NetVault Plug-in for VMware 13.1.2

Quest NetVault Plug‑in for VMware (Plug‑in for VMware) 13.1.2 is a minor release, with enhanced features and functionality. For complete product documentation, visit https://support.quest.com/technical-documents.

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 1. 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

Table 2. 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 Compatibility Guide available at https://support.quest.com/technical-documents.

Table 3. System requirements

Requirement

Details

Operating systems

For a list of supported OS distributions and versions, see the VDDK 7.0.3 Release Notes.

NetVault versions

The Plug‑in for VMware 13.1.2 requires NetVault 13.1 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 Server and Client software to 13.1.2 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 Compatibility Guide available at https://support.quest.com/technical-documents.

Packages

On a Windows operating system, the Plug‑in for VMware 13.1.2 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.