SureBackup...what am I missing?

[Arnold]

OK, I think I must have left my brain at home today .

I have a small test environment on which I have installed Veeam v5. I have the below.

1x ESX4i server
1x 2003 x64 Windows server (VM running vCenter and Veeam)
1x Test LUN

The ESX server is configured and works on our production network fine, it also has one extra NIC that is live on the production network, but not in use. I have configured this as a SureBackup NIC within vCenter.

Now I fire up Veeam B&R console, select to create a Virtual Lab and follow the steps.

I give it a name
I select an ESX Host
I select my Datastore
I use the above NIC as the production network and asign a static IP.
I select bacis

It then shows me all my selected options and goes off and creates my vLab.

Next I create a SureBackup Job.

I give this a name
Select my vLab
Leave the Application Group blank
Link it to a previous backup job of a Windows server and then go through to the end.

When I start the job and select "Real time Stats", it starts with "Getting vLab config" after a while it says "Starting Virtual Lab Routing Engine" at this point the VM Appliance powers on and that's as far as it gets. It will sit at the logon prompt and nothing else happens.

I can ping the appliance via the static IP I assigned it when creating the Lab and that's all.

If I choose to "Stop Session" it will tell me that it "failed to add one or more routes", power down the appliance and finish.

I am sure I have missed something or done something extremely silly, but any guidance is much appreciated

[Alexey D.]

Hey Arnold,

For how long do you wait?
Actually I would recommend to open a support case, looks like that something is wrong when resolving network settings.

[Arnold]

I have waited for over 5mins and nothing happens, but I'm wondering if this is something to do with the way I have configured the Virtual Lab (which wouldn't surprise me ) . If I de-select "Use Proxy Appliance" it works fine, the VM powers up, then after a short while powers back down. I understand that with this solution it requires manual verification.

The VM in question has no vNIC installed, it is completely off net, could this cause the issue above?

[NightBird]

Same problem here.

I open a case : ID#535273

Veeam Backup 64bits on Windows 2008R2 it fails (try on physical and virtual server) => disabling UAC etc... no way
Veeam Backup 32bits on Windows 2003 it run flawless

I will try later on Windows 2008R2 VM but with Veeam Backup 32bits

I really think it's a problem with 64bits version of Veeam Backup

[NightBird]

Arf Veeam 32bits doesn't install on a 64bits system... so I can't test.

I'm very surprised about Veeam product testing =>
- SureBackup problem on 64bits systems
- VMXNET3 problem on Windows 2008R2 guest (eg: http://www.veeam.com/forums/viewtopic.p ... 2&start=15)

[Gostev]

Actually, Veeam has the best QC comparing to every software company I ever worked for (and that includes some really big names). I mean, the release quality is better not just by little - it is better by a mile. For releases like 5.0 (1 year in development), zero critical bugs found by customers in first week is pretty unusual for any company, and shows very high quality of internal testing.

But for multiple minor issues, of course they are expected, and no amount of internal testing will be able to find the bugs that thousands of customers can find in their environments. Everyone has different hardware, software, network settings, VMware settings, 3rd party sotware, etc. - millions of combinations.

Every software company recognizes this, but handles differently. Microsoft tends to release pretty raw products, and then shoots patches like machinegun (one of the reason few people do upgrade to major Microsoft releases right away - condition also known as "waiting for SP1" ). Google releases everything as beta, and keeps it as beta for years. Oracle can sell you officially released major feature that does not work outside their labs, in real deployments - and then fix it for 9 months (just heard this story direct from one of the forum members, who is also Oracle customer).

So, bottomline, every software has environment-specific bugs that no amount of internal testing can find. The longer you stay in IT, the more you learn it. There is a good reason why many larger companies have internal testing/approval/signoff process before putting everything in production - they want to make sure everything works as expected in THEIR specific environment.

Anyhow, concerning the issues you have listed:
1. SureBackup problem needs to be investigate closer, possibly has nothing to deal with 64bit, as R2 is actually one of primary testing platforms for us (note that R2 does not even come in 32bit version). For example, this could possibly be the issue with specific computer.
2. Further reseach and debugging showed that issue sits in VMware Tools 4.1 for Windows 2008 R2, and is specific to how VMware Tools handles MAC change on VMXNET3. No other OS or VMware Tools version have similar issue with VMXNET3. And even on VMware Tools 4.1 and Windows 2008 R2, changing MAC with any other adaptor type does not result in this issue. May be this has slipped by VMware QC for the same reason it had slipped by us - because VMXNET3 is not default adapter type for 2008 R2? Anyhow, as you can see this one is not even Veeam issue (although we get to fix this from our side).

[tsightler]

I have two 64-bit Veeam installs running on Windows 2008R2 (one physical, one virtual) and SureBackup works fine on both of them.

[NightBird]

After thinking you're right Gostev about Microsoft, Oracle, Google, and VMXNET3 bug on Windows 2008R2

[NightBird]

We found the problem, Veeam Backup services are launch with a service account.
After network packet capture we found that we have query through our proxy server.
We found that the Veeam service account use automaticaly proxy detection parameters configured in Internet Explorer !!
After changing this setting to no proxy, surebackup works fine.

[Arnold]

Well, after managing to get the process to go a little further I am now getting:

Cannot retrieve vm networks for vm-xxx

The whole process seems to go all the way through, it starts the job, firs up the Proxy Appliance, registers the VM etc, etc. But it fails with the above and then shuts everything down.

Now I am almost sure this is something I have not configured correctly, but what?

When I setup the Lab I assigned a static IP for "production network" (I have tried with DHCP as well and it is currently setup using DHCP)

I have tried using Basic option but this did not work, so I changed to Manual, and as it states I used the Prod default GW as the Appliance IP. Still no joy.


help

[Alexey D.]

Hey Arnold,

As for this message: Cannot retrieve vm networks for vm-xxx, please check:
- whether this VM has port groups which are not connected to any NIC;
- how many physical NICs do you have on ESX server you are running virtual lab on?

[Arnold]

Alexey,

The VM in question is running on a dvSwitch, this has several VLANs configured, but the VM is only running on one of these.

The ESX server has 3 physical NICs (quad port) and 2 on board.

Surebackup is running on a NIC that does not have VLAN tagging enabled, it is live on the prod network only, the dvSwitch which has several networks tagged, with the prod being one of them. Could this be causing the issue?

Cheers.
A.

[Alexey D.]

The deal is with dvSwitch. As per Release Notes, we don't support DVS right now, but we're planning to add this support in an upcoming update.
Please refer to this topic v5 - SureBackup and dvswitches vSphere 4.1?, there is a workaround explained.

[Arnold]

Alexey,

Thank you for that that will teach me to dive in feet first before reading the release notes....shame on me
Cheers again

[Alexey D.]

You're welcome, Arnold

[ferjero989]

bump (sorry)
i got the same issue, but all of my networks are standard
LAB:
3 esx 4.1 server
vcenter 4.1 on a standalone server
one iscsi san. the machine i was playing with is on this san.. however i assigned the local storage of the server as the storage... (during the surebackup setup)
the veeam machine is virtual win2k3 standard r2 with all the updates32bit..., all the networks are the same (name at least)
so i dunno whats goin on .. i wanted to test this out to be able to sell it

[Gostev]

If you networks are standard, then this is definitely not "the same" issue
Have you contacted our support for assistance already?

[ferjero989]

indeedn.. im waiting for response... but forums are usually friendlier and ppl is identified with mistakes regular ppl like me might do while setting up things