Backup from Snapshot, NetApp, NFS version VMware

[cmorrall]

Hi,
I'm trying out the Backup from Snapshot feature with an integration with NetApp FAS. This is in a VMware enviornment and the datastores are mounted over NFS.

I had some problems accessing the snapshots for backup to the repository. I've gone over the guide detailing the best practices and also some blog posts in the matter. This all points to the requirement of having the .snapshot directory visible. However, as far as I can tell, this is always hidden in NFS version 4.x. The directory is there, but you can't browse to it. You have to enter the path explicitly. I'm not entirely sure if this is an NFS v4 feature or the Netapp (or VMware) implementation of NFS.

I was under a bit of time constraints to get it all working, I may have change other settings, but when I mounted datastores with NFS version 3 and thus the .snapshot directory was visible, I was successful in processing the snapshots for backups.

I've so far been unable to find anything in the manual or other guidelines in this regard.

[foggy]

Charles, have you contacted support already? Quick look at your environment via remote session is required.