VMware Tools Quiesce on RH 64 Bits

[sidavid]

Hi Veeam,

This morning I received this error:
Creating a quiesced snapshot failed because the (user-suuplied) custom pre-freeze script in the virtual machine exited with a non-zero return code.

I used Veeam Backup Version 2.0.1.164 and the VM is a Linux Red hat 4 64 Bits. This week-end, I updated the kernel to version 2.6.9-78.0.17. I reinstalled the Vmware Tools successfully.

Before the update, the setting Enable Vmware tools guest quiescence was check. Now I unchecked the setting and backup was success.

Do you know why I received this error?

And my second question is, Could you explain me the difference between Enable Vmware tools guest quiescence and VSS?

Thanks in advance

David

[Gostev]

David, I can answer the VSS question. VSS is Windows-specific technology that cannot be used on Linux at all. On Linux, you can only use Vmware Tools guest quiescence.

[sidavid]

I know that VSS is a Microsoft Technology, that cannot run on Linux. So what is the difference between VSS and Enable VM Tools quiescence??

[Gostev]

David, the difference is that VSS provides application-level quiescence (better) - but it works on Windows only. VMware Tools quiescence on the other hand provides file-level quiescence - this works on all operating systems, but introduces risk of corrupting applications data. This is why (as far as I know) most people use pre-freeze scripts to stop certain applications on Linux servers before creating a snapshot.

[sidavid]

Thanks for the clarification.

And my error on the Linux, do you know why? I know that after an update kernel we must reinstall Vmware Tools. So I reinstalled the tool successfully and this morning I received this error.

[Gostev]

David, since running the pre-freeze scripts is performed by VMware Tools, I think it would be best for you to contact VMware Support about it. May be the current version of VMware Tools simply does not support the new kernel version?

[biker]

I have the same problem with my SUSE 10 64bit VM and Veeam Backup 3.0 Esx U4

[Gostev]

Most likely you have an existing snapshot on this VM. There is a VMware Tools issue with Linux servers that is causing this error if Linux VM has one or more snapshots. Please remove all snapshots and try again.