When backing up VMs with a log size greater than 1GB with VMware Plugin 2.6 or earlier, the backup will exit with the following error:
Job Message 2013/10/03 23:24:39 64 Data Plugin NVBU-Server TaskID Backing up log files to media
Error 2013/10/03 23:25:56 64 Data Plugin NVBU-Server Worker process has exited prematurely
Tracing the backup will show the VMware plugin log the following as the final lines before the process abends:
1 VMWSLAVE:05132 158 0 122553.988822 Fetch from server and backup file
1 VMWSLAVE:05132 159 0 122553.988822 File name is '[Datastore] VM-Name/vmware.log'
2 VMWVIM :05132 659 0 122553.988822 Datastore: Datastore'
2 VMWVIM :05132 660 0 122553.988822 Folder: 'VM-Name'
2 VMWVIM :05132 661 0 122553.988822 File: 'vmware.log'
6 VMWGET :05132 42 0 122554.519223 Allocated -1901133236 bytes for curl download
Note the negative value in the last line.
Upgrade to version 2.7 to resolve this issue.
If an upgrade is not possible, the workaround for version 2.6 and earlier is to do any of the following.
- disable logging if not required
- set a log roate policy for the VM see KB article http://kb.vmware.com/kb/8182749
- investigate the logs to see if there is anything abnormal generating large amounts of logging.
