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Vmware backup from SAN

David_Bond
Level 5

Hi,

I have setup my backup server to connect to the 4 luns that are used by our ESXi servers, backups work ok, some failed, and other problems, but thats for another question.

Windows has had

automount disable
automount scrub

set, and it is run on every boot.

The 4 luns show up in disk management as online, that is until i reboot the server and they were set to autoconnect. now one of the luns will not show up in disk management right away, it takes a very long time, then shows as unknown, causing disk management to hang, Also causing policy and  selection lists windows in backup exec to hang.

Could windows have screwed up the lun, I had this before, i vmotioned the datastores and everything was ok again, until I rebooted, could it be that the automount settings are not remembered and that the luns are loaded before my script is run, thus causing modifications to them?

Thanks

David

8 REPLIES 8

samueljn
Level 5
Employee Accredited

It could be possible that the issue is with the configuration or Windows

Follow the ISCSI SAN Configuration Guide from Vmware:

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_iscsi_san_cfg.pdf

SAN Transport Mode with Backup exec: http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH155831

ArulPrasad
Level 6
Employee

Verify the registry value if the automount really works:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MountMgr\NoAutoMount

 

Value 1 : Disabled

Value 0: enabled

 

 

Lesta_G
Level 6

Read through this to see if it is of any help

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/setting-backup-exec-2010-r3-use-san-transport-mode-bac...

what OS on media server, BE version patch and hotfix level, ESX server version and level

David_Bond
Level 5

Hi,

it is set to 1.

David

David_Bond
Level 5

OS: Windows 2008 R2 (upto date)

BE: Backup Exec 2010 R3, SP1, HF171073,164659,170962,172625,167791,173790

ESXi 4.1.0, 348481

The only thing in the read me that I hadnt done was the read only bit (but that would mean no restores to the SAN wouldnt it).

David_Bond
Level 5

Hi,

It does look like a problem with the server configuration, but what, Its a new install, when a new lun is presented to it, it works fine, shows up as online in disk managment, cant be formated etc, can be converted into a dynamic disk. Backups run (not as quick as directly from the VMs). all the luns work fine. The first time I set them up, it all worked fine (took a little time to get the backups running). Then after some updates, it started to hang, and then it was noticed that some of the partitions were online and others unknown, then i thought that some had been initialised, so I created some new luns and vmotioned all the data just incase they had.

Then everything was working again, until the server was rebooted the other day, then one of the luns doesnt show up for a long time if you mount it, when it does it shows as unknown, if you try to do anything in disk manager it hangs, if you do anything in the BE that is to do with disk access, it hangs. It will return after a very long time (hours).

But ESXi works fine still.

David

Colin_Weaver
Moderator
Moderator
Employee Accredited Certified

You can only backup via SAN anyway, restores via SAN are no longer supported after we discovered an issue that cannot be fixed in any kind of reasonable timeframe

 

The latest Hotfixes should remove the restore via SAN option.

Lesta_G
Level 6

Correct the read only bit means you cant restore via SAN transport

I don't do the automount on boot you did

I would read only them, I dont trust vmware or symantec to play together nicely and that was before symantec found the problem with the API :)

Also setting them read only helps eliminate the human error factor at your end.

If you have a particular problem witha LUN, I would migrate all data off it, drop it and recreate it