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Restoring VM without deleting the original one, BackupExec 15 on Win Server 2012r2, Linux VM

kalamchi
Level 3

Hi,

I need to to restore a Linux VM to VMware without deleting the original one. The problem is that I am not sure if the restore will solve the issue I have with that VM, or if it will work at all for that matter (still new to BackupExec and don't have experience in restoring machines). So i'd rather keep the original working machine (with some issues), rather than have deleted and end up with a non working restore.

Would shutting down the original VM, and renaming it do the trick ?

Thanks for your advice

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

To add to pkh's correct answer

Redirection options for VMware allow you to specify both a different datastore and a different VM name - obviously if you only have 1 datastore then you have to go back to same one, but changing the name will result in a new VM being created (if worried about the process make sure you don't enable the overwrite existing machine option and then the restore job wil fail if you get the settings wrong)

 

Note whilst we can change the VM name as seen inside the vSphere consoles, it does not change the hostname within the Operating System of the VM itself, so don't try to power up both old and restored VM at the same time if it is likely to cause issues.

 

Also be prespared to have to setup the IP address(es) again inside the restored VM.  Admitedly I am not sure about this for Linux but the PlugNPlay process in a restored Windows machine can result in  deciding the network card is a new one and therefore setting it to DHCP and not configuring it with the original address (we have restored the original address it will just be referencing a network card which the OS thinks is no longer present in the (virtual) hardware.

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4 REPLIES 4

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
You can redirect the restore to a new VM. This will leave the original VM untouched

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

To add to pkh's correct answer

Redirection options for VMware allow you to specify both a different datastore and a different VM name - obviously if you only have 1 datastore then you have to go back to same one, but changing the name will result in a new VM being created (if worried about the process make sure you don't enable the overwrite existing machine option and then the restore job wil fail if you get the settings wrong)

 

Note whilst we can change the VM name as seen inside the vSphere consoles, it does not change the hostname within the Operating System of the VM itself, so don't try to power up both old and restored VM at the same time if it is likely to cause issues.

 

Also be prespared to have to setup the IP address(es) again inside the restored VM.  Admitedly I am not sure about this for Linux but the PlugNPlay process in a restored Windows machine can result in  deciding the network card is a new one and therefore setting it to DHCP and not configuring it with the original address (we have restored the original address it will just be referencing a network card which the OS thinks is no longer present in the (virtual) hardware.

kalamchi
Level 3

Thanks PKH, Thanks Colin.

I will try the solution you recommended and update this thread with the outcome.

 

 

kalamchi
Level 3

UPDATE:

Changing the name of the machine in VMware does the trick.

- Shutdown the original machine in VMware.

- Change the name of the original machine to anything different, say add '.OLD' to it (this will change the machine registered name in VMware, but it will not affect the actual hostname).

- Restore the machine from BackupExec, WITHOUT selecting "Delete machine".

However, as Colin mentioned, ETH didn't come up (I have two ETH ports in the machine I restored). It seems that Linux freaked out as the machine got new MAC addresses for its virtual NICs. The trick was to manually change the MAC address in VMware to match the original one. Once the new machine is started again, both ETH ports came up with their correct IP addresses. 

Thanks Guys for the help.