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NetVault Plug-in for VMware 10.5 - User Guide

Introduction Installing the plug-in Configuring the plug-in Defining a backup strategy Using the image-level backup method Using the file-level backup method Restoring image-level backups Restoring file-level backups Troubleshooting

Searching for files in savesets

The Search option on the Create Restore Job — Choose Saveset page allows you to find specific files or data items without opening any savesets or browsing through their contents. You can use filenames or regular expressions to find the data items that you want to restore.
To search for data items in savesets
1
On the Create Restore Job — Choose Saveset page, click Search.
2
In the Search for files in savesets dialog box, configure the following options:
•
Search String: Type the search string.
•
Regular expression search: To use POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface for Unix) regular expressions in the Search String box, select this check box.
•
Case sensitive: To perform a case-sensitive search, select this check box.
3
Click Search. On the Search Results page, you can view the savesets that contain the specified files or data items.
4
Select the items you want to restore. You can only restore items from one saveset. Click Next.
5
Complete Step 4 through Step 12 in the section Restoring data.

Viewing media list

To view media list for a saveset
1
On the Create Restore Job — Choose Saveset page, select the saveset.
2
In the Saveset Information area, click Media List.
3
In the dialog box that appears, the data and index segments for the saveset are listed:
•
For data segments, you can view the following details: Media label, media group label, offset, segment size, and media location.
•
For index segments, you can view the following details: Media label, media group label, and media location.
4
Click Close to close the dialog box.
 

Troubleshooting

•
Common errors
•
Diagnosing virtual machine issues
•
SOAP messages
•
VDDK logs

Common errors

The following is a list of some common errors and their solution.
 
Table 1. Common errors and their solution
Description
Symptom
Solution
The NetVault Backup Service fails to start on a Windows-based NetVault Backup Server.
Check the Windows Event Viewer to see if it displays the following message:
PDT FATAL: lock file "postmaster.pid" already exists
 
NetVault Backup cannot start if the PostgreSQL database that is used to store the system data does not start.
To correct this issue, delete the “postmaster.pid” file from the location referenced in the log and restart the NetVault Backup Server.
After restarting the machine, the NetVault Backup Service sometimes fails to start on a Windows-based NetVault Backup Server.
Check the Windows Event Viewer to see if it displays the following message:
FATAL: could not create any TCP/IP sockets " for a PostgreSQL source
 
NetVault Backup cannot start if the PostgreSQL database that is used to store the system data does not start.
To correct this issue, start the Task Manager, and click Show processes from all users. You can see multiple instances of postgres32.exe running on the system. Select any one instance of this process, and click End Process to remove all instances of postgres32.exe. Then, start the NetVault Backup Service from the Configurator.
The NetVault Backup Service starts, and then stops immediately on a Linux-based machine.
No error messages are displayed.
This issue can occur if the Postgres service cannot resolve the host name localhost, and fails to start.
Check the /etc/hosts file, and if the file does not contain an entry for localhost, add the entry.
The Linux Hybrid version of the plug-in does not run on pure 64‑bit operating system.
The plug-in fails to open and displays the message “No Error.”
Pure 64-bit operating systems do not install some common 32-bit libraries the plug-in requires.
To correct this problem, do the following:
1
Start a terminal session, and go to /usr/netvault/bin.
2
Run the following command to list the missing libraries:
ldd nvvmware | egrep -i “missing|not found”
3
Install the missing 32-bit libraries by using the applicable package manager.
NOTE: Some libraries are dynamically loaded from the path $NV_HOME/dynlib/vddk/. If these libraries are listed as missing, no action is required.
The plug-in crashes during a backup.
During a backup, the plug-in crashes with the following error in the NetVault Backup logs:
Backing up data of VM disk [XXXXXXX]xxx/xxxxxxxxx. vmdk' to media : “Job manager lost message channel unexpectedly.”
The trace logs include the following message:
Cannot open library: libexpat.so.0: cannot open shared object file in vixDiskLib-16642.log.
To correct this problem, navigate to the /usr/lib directory, and create the following symbolic link:
ln -s /lib/libexpat.so.1.5.2 libexpat.so.0
CBT-based image-level backup fails.
An image-level backup for which CBT has been enabled reports the following error and fails:
Failed to get changed disk areas.
 
This issue occurs when a snapshot exists on a virtual machine when CBT is enabled. For snapshots that exist before enabling CBT, the changeId parameter is not set. So, when the QueryChangedDiskAreas API is invoked, it returns an error. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1033816.
To correct this problem, do either of the following:
•
Ensure that no snapshots exist on the virtual machine before selecting the Enable Changed Block Tracking for VM check box.
•
Alternatively, use the Reset Change Block Tracking option if you are using Plug‑in for VMware 2.7 or later.
This option reconfigures CBT on a virtual machine and allows you to run CBT-enabled backup that failed previously. For more information about this option, see Resetting CBT on a virtual machine.
A Linux-based client may fail to read the contents of a virtual disk using the SAN transport mode if multiple backup processes are accessing the same datastore.
During a backup using the SAN transport mode, the following errors are reported:
San transport error: I/O Operation failed.
Error: One of the parameters supplied is invalid.
These errors are caused by a fault in the Linux kernel when handling SCSI reservation conflicts.
The errors are encountered on the following systems:
•
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.1 and earlier versions
•
SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server (SLES®) 11.1 and earlier versions
To correct this issue, upgrade to kernel version 2.6.32-220 or later on RHEL and kernel version 3.0.13 or later on SLES.
When you create a virtual machine with RHEL 7 or RHEL 6 as the Guest OS, the SCSI controller type is set to VMware Paravirtual by default.
The HotAdd transport mode does not work if either the backup proxy or the backup target uses Paravirtual SCSI controller.
N/A
To use HotAdd transport mode, set the SCSI controller type to LSI Logic Parallel or LSI Logic SAS when you create the virtual machine. For more information about configuring this setting, see the relevant VMware documentation.
We do not recommend changing the SCSI controller type for an existing virtual machine without testing to ensure that it operates normally with the new controller type.
The file-level backup method does not back up data through a reparse point.
When a disk mounted as a reparse point on a Guest OS is included in a file-level backup, the backup completes without any errors or warnings. However, the plug-in does not back up any data for a reparse point. It is listed as an empty node on the Create Selection Set page.
The VMware API does not support this type of backup.
Workaround:
•
Install NetVault Backup Client on the Guest OS, and perform a backup using the Plug-in for FileSystem to include the reparse point directory.
•
Alternatively, mount the disk as drive letter instead of a reparse point. Then, create a backup job to include the new drive letter.
Restore job fails.
A restore job fails with the following error:
Log Message:
Failed to restore VM disk data.
Log Context:
Failed to open vmdk VDDK error encountered: code 13
Retrieving error message text VDDK error message is ‘You do not have access rights to this file’
Disk data restore failed for ‘[datastore]VirtualMachineName/ VitrualDiskName.vmdk’
The NetVault Backup Client running the Plug‑in for VMware may not have access to the SAN. To verify, try using the NBD transport mode. If the restore completes successfully with this mode, it indicates SAN connectivity issues.
To use the SAN transport mode, the NetVault Backup Client must have SAN connectivity to the VMFS LUN. Ensure that the LUN is accessible and the SAN is configured correctly.
Restore job fails.
A restore job fails with the following error:
Log message:
Failed to add VM to target server's inventory.
Log context:
Fault string is 'Invalid configuration for device '3'.
When this error occurs, enable trace and run the restore job again. When the job completes, open the file named vmw<nnn>_soaprecv.log, and check if it contains an XML message <WaitForUpdatesExResponse> with contents similar to the following:
<val
xsi:type="LocalizedMethodFault">
<fault
xsi:type="InvalidDeviceSpec">
<property>deviceChange[3].
device.backing.fileName
</property>
<deviceIndex>3</deviceIndex>
</fault>
<localizedMessage>Invalid configuration for device &apos;3&apos;.</localizedMessage>
</val>
If yes, it indicates that the backup contains an invalid configuration for a CD or DVD drive.
To correct this problem
1
Open the file vmware.cfg in a text editor. You can find this file in <NetVault Backup home>\config on Windows and <NetVault Backup home>/config on Linux.
2
Set the value for the following entry to True:
[Custom:ReconfigureVirtualCdromDevices]
Value=True
(The default value for this entry is False.)
Save the file.
3
Run the restore job again. The job completes successfully. If a CD or DVD drive was set to “Host Device” or “Datastore ISO File” type during the original backup, it is reconfigured as “Client Device” type. A warning message in the logs provides a list of reconfigured devices. The log context includes their original configuration. To view the log context, click the More Info button.
4
After restoring the virtual machine, reset [Custom:ReconfigureVirtual CdromDevices] to False.
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