Remap MorefIDs

[ksl28]

Hi,

We need to reinstall a bunch of single hosts (branch offices) within our vCenter.
The plan is to power off all VMs, do a fresh install of ESXi and then import all the VMs again - preserving their UUID.
But it seems that the MorefID isnt the same, so Veeam thinks its new VMs and performs a full backup.

The backups are performed and stored locally on the ESXi host for 2 days, and also copied to an offsite location, where they are kept for 31 days.

Is the best way to overcome this to map the backup? And will i have to do this, for both the backup and copy job?

[Mildur]

Hi Kristian

Yes, after a reimport of the esxi host VMs on local disk will have a new ID in the vCenter.

There are unsupported ways to migrate to the new MoRef ID.
Please have a look at this kb:
https://www.veeam.com/kb2136

The forum search should give you a second way over the database.

Thanks
Fabian

[ksl28]

Hi Mildur,

Thanks for the very quick response
But it seems that using the map backup function (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110) wont work ?
And that we have to use an unsupported tool, to map the new VM MorefID to the old VMs MorefID?

[Mildur]

Map Backup will not work.
The VM in the backup files has a different MoRefID than the newly imported VM in the vCenter.

If you can move the VMs to another hosts before removing the esxi host, you could keep the MoRefID.
But if you remove the esxi hosts with the vm on local storage, you will loose the old esxi host.

Thanks
Fabian

[ksl28]

Hi Fabian,

Each branch office only have 1 ESXi host located there, so its not an option to move them to another host.
So that means our steps should be:
1. PowerOff all the VMs
2. Do a fresh installation of ESXi
3. Import all the VMs with the same UUID
4. Run the unsupported tool, with this command - Veeam.Backup.VmMigrator.exe prepareformigration "vcenter.domain.com"
5. Review the migration_task file, and remove all the entries that might be there, and are irrelevant for this procedure
6. Execute Veeam.Backup.VmMigrator.exe executemigrationtask <migration_task_spec_file_name>
7. Hope for the best?

[Mildur]

Hi Kristian

Create a configuration backup of your VBR server as Step 1. It is the most important step at all.
The other steps look good from just reading it. But I never used the tool.
You should test this procedure with a side with the least amount of VMs. Or with a test ESXI host, if you have one.

Thanks
Fabian

[ksl28]

Hi Fabian,

Thanks for the update
I will remember to do a configuration backup first.

Just out of curiosity, do you know why Veeam dont have an official supported tool for tasks like this? It seems like a use case, that are often relevant.

[Mildur]

Hi Kristian

Switching the MorefID in the database is not that difficult.
But a lot of things needs to be tested to make sure that the correct VM is updated in the database.
And when you change something with the VMs outside of veeam, we cannot check what happened to the VM. Like removing and adding an esxi host.
This doesn't mean, that we are not thinking about it. There are some ideas for future versions.

What the product already can do is automatically updating the MoRef ID when you use quick migration between different vCenter or ESXI hosts. After the quick migration, we update the MoRef ID in the database. This is possible because VBR is aware what happened. VBR orchestrated the migration and knows exactly the source and the target VMs id.

Thanks
Fabian