vCenter 4.0 (vSphere) backup error : ‘failed to open virtual disk (80528)

Date – 08-06-2011
Affected Product: Netvault Backup
OS Version – ALL
Plugin version:Vmware Plugin 2.x
Application version:ESX 3.0 + ; vCenter (vSphere ) 4.x
Versions: Netvault 8.5+

Description: vCenter 4.0 (vSphere) backup error : ‘failed to open virtual disk’.


Symptoms:
Backup of a vm image fails with:
Error 2011/06/01 09:49:52 530 Data Plugin SVR-MET-BACKUP1 Failed to open virtual disk
Module/Thread Id Code Time Message

VDDK :06264 141 0 84938 Remote connect done
VDDK :06264 36 0 84952 Failed to open vmdk
VDDK :06264 138 0 84952 VDDK error encountered: code 13
VDDK :06264 139 0 84952 Retrieving error message text
VDDK :06264 52 0 84952 VDDK error message is 'You do not have access rights to this file'

Error 2011/06/01 09:49:52 530 Data Plugin SVR-MET-BACKUP1 Failed to backup data of VM disk '[Esx_Data_00] svr-met-intra1/svr-met-intra1.vmdk' to media
Error 2011/06/01 09:49:55 530 Data Plugin SVR-MET-BACKUP1 Failed to backup VM 'svr-met-intra1' uuid '4200ef49-d06c-2244-787c-1e23cf57d34d'
 

First, check the rights of the vCenter server user which is defined in the vmware plugin to access that server. This user should have admin rights. The user needs to have roles assigned to it within vmware as well as be able to log on to the vCenter server. This is set up as described in KB article SOL81580.

https://support.quest.com/Search/SolutionDetail.aspx?id=SOL81580

If the user account set to access the vCenter server has administrator rights and/or has the correct roles assigned to it in vCenter this is most probably a vmware issue as these are messages coming from vddk.
At this point the vddk_mounter utility can be used (to be found in the development tools package downloadable from Vmware) to check if it’s possible to mount the image outside of Netvault.

It may be the case that the LUNs in the SAN are seen with different LUN numbers by the machine where the VM backup plugin is installed and the ESX server. The LUN numbers as seen by both machines need to match for a job using san transport mode to run.

It may be possible to temporarily get around this issue by changing the transport mode in the plugin from san to nbd but ultimately if the vm plugin user has sufficient access rights this is an issue that needs to be reported to Vmware support.

Solution SOL81580

Minimum privileges for a netvault backup role on the vCenter server to be assigned to user that will be used as netvault user when setting up VMware plugin

https://support.quest.com/Search/SolutionDetail.aspx?id=SOL81580