Veritas NetBackup™ for Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) Administrator's Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (9.0.0.1, 9.0)
  1. Introduction to NetBackup for Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV)
    1.  
      Protect AHV using NetBackup
    2. About the Hypervisor policy type to protect Nutanix AHV VMs
      1.  
        Migrating BigData policy to Hypervisor policy
      2.  
        Deprecation of BigData policy to protect Nutanix AHV VMs
    3.  
      NetBackup terminology related to the AHV backup
    4.  
      NetBackup for AHV environment
  2. Prerequisites and things to consider before using Nutanix for AHV
    1.  
      Prerequisites
    2. Things to consider before using the NetBackup plug-in for Nutanix AHV
      1.  
        NetBackup character restrictions for virtual machine names
  3. Configuring NetBackup communication with AHV
    1.  
      Establishing communication between NetBackup and Nutanix AHV
    2. Configuring secure communication between the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor server and NetBackup host
      1.  
        Managing SSL certificates on NetBackup Appliance
      2. Managing SSL certificates through ECA framework
        1.  
          ECA_TRUST_STORE_PATH for NetBackup servers and clients
        2.  
          ECA_CRL_PATH for NetBackup servers and clients
        3.  
          VIRTUALIZATION_HOSTS_SECURE_CONNECT_ENABLED for servers and clients
        4.  
          VIRTUALIZATION_CRL_CHECK for NetBackup servers and clients
    3.  
      Adding the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor Cluster credentials for NetBackup
    4. Adding a backup host to the NetBackup master server
      1.  
        Adding a backup host to the NetBackup master access list
      2.  
        Configuring a NetBackup Appliance as a backup host
    5.  
      Adding a backup host to the Acropolis Cluster access list
  4. Configuring NetBackup policies for AHV
    1.  
      Creating a backup policy using the NetBackup Policies utility
    2.  
      Creating a backup policy using the NetBackup Command Line Interface
  5. Backup and recovery
    1. Back up the Nutanix AHV virtual machines
      1.  
        Basic phases in a NetBackup backup of an AHV
    2. Overview of the Nutanix AHV virtual machines recovery process
      1.  
        About recovering the Nutanix AHV virtual machines
      2.  
        Planning the recovery of a Nutanix AHV VM
      3.  
        Recovering a Nutanix AHV VM using the Backup, Archive, and Restore console
      4.  
        About recovering AHV VMs from the images that are backed up using NetBackup versions 8.1, 8.1.1, or 8.1.2
      5. Recovering a Nutanix AHV VM using the command line for Hypervisor policy
        1.  
          Creating or modifying the rename file
        2.  
          Using the command line to recover Nutanix AHV virtual machines for Hypervisor policy
  6. Troubleshooting issues
    1.  
      Troubleshooting issues related to AHV backup
    2.  
      NetBackup logs
    3.  
      About errors during policy creation, restore, and validation
    4.  
      NetBackup status codes
  7. Appendix A. NetBackup commands to backup and restore Nutanix AHV virtual machines
    1.  
      NetBackup commands for protecting the AHV
  8.  
    Index

About errors during policy creation, restore, and validation

Table: NetBackup troubleshooting scenarios

Problem

Recommended action

The policy validation or the backup job fails when you have provided invalid or empty value in the backup selection.

Enter the following parameters in backup selections:

  • Hypervisor_Type=Nutanix-AHV

  • Application_Server=Fully Qualified Domain Name or the IP address of the Nutanix cluster

  • Backup_Host=Fully Qualified Domain Name or the IP address

The backup job fails when the backup selection does not contain the Backup_Host parameter.

Add the Backup_Host parameter to the backup selections as follows:

Backup_Host=Fully Qualified Domain Name or the IP address

See Adding a backup host to the NetBackup master server.

The backup job fails when you provide an invalid or an empty value when you specify clients or virtual machines to be backed up.

Enter the name of the virtual machines that you want to backup. In addition, verify that the virtual machine name is correct and meets the character restrictions.

See NetBackup character restrictions for virtual machine names .

The backup host is not reachable.

Verify the backup host name. The backup host name is the FQDN of the backup host.

Backup fails when the NetBackup client version on the backup host is older than 8.1.

The NetBackup client version on the backup host must be 8.2 and must have the out-of-band plug-in.

The backup job may fail when the operating system of the backup host is not Linux.

The operating system of the backup host must be Linux.

The backup job fails when credentials are invalid or not configured for the Application_Server parameter.

Verify that you have provided correct credentials.

Ensure that the value that you have provided for the Application_Server parameters matched the one that you provided while specifying Nutanix Acropolis Cluster credentials.

See Adding the Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor Cluster credentials for NetBackup.

The recovery fails if you select recovery to the original location and the AHV container is unavailable.

Ensure that the AHV container is available, create the container, or use the alternate location option to recover the VM.

The recovery fails and the VM is not created on the alternate cluster because of the unavailability of network connectivity.

Ensure that there is network connectivity between the NetBackup servers and AHV clusters, and retry the recovery process.

The recovery fails if a different backup or recovery host is used than the one that was used during the backup.

Add the backup or the recovery host that you want to use during the VM recovery to the file system whitelist using the Nutanix Prism console.

Unable to unmount a container at the end of a VM restore. The recovery operation is partially successful.

The following error is displayed:

Failed to unmount container %s from mount path %s

OR

Failed to mount restore directory

  1. Delete the container directory from the following path:

    /usr/openv/tmp/ntxmnt/<JOB_ID>/
    <container_name>/.restore

  2. Delete the local directory from:

    /usr/openv/tmp/ntxmnt/<JOB_ID>

When you select a Windows backup host, VM details are not displayed on the recovery wizard.

The No Files Found dialog box is displayed.

Use a Linux backup host.

The policy validation or the backup job fails when you have not provided the certificate trust store path correctly.

Ensure that the Nutanix cluster name used while adding Nutanix server in NetBackup should match with one of the subject name or alternate subject names in the certificate issued to the Nutanix cluster.

Ensure that you have downloaded the root certificate of the CA issuing certificate to the Nutanix cluster, or the self-signed certificate of the Nutanix Acropolis server. This certificate must be stored in a PEM file.

ECA_TRUST_STORE_PATH in bp.conf must point to the absolute path of this file.

The Nutanix AHV VM restores successfully but the VM does not boot up.

  • For Nutanix AHV version 5.10 and UEFI boot machines, the following manual step is needed for both BigData policy (with EEB) and Hypervisor policy:

    On the controller VM of Nutanix run:

    <acli> vm.update <restored_vm_name> uefi_boot=True

  • If boot device type that is configured on the backed up VM was NIC then update the boot device setting so that the VM boots up over the network, the following manual step is needed for both BigData policy (with EEB associated with Etrack 3982204) and Hypervisor policy:

    On the controller VM of Nutanix, replace vm with the name of the restored VM and mac_addr with the MAC address of the virtual interface that the VM must use to boot over the network.

    For example, update the boot device setting of the VM named nw-boot-vm so that the restored VM uses the virtual interface with MAC address 00-00-5E-00-53-FF.

    <acli> vm.update_boot_device nw-boot-vm mac_addr=00-00-5E-00-53-FF

    If the VM is with NIC and UEFI, then for UEFI run the following additional steps:

    • For AHV version 5.11 to set boot configuration as UEFI we also have an option on prism console

      From the Nutanix Prism console, select the VM and click Update.

      Select the UEFI firmware under the Boot Configuration section.

      Click Save. Restart the VM.

    • If the AHV version is earlier than 5.11 then run the following command from the controller VM:

      <acli> vm.update <restored_vm_name> uefi_boot=True

    The following message is listed in the bpVMutil logs (/usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpVMutil/log_file):

    Unable to restore the information to boot up the VM. Start the VM manually, if required.

  • For BigData policy (with EEB associated with Etrack 3982204), run the following step manually for all the UEFI boot machines:

    On the controller VM of Nutanix run:

    <acli> vm.update <restored_vm_name> uefi_boot=True

During the Nutanix AHV VM restore using the command line, the following error is displayed:

Hypervisor policy restore error (2822)

When you use the command line to restore the Nutanix AHV VMs with a backup host that has NetBackup 8.2 but does not have the Nutanix AHV plug-in, the restore fails.

Ensure that the plug-in is installed on the backup host that has NetBackup 8.2.

During the Nutanix AHV VM restore using the command line, the following error is displayed:

network read failed (42)

When you use the bprestore command with the -w option to restore the Nutanix AHV VMs that are backed up using the Hypervisor policy, the restore job fails.

The restore job fails and the following error is displayed in the Activity Monitor:

"The combination of the selected recovery options is invalid."

The issue occurs if the recovery option provided is not valid. This error is seen if one of the following scenarios is true:

  • Unsupported recovery options are set in the rename file. The vmname value cannot be different that the backup image when the retainvmuuid and overwriteexistingvm keywords are set to true.

  • If you try to overwrite the existing VM without retaining the VM UUID.

Workaround:

Ensure that the recovery option are correct before you run the restore operation. For detailed errors, refer to the log /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpVMutil/ on the NetBackup backup host .

For more details, refer to the NetBackup for Nutanix AHV Administrator's Guide.

The following errors are seen during a backup or restore operation:

"Unmount operation failed."

"Mount operation failed."

The issue occurs if:

  • The NetBackup backup host is not whitelisted in Nutanix AHV.

  • There is a network error.

  • NFS access or mount issue.

Workaround:

For backup failures, refer to the /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpbkar/ logs and for restore failures, refer to the /usr/openv/logs/ncfnbrestore/ logs for the exact reason of failure.

You might want to manually unmount the folders of a failed job.

The restore operation is partially successful and the following error is displayed:

"Post Restore cleanup is failed"

The issue occurs if:

  • There is an error related to mount or unmount.

  • There is a data deletion issue on the Nutanix AHV cluster.

Workaround:

Restore is successful just the clean-up has failed. Refer to the /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpVMutil/ log on the NetBackup backup host for the exact reason of failure.

During the policy validation for Incremental policy, if the backup host specified in policy is has NetBackup version 8.2 or earlier, the following error is displayed:

"Backup host has an older version of NetBackup. Upgrade to the latest version."

For incremental backups, the NetBackup client on the backup host must be upgraded to version 8.3 or later.

When you restore using NetBackup version 8.2 and the out-of-band plugin the restore process can fail.

The following error is displayed in the activity monitor:

Hypervisor policy restore error. (2822)

In the /usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bpVMutil logs, the following errors are logged:

<16> preRestoreVM: Failed to create: dir /usr/openv/tmp/ntxmnt/*, ret = 6647

<2> bpVMutil main: error code: 2879: invalid error number

<2> bpVMutil main: EXIT STATUS 2879: invalid error number

This issue occurs in the following scenario:

During the backup, a ntxmnt folder is created that is used during the restore process. If the ntxmnt folder is not available during restore, then the restore process fails.

Workaround:

Manually create the ntxmnt in the /usr/openv/tmp/ directory before you start the restore process.

In the Hypervisor Policy > Backup Selections tab, if you delete any entry, the New button remains disabled and you are unable to re-add the entry that you have deleted.

Workaround:

Close the policy without saving the changes and re-open to get the previously saved values. You can then modify the existing entries, if required.

If a policy is created using the command line and an incremental schedule is added but the -blkincr option is not set to 1, the following error is displayed:

Incorrect configuration for the incremental backup schedule. Set the correct block level incremental value for the backup policy.

Workaround:

Modify the policy and set the -blkincr option to 1.

When the target server for AIR is a Nutanix AHV server, a failed to get the container list error is seen in the Activity Monitor for a backup operation.

This error can happen when the Nutanix AHV server is not available or accessible when the backups are taken. This can be due to the following reasons:

  • A disaster has occurred at the Nutanix AHV server location.

  • The Nutanix AHV server hardware is replaced.

  • The Nutanix AHV credentials are incorrect or they have expired.

  • The security certificates are incorrect or they have expired.

  • The AIR or DR location where the AHV server is configured is not available or accessible.