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How to unlock a VMware virtual machine

Article: 100038201
Last Published: 2020-12-16
Ratings: 3 4
Product(s): NetBackup & Alta Data Protection

Description

Purpose

A tool is available in NetBackup that will unlock a VMware virtual machine(VM) that was left locked during a previous backup or restore job. When locked vMotion storage migration will fail for that VM until the VM is unlocked.

 
When should it be used
 
When performing the backup of a VMWare virtual machine, NetBackup locks the virtual machine to prevent vMotion storage migration during the period of the backup. Once the backup completes, NetBackup unlocks the virtual machine. Sometimes, unlocking the virtual machine fails which in turn prevents the storage migration of the virtual machine. In such scenarios, the backup or restore job may complete partially (Conditional success) and activity monitor displays the following message in the Detailed Status tab of the Job Details dialog:
 
3/26/2013 4:18:07 PM - Critical bpbrm(pid=7292) from client <client name>: VMware_thaw: Unable to unlock virtual machine: <client name>
 
The change to set the job status to 1 in case of unlock failure was introduced in NetBackup 7.6.
 
The user can run the bpVMutil command on the VMware Backup host to unlock the virtual machine.
 
How to use the command
 
The following table lists the syntax for using the command
 

 

Object Path
CLI
DC path to the VM
bpVMutil unlockvm "/<Datacenter>/<Folder>/<Display Name>" <vCenter Server / ESX Host>
BIOS UUID
bpVMutil unlockvm "/uuid/503a7012-xxxx-xxxx-da8d-6703f95fd053" <vCenter Server / ESX Host> OR
bpVMutil unlockvm "/vmuuid/503a7012-xxxx-xxxx-da8d-6703f95fd053" <vCenter Server / ESX Host>
IP Address
bpVMutil unlockvm "/ip/10.209.xx.xxx" <vCenter Server / ESX Host> OR
bpVMutil unlockvm "/vmip/10.209.xx.xxx" <vCenter Server / ESX Host>
DNS
bpVMutil unlockvm "/vmdns/<hostname>.test.com" <vCenter Server / ESX Host>
VMMOR
bpVMutil unlockvm "/vmmor/<moref>" <vCenter Server / ESX Host>
INST UUID
bpVMutil unlockvm "/vminstuuid/503a7012-xxxx-xxxx-da8d-6703f95fd053" <vCenter Server / ESX Host>

 

Below steps should be performed on the Vmware backup host.
The command expects 2 parameters
 
1.  VM identifier to uniquely identify the virtual machine. NetBackup supports six different types of VM identifiers as listed above. If multiple VMs are found for a given identifier (possible in case of IP Address, DNS & BIOS UUID), the command displays the list of VMs found and requests user to rerun the command with a another VM identifier like VMMOR or Instance UUID.
 
2.  vCenter server / ESX Host on which the VM is hosted.
 
Sample output when unlocking a VM using DC path to the VM. The first command fails and the second one succeeds:
 
C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin> bpVMutil.exe unlockvm "MVCB2/vm/testVM" virtualcenter1.test.com
 
Searching for virtual machine with path MVCB2/vm/testVM on virtualcenter1.test.com...
Unlocking the virtual machine has failed. Please refer to logs for further information.
 
C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin> bpVMutil.exe unlockvm "MVCB3/vm/testVM" virtualcenter1.test.com
 
Searching for virtual machine with path MVCB3/vm/testVM on virtualcenter1.test.com...
 
Virtual machine details
 
Name          - testVM
FQDN          -
MOR           - vm-3504
IP            -
BIOS UUID     - 422b4dc5-57a8-ca77-88fc-3c4749b475dc
Instance UUID - 502bf0e5-35f4-e7a5-51b1-8092bfdc1fcd
ESX Host      - esxhost07.test.com
Datacenter    - datacenter-21
 
Attempting to unlock the virtual machine...
2013-03-26T16:45:43.207-07:00 [07832 info 'Default'] Initialized channel manager
 
2013-03-26T16:45:43.207-07:00 [07832 info 'Default'] Current working directory: C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\bin
2013-03-26T16:45:43.207-07:00 [07832 verbose 'ThreadPool'] TaskMax=10, IoMin=1,IoMax=21
2013-03-26T16:45:46.124-07:00 [07832 trivia 'Default'] Starting to shut down worker thread pool.
2013-03-26T16:45:47.138-07:00 [07832 trivia 'Default'] Worker thread pool is shut down.
 
The virtual machine has been successfully unlocked.
 
Logs to gather in the event of error:
installpath\VERITAS\NetBackup\logs\bpVMutil
Note: Please configure the log verbosity to at least 3.

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