NetBackup™ Web UI VMware Administrator's Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (10.1)
  1. Managing VMware servers
    1.  
      Add VMware servers
    2.  
      Validate and update VMware server credentials
    3.  
      Browse VMware servers
    4.  
      Remove VMware servers
    5.  
      Create an intelligent VM group
    6.  
      Remove an intelligent VM group
    7.  
      Add a VMware access host
    8.  
      Remove a VMware access host
    9.  
      Change resource limits for VMware resource types
    10.  
      About VMware discovery
    11.  
      Change the autodiscovery frequency of VMware assets
    12.  
      Discover VMware server assets manually
  2. Protecting VMs
    1.  
      Working with VMware policies in the web UI
    2. Protect VMs or intelligent VM groups
      1.  
        Schedules
      2.  
        Backup options and Advanced options
      3.  
        Exclude disks from backups
      4.  
        Snapshot retry options
    3.  
      Customize protection settings for a VMware asset
    4.  
      Remove protection from VMs or intelligent VM groups
    5.  
      View the protection status of VMs or intelligent VM groups
  3. Malware scan
    1.  
      Scan a VMware asset for malware
  4. Instant access
    1.  
      Create an instant access VM
    2.  
      Restore files and folders from a VM backup image
    3.  
      Download files and folders from a VM backup image
    4.  
      Things to consider before you use the instant access feature
    5. Instant access Build Your Own (BYO)
      1.  
        Prerequisites of Instant Access Build Your Own (BYO)
      2.  
        Hardware configuration requirement of Instant Access Build Your Own (BYO)
      3.  
        Frequently asked questions
    6.  
      VM malware scan
  5. Instant rollback
    1.  
      Prerequisites of instant rollback
    2.  
      Things to consider before you use the instant rollback feature
    3.  
      Instant rollback from a VM backup image
  6. Continuous data protection
    1.  
      CDP terminology
    2.  
      CDP architecture
    3.  
      About continuous data protection
    4.  
      Prerequisites
    5.  
      Capacity-based licensing for CDP
    6.  
      Steps to configure CDP
    7.  
      Removing VMs from the CDP gateway
    8.  
      Defining the CDP gateway
    9.  
      Sizing considerations
    10.  
      Limiting concurrent CDP backup jobs
    11.  
      Controlling full sync
    12.  
      Monitoring CDP jobs
    13.  
      Using accelerators with CDP
    14.  
      Recovering CDP protected VMs
    15.  
      Some limitations of CDP
    16.  
      Troubleshooting for CDP
  7. VM recovery
    1. Recover a VM
      1.  
        Recovery options
      2.  
        Advanced recovery options
      3.  
        Advanced recovery options: Format of restored virtual disks
      4.  
        Advanced recovery options: Transport mode
    2.  
      About VMware agentless restore
    3.  
      Prerequisites and limitations of VMware agentless restores
    4.  
      Recover files and folders with VMware agentless restore
    5.  
      About restricted restore mode
    6.  
      Recover VMware Cloud Director virtual machines
  8. Protecting VMs using hardware snapshot and replication
    1.  
      About virtual machines and hardware snapshots
    2.  
      Deployment and architecture
    3.  
      Features and applications supported
    4.  
      Prerequisites for hardware snapshot and replication
    5.  
      Operations supported with hardware snapshot
    6.  
      Configuring a VMware policy to use hardware snapshot
    7.  
      Configuring a VMware policy to use NetBackup snapshot manager replication
    8.  
      Jobs in the Activity Monitor that use hardware snapshot for VMs
    9.  
      Notes and limitations
    10.  
      Troubleshooting with VMware hardware snapshot and replication operations
  9. Troubleshooting VMware operations
    1.  
      Errors when adding VMware servers
    2.  
      Errors when browsing VMware servers
    3.  
      Errors for the status for a newly discovered VM
    4.  
      Error when downloading files from an instant access VM
    5.  
      Troubleshooting backups and restores of excluded virtual disks
    6.  
      Restore fails for a virtual machine with multiple datastores

Troubleshooting for CDP

VAIO stops sending data to CDP gateway

Happens when the IOFilter encounters problem and hence enters into NOOP (Non-Operational) mode.

Possible reasons:

  • IOfilter encountered problem with datastore.

  • IOfilter encountered problem while reading from vmdk on ESXi server.

Workaround:

Remove the VTSTAP policy from all the disks of protected the VMs and reattach.

Error: Storage policy is not detached from one or more virtual disks of virtual machine.

Happens when the storage policy is not detached from all the virtual disks of the VM. The next backups fail with error code 156.

Workaround:

Remove the Veritas I/O filter based storage (vtstap) policy from all the disks the VM that CDP protected previously. You can do this operation on the vCenter.

Error: Failed to retrieve or parse the version of Veritas IO filter.

You may get this error when trying to subscribe one or more VMs to CDP protection plan. Occurs when the CIM server service on ESXi server is non-responsive.

Workaround:

Restart the CIM server service on the ESXi server and retry the VM subscription to CDP protection plan. You can find the CIM server service of ESXi server, under Configure > Services section of the ESXi.

nbcctd service goes in inconsistent state. Cannot configure the CDP gateway.

Possible reasons:

  • When you mount a read-only file system and provide its path in the CDP gateway configuration, service is configured, but the gateway fails to start.

  • When you try to configure the gateway again, by giving a read/write path, the service still fails to start.

Workaround: Retry the operation after you remove the nbcct directory from:

  • <NBU installation path>/netbackup/nbcct in NetBackup 9.1.

  • <staginglocation>/nbcct in NetBackup 10.0 onwards.

CDP-based protection plan fails with the error: Storage policy is not attached to one or more virtual disks of virtual machine to be registered for IO tapping.

Possible reasons:

Currently, NetBackup supports only vtstap policy as storage policy for CDP. If you try to subscribe a VM using hybrid storage policy (encryption + replication) it shows the error.

Workaround: Avoid using hybrid storage policy (encryption + replication) for CDP protected VMs.

CDP service is not getting started after media server restart or mount path-related changes.

Possible reasons:

The configured staging area is unmounted post reboot or having an unsupported file system. For example, if you configure the CDP gateway using a supported mount like /mnt/stage_area and do not configure auto mount. After a system restart, this path points to root file system, which CDP does not support, hence the CDP service (nbcctd) cannot start.

Workaround: Ensure that the staging area or the relevant disk mounts are remounted properly, whenever there are changes in the system related to unmount or system reboot.

VM gets unsubscribed in powered off state and having I/O tapping policies attached to the VMDK. It should give warning to remove storage policies and then unsubscribe.

Possible reasons:

While removing CDP protection, if the protected VM is powered off, CDP gateway cannot get the required information of storage policies from VAIO. Hence, though the CDP protection is removed from the VM, the I/O tapping policies are still attached to the VMDK of that VM, it continues to tap the I/O'S and affect performance.

Workaround: Always detach the storage policy of the VMs before unsubscribing the VMs, irrespective of its powered on or off state.

Subscription to NetBackup protection plan fails, but the backup jobs keep dumping data in the staging area.

Explanation

Occurs when you protect a NetBackup primary server, using the same primary server's protection plan.

Workaround: We do not recommend protecting a NetBackup primary server using a protection plan made using the same primary server. If this error occurs, detach the Veritas storage policy from the NetBackup primary server VM, and unsubscribe the VM from the protection plan.

Cannot delete CDP protection plan when the CDP gateway is unreachable.

Explanation:

CDP policy is not deleted after removing the entries in case of an unreachable host.

Workaround: The CDP protection plan subscription does not get removed as we are not deleting the CDP policy before cleaning up the CDP host. So, we need to call Delete policy API manually after calling the Delete CDP gateway API, to delete the entries of the unreachable gateway.

You can clean up an unreachable CDP gateway using the following API: 

To DELETE CDP Gateway

URL : https://netbackup/config/cdp-gateway/force

HTTP Method : DELETE

Headers:

    Authorisation: Bearer <Token>

    Content-Type: application/vnd.netbackup+json;version=7.0;charset=UTF-8

To Delete Policy

URL : https://netbackup/config/policies/policy_name

HTTP Method : DELETE

Headers:

    Authorisation: Bearer <Token>

After successful execution of above two APIs, the mapping for the policy and the VM is still visible in the web UI. If you try to remove protection of that VM through web UI, you can see an error message saying: Subscription ID not found. This is expected behavior.

CDP gateway update operation fails to restart the CDP service (nbcctd) on the gateway

Explanation: CDP gateway update operation tries to restart the service. If stopping the service takes longer time than usual, then update operation shows an error, indicating that the CDP service (nbcctd) failed to restart.

Workaround: In this case, check if the nbcctd service is running on the gateway. If the service is running, wait for it to shut down. To manually stop the service, use the command: /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/nbcctd -terminate. When the service has stopped, start it using the command /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/nbcctd -X.