No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.

[KernelKurtz]

Hi again. Hope you all had a safe Christmas. No sign of that new ISO yet, so I'm wondering, if I install Backup and Replication and the latest patch on an spare Windows laptop, will I be able to extract the most recent .rpms from that installation manually? Not planning on using the BR functionality, but it has been a few weeks since my server has been backed up so would like to get it working again.

Many thanks and all the best for 2021.

[Gostev]

Yes, that's the way to go. The new ISO was published about a week ago, but remember it's still the v10a GA ISO - just with the latest patch placed into the auto-install folder. So yes, you would need to deploy it first, then extract the most recent .rpms from that installation manually.

Happy New Year!

[KernelKurtz]

Thank again for the quick reply. If I can just extract it from the ISO/msi that is easier than having to install it, but the ISO linked to on your site is still dated August 04. If the patch is now part of that (it was not last time I checked), I'll just give that a try.....

[KernelKurtz]

Just downloaded it and it is different, so I'll work with that. Thanks again.

[KernelKurtz]

It worked. I used 7zip to extract VALredist.msi from the .exe in the ISO, then the msiexec /a trick above to get the el8 2372 .rpms from that, installed on my server and woohoo! Backups working again. For now anyway (keeping in mind the discussion about upcoming kernel changes in the other threads).

Thanks folks for your assistance!

[Achmo]

Hello,

I am having some trouble installing the Linux agent on Centos 8.
I did a lot of searches and googling around, and I think the issue is related to the kernel version of the Server versus the version of the Agent:

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# uname -r
4.18.0-240.10.1.el8_3.x86_64

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# cat /etc/centos-release
CentOS Linux release 8.3.2011

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# dnf info veeam
Last metadata expiration check: 1:04:28 ago on Wed 10 Feb 2021 11:43:05 GMT.
Available Packages
Name         : veeam
Version      : 4.0.1.2365
Release      : 1.el8
Architecture : x86_64
Size         : 40 M
Source       : veeam-4.0.1.2365-1.el8.src.rpm
Repository   : veeam
Summary      : Veeam Agent for Linux
License      : Proprietary
Description  : Veeam Agent for Linux
             :  Veeam Agent for Linux a simple, FREE backup agent designed to ensure
             :  the Availability of your Linux server instances, whether they reside in the
             :  public cloud or on premises.

So I checked this: https://www.veeam.com/kb2804 and it seems that for my version(both OS and Kernel) I need to install agent 4.0.1.2372 but I can not find it using dnf/yum.
I re-downloaded the .rpm file in case there was something new but nothing.
Could you please advise me on how to proceed with this?

Thank you!

[aj_potc]

Just to confirm, did you try downloading the agent directly from the Veeam site?

Here's the URL:
https://www.veeam.com/download_add_pack ... e/rhel8-64

(Unfortunately they don't make it easy to find a direct URL that you can use to download the package with wget or curl.)

[Achmo]

Hello,

The link you posted redirects me to the .rpm file which I have downloaded and placed on the server using SFTP. Then I just followed this: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=40

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# rpm -ivh ./veeam-release* && yum check-update

Which results to:

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 Package                                                      Architecture                                         Version                                                         Repository                                           Size
=============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 veeam                                                        x86_64                                               4.0.1.2365-1.el8                                                veeam                                                40 M
Installing dependencies:
 kmod-veeamsnap                                               x86_64                                               4.0.1.2365-1.el8                                                veeam                                                84 k

As you can see, it still tries to download version 2365, which seems to not be compatible with the latest Centos 8.3 and the latest kernel.
Obviously, I have tried installing it and running it, but it always fails.
Here is a sample of the veeamsvc.log(if you want the full one, please let me know):

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[10.02.2021 16:51:37.037] <140280636352256> vsnap  | WARN|Your Linux kernel version is higher than the version this product build has been tested against, which may cause issues with some functionality.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.037] <140280636352256> vsnap  | Obtaining driver major number.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.041] <140280636352256> vsnap  | Obtaining driver major number. Failed.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.041] <140280636352256> lpbcore| ERR |Snapshot creation operation has failed.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.041] <140280636352256> lpbcore| >>  |No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.041] <140280636352256> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to get device driver major number. Driver [veeamsnap].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.041] <140280636352256> lpbcore| >>  |An exception was thrown from thread [140280636352256].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.041] <140280636352256>        | Thread finished. Role: 'snapshot operation'.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.213] <140281176405760> lpbcore| ERR |No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.213] <140281176405760> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to get device driver major number. Driver [veeamsnap].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.213] <140281176405760> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to finish snapshot creation process.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.213] <140281176405760> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to execute method [1] for class [lpbcorelib::interaction::proxystub::CSnapshotOperationStub].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.213] <140281176405760> lpbcore| >>  |An exception was thrown from thread [140280636352256].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.250] <140281176405760> lpbcore| Starting proxystub protocol dispatch loop. ok.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.251] <140281176405760>        | Closing socket device.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.251] <140281176405760>        | Thread finished. Role: 'peer local sock peer'.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.252] <140280669923072> lpbcore| Manager process [42768] has been shutdown.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.252] <140280669923072>        | Thread finished. Role: 'Manager process [42768] shutdown handler.'.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.252] <140281168013056> lpbcore| Cleaning up resources for job process [42768].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| ERR |Backup job has failed.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to get device driver major number. Driver [veeamsnap].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to finish snapshot creation process.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to execute method [1] for class [lpbcorelib::interaction::proxystub::CSnapshotOperationStub].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to take volume snapshot.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |Backup job has failed.
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| >>  |An exception was thrown from thread [140281176405760].
[10.02.2021 16:51:37.253] <140280644744960> lpbcore| Job can not be retried. Retry is disabled.

From the log messages as well as searching around I do believe the issue is caused because the server has the latest version of OS-kernel and the agent is not compatible with that.
Also, in the past I had kinda similar troubles with veeamsnap and incorrect kernel headers. The solution to that was to upgrade to the latest kernel(it was for Centos 7 tho) and then everything worked perfectly.
For that one I am sorry but I am lost.

Thanks!

[Natalia Lupacheva]

Hi @Achmo,

moved your post to the existing thread.
Please take a look at the discussions above, the version you are looking for is included to the Cumulative patch.

Thanks!

[Achmo]

Hello and thank you very much for this thread.
I followed the steps mentioned by KernelKurtz and was able to extract the .rpm files and then proceed to install them using:

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rpm -ivh veeam-4.0.1.2372-1.el8.x86_64.rpm kmod-veeamsnap-4.0.1.2372-1.el8.x86_64.rpm

However, the backup job is still failing:

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[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| WARN|Method invocation was not finalized. Method id [1]. Class: [lpbcorelib::interaction::ISnapshotOperation]
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| ERR |No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to get device driver major number. Driver [veeamsnap].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to finish snapshot creation process.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to execute method [1] for class [lpbcorelib::interaction::proxystub::CSnapshotOperationStub].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to invoke method [1] in class [lpbcorelib::interaction::ISnapshotOperation].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |An exception was thrown from thread [139722887935744].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.648] <139722887935744> vmb    |     [SessionLog][error] Failed to create volume snapshot.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.652] <139722887935744> vmb    |     [SessionLog][error] Failed to take volume snapshot.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.655] <139722887935744> lpbcore|   Taking snapshot. Failed.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.655] <139722887935744> lpbcore| BackupJobPerformer: Creating backup. Failed.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.655] <139722887935744> vmb    | [SessionLog][error] Failed to perform backup.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.657] <139722887935744> vmb    | [SessionLog][error] No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.660] <139722887935744> vmb    | [SessionLog][error] Processing finished with errors at 2021-02-11 10:19:32 GMT.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| ERR |No character device registered for veeamsnap kernel module.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to get device driver major number. Driver [veeamsnap].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to finish snapshot creation process.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to execute method [1] for class [lpbcorelib::interaction::proxystub::CSnapshotOperationStub].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |--tr:Failed to take volume snapshot.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |Backup job has failed.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.662] <139722887935744> lpbcore| >>  |An exception was thrown from thread [139722887935744].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.667] <139722931125248>        |   Closing socket device.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.667] <139722931125248> lpbcore| LpbManSession: Processing commands. ok.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.667] <139722931125248>        | Closing socket device.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.676] <139722887935744> lpbcore| JOB STATUS: FAILED.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.676] <139722887935744>        | Thread finished. Role: 'Volume backup job execution'.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.677] <139722931125248>        | Closing socket device.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.677] <139722931125248>        | Closing socket device.
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.677] <139722931125248> lpbman | Application session has been finished

I also noticed this error but not sure exactly what it means:

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[11.02.2021 10:19:32.328] <139722887935744> lpbdeve| ERR |Failed to create DeviceInfoEx for device [/dev/sr0].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.328] <139722887935744> lpbdeve| >>  |No medium found
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.328] <139722887935744> lpbdeve| >>  |Failed to probe device [/dev/sr0].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.328] <139722887935744> lpbdeve| >>  |--tr:CRealBlkidAccessor: Failed to probe device [/dev/sr0].
[11.02.2021 10:19:32.328] <139722887935744> lpbdeve| >>  |An exception was thrown from thread [139722887935744]

Do you have any suggestions on what may I do wrong?

Thank you!

[PTide]

@Achmo,

Unfortunately that's not something what we can troubleshoot via forums. If usual moves such as "delete driver, delete agent, reinstall everything, try to load the module manually" didn't do the trick, then I am afraid you really should seek some help from our support team.

Thanks!

[IrateAdm1n]

@Achmo

Do you have Secure Boot enabled? I had the same issue as you on one RHEL 8 server and not another and that was what was different. Turned off Secure Boot on the one that had the issue and the agent worked fine after that. A quick search will provide instructions on how to sign veeamsnap for Secure Boot. For my situation I am leaving Secure Boot disabled for now.

[PTide]

Good point.

In case it's really a Secure Boot issue, then you might want to take a look at this thread

Thank!