When attempting to perform a full backup, using Agent version 2.0.0.400, the job fails with a number of errors starting with "Failed to create volume snapshot".
Veeam Tech Support identified the issue as follows:
Please note that i've found following messages in log files:
May 22 21:00:11 s0999002 kernel: veeamsnap:tracking_add Adding. dev_id=199:8000
May 22 21:00:11 s0999002 kernel: ERR veeamsnap:blk_dev_open blkdev_get failed for device=199:8000
May 22 21:00:11 s0999002 kernel: ERR veeamsnap:tracking_add Failed to create tracker. error=-1
May 22 21:00:11 s0999002 kernel: veeamsnap:ctrl_release file=0xffff88019c0de380
Veeam agent couldn't add this device to the snapshot 199:8000.
[22.05.2018 21:00:10] <140265009850112> lpbcore| Adding disk backup object into snapshot set. Disk: [vx/dsk/oracledg/databaselv].
[22.05.2018 21:00:10] <140265009850112> lpbcore| Request to snapshot device: [199:8000].
It seems that this device was formatted with VXFS (vx/dsk/oracledg/databaselv) (Veritas file-system) which is not supported by Veeam Agent
Their recommended solution for now is to do a Volume level backup and exclude the VXFS volumes, but of course this doesn't achieve what we are after.
The other recommendation is to post a Feature Request here to request that VXFS support is introduced in future Veeam releases. Please let me know how feasible this is and if we can expect VXFS support any time soon.
As far as I can see you have some oracle files on that volume. Is it a database file or something else? How crucial is it for you to be able to take a snapshot of that volume? I mean, would it be an option for you if you could backup required files from that volume as is, i.e. without taking a snapshot?
It is an Oracle database, so I don't think a file-level backup will do it I'm afraid. I can use volume level backup to take a backup of the underlying server OS, but for now the Oracle side is being handled separately by RMAN. Would be great to be able to bring it all into a single backup environment.
Is VXFS support something that is coming for Veeam?
One of the challenges with VxFS is that it is a proprietary filesystem. It was fairly popular on Linux back in the day when customers were switching from legacy Unix systems (which is admittedly still happening), where VxFS was extremely popular, but it's fairly uncommon for me to run across customers using it today. Do you have a lot of VxFS in your environment? Could you share the reasons you use VxFS vs one of the standard Linux filesystems?
Due to it's proprietary nature, I believe having support for snapshot based backups of VxFS would present some significant challenges, most of which are not technical (licensing/legal). However, file level backups should be doable, so if Veeam was able to provide both RMAN and file level backups, I'm hoping that might address your concerns. Even file level backups or Oracle are totally possible, the Oracle database just has to stay in hot backup mode longer than with a snapshot.
Thanks for your reply. I spent a bit of time with the DBA last week to better understand the whole VxFS thing and it seems the purpose of it is to support real-time replication of the volumes using Veritas Infoscale. Through this mechanism the transactions are replicated from the primary to a backup server and a DR server simultaneously.
Between this, the volume-level Veeam backup of the server OS and daily RMAN backups (monthly full, daily incremental) to a file server that is in the regular Veeam job, I think we are covered for all eventualities.
Being able to snapshot the whole server, VxFS volumes and all, would have the benefit of bringing it all into one place along with our other backups but I can appreciate the difficulty.