SureBackup Failing - OpenVMTools?

[stryker54141]

I have three VMs that continue to fail during a SureBackup job and the only common denominator that I've found is that all three have Open VMTools installed. These are three Barracuda virtual appliances and I don't have the ability to find the version of tools installed or upgrade them. (if needed)

The jobs fail with the message that it cannot detect VM starting because of timeout. I have the timeout set at 1 hour for testing purposes.

Has anyone else run into this? Is there a way to get Veeam to recognize when the OS's are booted instead of timing out? If I manually check them during the job, they are booted successfully.

Thanks,
David

[HannesK]

Hello,
in general, open-vmtools work fine with SureBackup.

Do you see an IP address in VCenter for the production VMs and also for the VMs in the virtual lab? Do the appliances boot correctly in virtual lab (meaning you can see the login screen and maybe even log in)?

Best regards,
Hannes

[Andreas Neufert]

Not sure if this is needed in latest Version, but back in time you had to set the following reg key for this scenario:

SupportOpenVmTools
Type: REG_DWORD (0 False, 1 True)
Default value: 0 (disabled)
Description: Allows successful 'Heartbeat' test for VMs with OpenVMtools. Reg.key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication\SureBackup, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Veeam\Veeam Backup and Replication\SureBackup

@HannesK Maybe a good idea to verify why we do not enable this by default or if we did already?

[stryker54141]

Hannes,

No, I do not see IP addresses in vCenter production for these VMs.

David

[stryker54141]

Hannes and Andreas,

I added the registry edit to my Veeam server and now the VMs with OpenVMTools installed are successful in SureBackup. - Thanks Andreas!

But I also noticed that I have one other VM running CentOS 6 (64-bit) that SureBackup is not recognizing as being booted. This machine has VMTools installed (not OpenVMTools) and it shows and IP address in the production vCenter. But in the vLab during SureBackup, the machine does not show an IP address. It DOES show that VMware Tools are running and current.

[HannesK]

I guess that your VMware tools are shown as "unmanaged" and the version is "2147483647"?

OpenVMTools work out of the box per default in most situations. That's what I do since years in my environment. But my open-vm-tools are shown with the correct version and also as "guest managed" in VCenter.



IP address is not needed for heartbeat test. I just asked for it to get an idea how your setup looks like. If there is no IP in the virtual lab, then I assume that you are running DHCP in production, but no DHCP in the virtual lab.

[Andreas Neufert]

I guess SureBackup is exactly doing it´s job and show that you would have an issue with this VM when you restore. => Loosing your IP address.

Background. By default VMs get when you register them again (restore or surebackup) a new MAC address as the MAC address stand on "Automatic" mode within the VM configuration.
Many Linux detributions on the other hand bind the IP addresses and other configurations to the MAC addresses. => New MAC, new network card, you would run into trouble at restore. And I guess this is exactly what SureBackup shows you.

You have 2 options:
1) Make the MAC address static in the VM config, reboot the production server and check IP address settings again. Backup the VM and SureBackup would show as well the correct IP. You can ignore the vcenter error with the double MAC address, as your run them in different virtual switches.
2) Edit production VM Linux to the point that it binds the network config like Windows to the PCI/PCIe slot instead of the MAC. Then reboot the server and check IP settings. Backup and check SureBackup again. How to do the MAC address binding change depends on the distribution, but there are many examples if you Google.

Again. SureBackup is doing it´s job and notify you that you would have an issue when you would restore to production (in this case when the VM was deleted or restored to a new VMware environment).
Great that you see instant value on taking the extra configuration steps for VirtualLab/SureBackup.

[stryker54141]

Hannes and Andreas,

Thanks for both of your help. I hardcoded the MAC address in the VM config for the final device that was failing and it fixed the issue.

David

[Andreas Neufert]

Very good. So you saw instant value on taking the extra step in creating virtual labs and SureBackup jobs. It told you right out of the box that you would run into restore issues in your current configuration.