VCB and Networker - File System Backups

[beaubarendt]

First and foremost - this is a new deployment.

Environment:Legato Networker 7.5.1,VMware Consolidated Backup 1.5,ESX 3.5 Update 4,Transport mode is SAN,Snapshot Policy is Automatic, VCB Proxy - Windows 2003 SP2

I am able to get a successful backup via VCB as long as I do a FULL (e.g. VM:host.domain.com:FULL), but I am unable to perform a file system backup by select directories on the same VM (e.g. VM:host.domain.com:C\:D\Folder1:I\Folder2). The status output from Networker I get is

savegrp: suppressed 2 lines of verbose output

Got coordinator object

Attempting data access.

Error: Mount point "C:\mnt\host.domain.com" already exists.

An error occurred, cleaning up...

Sending soap request to : logout

External command failed. See error above.

Exit Code: 1

Thanks in advance for any help

[dconvery]

I am guessing from the error message that you have a directory called c:\mnt\host.domain.com

Remove host.domain.com so that only c:\mnt exists

You would be better to change that to a non-system drive, like 😧 or E: in the config.js file.

Check out my VCB Proven Practice Guide on VI:OPS -> http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1392

Also check out Chris Skinner's doc on Legato 7.4 -> http://viops.vmware.com/home/docs/DOC-1122 It may help as well.

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

[beaubarendt]

I am guessing from the error message that you have a directory called c:\mnt\host.domain.com

Well, yes and no, the directory gets created when the job starts, but gets immediately cleared out - in VC, a snapshot is created and likewise immediately removed - all before an actual backup can occur.

Remove host.domain.com so that only c:\mnt exists

As I said, right now that is how the directory is - only when a job starts do the sub directories get created - I have also run the cleanup script to make sure there were no hidden files.

You would be better to change that to a non-system drive, like 😧 or E: in the config.js file.

I am in the testing phase of our deployment - so the system I am using for my proxy will have non-system storage for /mnt when I actually go into production - but thank you for the good advice.

Check out my VCB Proven Practice Guide on VI:OPS ->

Also check out Chris Skinner's doc on Legato 7.4 -> It may help as well

Thank you - I will go through these reference docs.

Regards,

Beau

[dconvery]

One thing you can do is add LOGLEVEL=6; to the config.js file to make a verbose log. Your logs are under %TEMP%, which is usually C:\windows\temp. You can attach them as files here.

The other thing to try is run vcbMounter from the command line to see if it is set up OK. If you run it from command line, add "-L 6" to get the verbose logging.

You can do the following to test out the framework:

C:
cd "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework\generic"
cscript pre-command.wsf "C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Consolidated Backup Framework" %1 file

Dave Convery

VMware vExpert 2009

http://www.dailyhypervisor.com

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

[beaubarendt]

Running the pre-command from command line helped me to identify the issue - However, even thought I have the logging level in config.js set to 6 I wasn't getting the log output I needed to point me in the right direction. Running pre-command from command line helped me to identify that it was a permissions problem to c:\windows\temp\vmware-system\vmware-temp. The permissions were set for Administrators full on "This folder, subfolders and files" at the parent level, but was only set to Full for "This folder only" at the vmware-system folder level so I was not creating the temp files necessary - the other issue I had was stupidity - we have both fiber and iSCSI SAN and the system I was testing is connected to iSCSI and not the fiber - I tested a different system, and it is working like a champ.

Thanks a bunch for the help