vStorage API in Virtual Appliance mode

[schaffeb]

I believe this is correct. I created a text file on the VM and it does not show up on the hot-added drive within the Veeam VM. However, my VM still shows up as having 3 extra drives in addition to having an extra drive in windows explorer.

This could be a pretty annoying bug if it occurs for every replica we do. I guess I'll continue to test.

I should probably add that the Veeam VM is Windows 2008 R2 with Veeam 64bit.

[Gostev]

Ben, I have not tested this myself, but I am pretty sure that disabling automount on Veeam Backup VM and rebooting (similarly to how you configure VCB proxy) should help you to get rid of these phantom drives.

[TrevorBell]

Disabling auto mount from command prompt:

Code: Select all

diskpart
automount disable
exit

this will then not show the disks - I have just tried this and can verify it works...

[icebun]

Hey guys, I don't know if this is the right place but here goes.

We are using ESX 3.5 with vCenter server 2.0 (Enterpise edition).

According to the manual for Veeam Backup 4.0, I will need to create a heler vm called VMName (VCB-HELPER).

In order to use the Virtual Appliance Mode, do I literally build a vm simply called "VMNAME" on the same ESX host as the Veeam backup server?

[Gostev]

Hello, no - not literally... I think it will be easier to explain with an example.

Imagine that your Veeam Backup server name is vbsrv01
In that case, the helper appliance must be vbsrv01(VCB-HELPER)

Anyway, if you name the helper VM wrong, you will get an error telling you the required VM name, so you can just copy the name from there.

[icebun]

Thanks Gostev. Glad I asked!

[floss]

Hi Just another issue i have seen with regards Vitual appliance mode , has anyoone seen pop up appear on you backup console advisng "windows event 26 - drive not ready -Exception processing" this halts the backup there until i akno the prompt there are also event 12 in the logs disk disapeared from sysytem without being prepared for removal .

I have disabled disk mount from the cmd line via Diskpart but it looks to me like the Hot-add disks are causing issues via plug and play wich cannot be disablesd in windows , is there anyway round this

[rogersillars]

Hi,

Our brand new VM appliance has stopped working with the virtual appliance mode. I have also noticed that there are 14 "extra" disks mounted in the VM. I have just disabled the automatic mounting and rebooted but how do I remove these disks? I am assuming they are snapshots of VMs but none of our VMs have any snapshots listed.

Is it safe to just remove the disks?
Are there likely to be any phantom snaphots? If so how do i fix this?

As with "schaffeb" our VM is Windows 2008 R2 x64

Thanks,
Roger

[TrevorBell]

Hi,

If you EDIT SETTINGS for that VM you will see all the added disks, just delete them all except for original vm disk

and they will be deleted, then carry on

Trev..

[rogersillars]

Great, thanks. I have done that and applied the 4.0 hotfix and it seems to be going now.

[bolnetworks]

How much memory and cpu does this helper VM must get?

Hello, no - not literally... I think it will be easier to explain with an example.

Imagine that your Veeam Backup server name is vbsrv01
In that case, the helper appliance must be vbsrv01(VCB-HELPER)

Anyway, if you name the helper VM wrong, you will get an error telling you the required VM name, so you can just copy the name from there.

[Gostev]

I recommend 4 vCPU and 2048MB RAM. You can refer to System Requirements section of the Release Notes document included with your download or here for more information.

[bolnetworks]

Doe you mean the helper VM or the Veeam backup server VM? I guess you mean the last one? I want to know the requirements for the Helper VM.

[Alexey D.]

The Helper VM is a blank dummy VM without virtual disks or OS installed. It is never started; and doesn't consume CPU or memory. So you may assign minimal resources to this VM.

[Gostev]

Bol, also please note that you do not need helper VM at all if you are running vSphere. It is only required for VI3 (vCenter 2.x/ESX 3.x).

[bolnetworks]

Sure, but this customer does run Vi3.

Another question about it, does it mean that if i don't make this Helper vm the job won't run?

[Alexey D.]

Yes, you need to create a Helper VM to run the job; please refer to previous posts for the naming convention for this VM.

[bolnetworks]

Very strange, i know from an other situation that the Virtual Appliance mode does work on v3.5 and NO HELPER VM!
Any idea?

[Gostev]

Possibly, vCenter 4.x is used with ESX 3.x host? Or may be some later VI3 updates introduced this capability? This thread is a bit outdated (10 months old now)

[bolnetworks]

ok, anyway do i have to put the helper vm powered on, or is it enough that it exists as VM (powered off)?

[Gostev]

It is enough that it exists. It is only used by vStorage API to temporarily mount backed up VM disks to. Thanks!

[vbussiro]

Is there any compatibility issue wit XP virtual machines ?
I wanted to backup my lab, with an sbs2008 server and two XP clients, but only the sbs goes fine.

[vbussiro]

IDE disks are not supported by hotadd

*edit*
Maybe the error message could be clearer :

Code: Select all

Server error: Failed to open VDDK disk [[NecLocalStore1] SBSXP4/SBSXP4.vmdk] ( is read-only mode - [true] ) Failed to open VMDK. Logon attempt with parameters [VC/ESX: [192.168.30.245];Port: 443;Login:[XXXXXXXXXXXX];VMX Spec: [moref=vm-24];Snapshot mor: [snapshot-190];Transports: [hotadd]] failed because of the following errors: Failed to process VM disk backup. VMDK path: [vddk://<vddkConnSpec><viConn name="XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX" authdPort="443" vicPort="443" /><vmxPath vmRef="vm-24" datacenterRef="datacenter-2" datacenterInventoryPath="FTPi-Mdm" snapshotRef="snapshot-190" datastoreName="NecLocalStore1" path="SBSXP4/SBSXP4.vmx" /><vmdkPath datastoreName="NecLocalStore1" path="SBSXP4/SBSXP4.vmdk" /><transports seq="hotadd" hotAddRedirection="1" /><readBuffer size="0" /></vddkConnSpec>]. 

And better, this incompatibility detected during job creation...

[Gostev]

Agree... but vStorage does not typically tell us much when it fails

[gh0stwalker]

I'm looking at an implementation for a customer. They currently run Veeam on a physical server, but are having some resource related problems that is related to either the server veeam is installed on or the backup target. I'm recommending a move to a virtual machine using virtual appliance mode. Is it best practice to create a local vmdk attached to the Veeam virtual machine to store the backups on? what is the maximum size recommended for this disk if so?

The other option would be using a network share to store the backups on as we are doing now, but that may not fix our problems if the problem is with the existing backup target.

Thanks
Dan

[Vitaliy S.]

Hello Dan,

Using Virtual Appliance mode is the best choice if you're going to run Veeam Backup and Replication server in the VM. Don't forget to grant this VM 4 vCPU for maximum performance.

As regards the recommended max disk size possible, actually, it doesn't matter, there shouldn't be any impact on the performance. But you should know that maximum virtual disk size depends on the VMFS block size which is storing your VM:

• 1MB block size – 256GB maximum file size
• 2MB block size – 512GB maximum file size
• 4MB block size – 1024GB maximum file size
• 8MB block size – 2048GB maximum file size

Hope this helps!

[Gostev]

I would not recommend storing backups inside VMDK, as it makes the backup files more difficult to access in case of disaster, and because of 2TB size limitation. If your backup target supports iSCSI, then mounting NTFS LUN to Veeam VM through software iSCSI initiator, or as RDM disk might be a better choice.

[koxo]

Hi,

I have a problem with backing up using Veeam backup and replication 4.1.2. Backup using the network is doing (VMware vStorage API), but not with virtual appliance(VMware vStorage API). Can you help me and tell me where I make a mistake.
(even in the same replication and copying - network(completed) and virtual appliance(error))

error in the virtual appliance backup´s report:

Backing up file "[datastore1] WTS/WTS-flatvmdk" BackupDisk failed Client error: Failed to open VDDK disk [[datastore1] WTS/WTS.vmdk] ( is read-only mode - [true] ) Logon attempt with parameters [VC/ESX: [10.10.2.6];Port: 902;Login: [root];VMX Spec: [moref=16];Snapshot mor: [16-snapshot-7];Transports: [hotadd]] failed because of the following errors: Server error: End of file

thanks for early reply

[Gostev]

Hello, see here for some information on the reasons why hot add can fail:
http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... 790#p17790

If this does not help, please open a support case, as further troubleshooting will require full log investigation. Thank you.

[virtualwatts]

Hi Just another issue i have seen with regards Vitual appliance mode , has anyoone seen pop up appear on you backup console advisng "windows event 26 - drive not ready -Exception processing" this halts the backup there until i akno the prompt there are also event 12 in the logs disk disapeared from sysytem without being prepared for removal .

I have disabled disk mount from the cmd line via Diskpart but it looks to me like the Hot-add disks are causing issues via plug and play wich cannot be disablesd in windows , is there anyway round this

Hi -
Granted, old question on this thread, but I did not see an answer or a resolution as the thread went on to address other subjects.

We are getting these error messages constantly in our Veeam VM server (Win2003x86) whenever Veeam adds/removes disk.
I only noticed because we are in the process of adding system log monitoring.

We are VMware ESXi 4.1/VBR 501.

Thanks
Rick