/vmware-system directory. |
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Here <VM_UUID> is the UUID of the mounted virtual machine and VM_moref is an internal reference that the ESXi or vCenter Server uses to see the virtual machine. To delete this folder, you may be required to set necessary permissions for the folder.
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If you were using the hotadd transport mode, remove any disks of the target virtual machine — the virtual machine mounted for a backup — that were hotadded to the NetVault Backup Client Virtual Machine — the virtual machine where the Plug‑in for VMware is running. |
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Go to the Snapshot Manager in vSphere Client, and remove the snapshot named BKB_SNAP, if it still exists. |
If the virtual machine is turned on, an error message — “Unable to access file <unspecified filename> since it is locked” — might display when you try to delete the snapshot, but the snapshot may thereafter disappear from the Snapshot Manager window. If a “Consolidate Helper-0” snapshot is displayed after you remove the snapshot, turn off the virtual machine.
After removing the snapshot BKB_SNAP, VMware recommends that you create and delete a snapshot. You can create and delete snapshots from the Snapshot Manager window in vSphere Client. The server tries to consolidate the redo logs during this operation, and therefore, it may take a few minutes to complete. Delete the Consolidate Helper snapshot, if it exists.
Restoring image-level backups
About restoring image-level backups
The image-level backups can be used to perform the following types of restores:
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Recover a full virtual machine or specific virtual drives: You can use image-level backups to recover a full virtual machine to a previous known state or to restore one or more virtual drives for a virtual machine. This method is useful when there is data loss due to hardware failure, data corruption, or accidental deletion of virtual machine disk files. The virtual machine can be restored to the same or an alternate VMware ESXi Server Host or VMware vCenter Server. |
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Restore individual files and directories: You can use image-level backups to restore individual files and folders. This method is useful when there is data loss due to user errors, data corruption, or accidental deletion of files. The individual files and directories can be restored to a specified directory on the NetVault Backup Client. |
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NOTE: To use an image-level backup for file-level restores, you must select the Perform File Level Indexing check box during backup. |
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Windows: NTFS |
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Linux and UNIX: EXT2, EXT3, EXT4 |
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Restore virtual machine disk and configuration files: You can use the image-level backups to restore the virtual machine disk and configuration files to a specified directory on the NetVault Backup Client. With these restored files, you can then recover a virtual machine with the same or modified settings using Virtual Infrastructure Client or any other utility that lets you create a virtual machine using existing .vmdk files. |