Veeam Backup job VM Attributes not showing

[Shogan]

Hey guys,

Just a quick question - I am trying to use the Advanced options of a backup job to set the VM attributes of VMs that are backed up to try something out in PowerCLI, but for some reason my VMs are not getting any attributes applied to them after the job completes successfully.

Its the first time I am trying this, and read Rick V's blog post about it here: http://www.veeam.com/blog/using-vm-attr ... ckups.html - I believe I am doing everything correctly, but just don't see any attributes after jobs are done.

I am looking in vCenter just about the Notes in the VM on the Summary tab as well as pulling them out using PowerCLI and examining them there.

I have tried running the job first, to see if the custom field is added by the job, then when that didn't work, I tried creating the field myself in vCenter first, then giving the job advanced setting for notes/attributes that name. Am I missing something obvious?

vSphere environment, ESX 4.0 hosts and Veeam B&R version 5.

Thanks!

[Gostev]

Did you register your infrastructure with Veeam Backup by adding vCenter server, or individual ESX hosts?

[Shogan]

Did you register your infrastructure with Veeam Backup by adding vCenter server, or individual ESX hosts?

Hi Anton,

Yes, all ESX hosts are added via the vCenter node - so just the vCenter server is added in Veeam, allowing access to everything within.

[Gostev]

What account did you use to register vCenter? Administrator, or some account with minimum privileges?

[Shogan]

What account did you use to register vCenter? Administrator, or some account with minimum privileges?

Just checked the SOAP account registration and it is registered with an administrator account (Domain Admin), definitely with high privileges.

[Gostev]

Well, Domain Admin is one thing, but what are account privileges in vCenter's own security? There are pretty granular permissions that can be set, specifically the account may lack permissions to update VM properties.

Basically, the above two are the only reasons for the issue that I can think of. If everything looks OK there, next step would be to send full logs to our support and have them look which error the attribute writing fails with.

[Shogan]

Well, Domain Admin is one thing, but what are account privileges in vCenter's own security? There are pretty granular permissions that can be set, specifically the account may lack permissions to update VM properties.

Basically, the above two are the only reasons for the issue that I can think of. If everything looks OK there, next step would be to send full logs to our support and have them look which error the attribute writing fails with.

Thanks Anton, you're right. I forgot to check VMware permissions, and sure enough this user that the vCenter hierachy is registered with is not a VMware admin, despite being Domain Admin.

I then went to check logs and found this:

[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error UpdateAnnotation failed, vmRef "vm-47304" at Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.CSoapConnection.UpdateNotes(String vmRef, String annotation)
[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error at Veeam.Backup.Core.CSourceVmNotesUpdater.Do()
[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error at Veeam.Backup.Core.CSourceVmNotesUpdater.Do(CVmTask task, CBackupTaskSession taskSess, String backupLocation)
[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error at Veeam.Backup.Core.CSourceVmNotesUpdater.DoNoThrow(CVmTask task, CBackupTaskSession taskSess, String backupLocation)
[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error The object has already been deleted or has not been completely created at Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.CSoapService.Execute(IServiceOperation op)
[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error at Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.CSoapService.CreateReconfigVmTask(ManagedObjectReference _this, VirtualMachineConfigSpec spec)
[05.10.2011 18:53:30] <01> Error at Veeam.Backup.ViSoap.CSoapConnection.UpdateNotes(String vmRef, String annotation)

So that looks to me like its trying to use the SOAP service to update the annotations/notes, and failing - probably because of permissions right?

[Gostev]

Yes, most likely.

[Shogan]

Yes, most likely.

Great, I'll try edit a note/annotation of a VM in vCenter by logging directly in with this account and see what happens - that should confirm it then. Thanks for the help!