VM Incremental issue NBU7

[swest092]

We have 11 VMware virtual file servers that used to have the agents installed on them.  After the upgrade to NBU7 we saw an increased performance while testing with flashbackup-windows so we switched them to use flashbackup-windows instead of Windows-NT.  The full backup jobs run fine on them but the incremental fails with an error 11.  We have tried to just send them to tape and just send them to disk with the same results.  We also used the same process for the other 150 VMs and they all work fine.  Below is the error we receive.

4/12/2010 11:34:08 AM - estimated 0 Kbytes needed
4/12/2010 11:34:09 AM - started process bpbrm (6328)
4/12/2010 11:34:10 AM - connecting
4/12/2010 11:34:11 AM - connected; connect time: 00:00:01
4/12/2010 11:34:19 AM - begin writing
4/12/2010 11:35:18 AM - Error bpbrm(pid=6328) from client stfs1: ERR - Unable to retrieve volumes from virtual machine, error = 4109
4/12/2010 11:35:40 AM - Error bpbrm(pid=6328) from client stfs1: ERR - FIML_start_vm for VMWare on C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\online_util\fi_cntl\bpfis.fim.stfs1_1271090017.0.NBU_DATA.xml failed VFM error = 4109
4/12/2010 11:35:48 AM - Error bpbrm(pid=6328) could not send server status message      
4/12/2010 11:35:49 AM - end writing; write time: 00:01:30
system call failed(11)

Anyone have any ideas that I can try out?

[Brian_Smith1]

To be clear:
- File-level incremental is only available with VCB
- Block-level incremental is only available with vStorage and requires ESX 4

Can you clarify which you are attempting?

See pages 48-50 of the user guide:
http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/340112.htm

These pages describe the various backup-type + schedule-type + VCB/vStorage combinations.

[Anonymous]

Check inside the VM guest OS disk management for any indicators.
- all volumes NTFS not FAT32 (http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/319646.htm)
- no encryption or compression on volumes.
- use diskpart to see if your volumes are aligned correctly and for other hidden information about the OS volumes
- no uninitialized disks in the guest OS (http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/314120.htm)
- have you expanded any volumes recently inside the OS. I used to have issue with backups failing until I restarted the vmount service after I had expanded a OS volume.

[swest092]

I have it setup to use full mapped vm with full and incrementals for all VMs.  We are not using VCB for our backups anymore due to speed issues.  I am able to restore indiviual files from a full or incremental backup using full mapped vm.

So I would say that I am not using either of the 2

[swest092]

Thanks for the options to look at Stuart.

- I do have all of the volumes formatted as NTFS
- I don't have any encryption or compression on any of the drives
- What should I be looking for when using diskpart?
- There aren't any uninitialized disks.  All disks have been formatted and used
- I haven't expanded any of these drives.

Hopefully you can come up with some other stuff to try.

[JDeb68]

A co-worker who just attened the symantec conference last week, discussed the incremental backups available in version 7. To be able to take advantage of this, it is my undertsanding the hardware version of the vm's must be at version 7. In reviewing the posts I see that yours appears to be :  HW/OS/Client:  vmx-04

Thus the reason I am currently in the middle of updating many of our vm's to version 7 as we move to the new version of netbackup.

Just an idea..hope it helps

[Douglas_A]

Im currently doing NBU 7 VM backups, Daily INCR and weekly Fulls for Windows and Daily Fulls for LINUX guests.

Your ESX Environement needs to be 3.5 U2 min, and the VIC should be at least 2.5..

Also make sure the following directory exists

C:\Program Files\Veritas\NetBackup\online_util\fi_cntl... And before you attempt to do any backups, when you attempt to add a client it builds out a cache file, make sure this file has been built at least once for san based backups.

IF your only getting this error on a couple VM's check to make sure the disks arnt in Independent Mode.