NetBackup™ Web UI VMware Administrator's Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (8.2)
Platform: Linux,UNIX,Windows
  1. Introducing the NetBackup web user interface
    1.  
      About the NetBackup web user interface
    2.  
      Terminology
    3.  
      Sign in to the NetBackup web UI
  2. Managing VMware servers
    1.  
      Add VMware servers
    2.  
      Validate and update VMware server credentials
    3.  
      Browse VMware servers
    4.  
      Remove VMware servers
    5.  
      Create an intelligent VM group
    6.  
      Remove an intelligent VM group
    7.  
      Add a VMware access host
    8.  
      Remove a VMware access host
    9.  
      Discover VMware server assets manually
    10.  
      VMWARE_AUTODISCOVERY_INTERVAL option for NetBackup servers
  3. Protecting VMs
    1.  
      Protect VMs or intelligent VM groups
    2. Custom protection settings for an asset
      1.  
        Exclude disks from backups
      2.  
        Snapshot retry options
    3.  
      Remove protection from VMs or intelligent VM groups
    4.  
      View the protection status of VMs or intelligent VM groups
  4. VM recovery and instant access
    1.  
      Create an instant access VM
    2.  
      Restore files and folders from a VM backup image
    3.  
      Download files and folders from a VM backup image
    4.  
      Things to consider before you use the instant access feature
    5.  
      Recover a VM
    6.  
      About VMware agentless restore
    7.  
      Prerequisites and limitations of VMware agentless restores
    8.  
      Recover files and folders with VMware agentless restore
  5. Troubleshooting VM recovery
    1.  
      Errors encountered when adding VMware servers
    2.  
      Errors encountered when browsing VMware servers
    3.  
      Errors encountered when you review Status for a newly discovered VM
    4.  
      Error encountered when downloading files from an instant access VM
    5.  
      Troubleshooting issues with backups and restores of excluded virtual disks
    6.  
      Restore fails for a virtual machine with multiple datastores
    7.  
      Errors encountered when you change the recovery destination

Prerequisites and limitations of VMware agentless restores

Prerequisites:
  • You must provision VxUpdate packages for all platforms for which you have virtual machines where you want to perform agentless recovery.

  • You must have an account with administrator or root permissions on the target virtual machine.

  • The target VM is where the files are recovered. It must be powered on and have VMware Tools installed.

  • The default staging location on the target VM is %TEMP% or %TMP% for Windows and the root directory (/) for Linux.

  • The staging location must exist on the target VM file system.

  • You must have the latest version of VMware Tools installed to perform agentless restores.

Limitations:
  • Agentless restores to Windows target VMs can fail if you use an account other than the built-in Administrator for Windows Guest OS account as the Target VM Credentials. The restore fails because Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode is enabled. More information is available:

    https://www.veritas.com/content/support/en_US/article.100046138.html

  • VMware agentless restores can only be used for the restore of files and folders.

  • In some instances, when you perform an agentless restores, orphaned VMs starting with NB_ are left behind. Using the ESX server credentials to perform the restore on the target VM even though the vCenter manages the ESX server can cause this condition. This condition is a known limitation of VMware. To resolve the problem, register the vCenter in NetBackup and use vCenter credentials for backups and restores. The orphaned VMs starting with NB_ can be removed from inventory manually by logging into the vCenter using VMware vSphere Client.

  • Restore job fails if NetBackup is unable to use the directory that is specified in the TMP or TEMP environment variable as the staging directory.

  • Restore job fails if NetBackup does not have sufficient privileges to the staging directory or if there is insufficient space in the staging directory.

  • If you select Flatten existing directory structure and Overwrite existing files options, you risk an incorrect restore if it contains multiple files with the same file name. In this case, the last file that is restored is the one that is present when the restore completes.

    If you select Flatten existing directory structure and you do not select Overwrite existing files, the restore succeeds, and the first file that is restored is present when the restore completes. To prevent this issue, do not select Flatten existing directory structure when restoring multiple files with the same name.

  • The Flatten existing directory structure and Append string to file names options are only applicable to files. They are not available for directories.

  • Multiple restore jobs to the same VM are not supported. The user must start another job as needed for that VM once the first restore job for that VM has completed.

  • If a backup and a restore occur simultaneously on the same VM, one or both jobs can have unexpected results. If a backup or a restore exits with a non-zero NetBackup Status Code, one possible cause is simultaneous jobs occurring on the same VM.

  • Veritas does not recommend VMware agentless restore if a NetBackup client already exists on the target VM. The NetBackup administrator must use the agent based restore in such cases.

  • Veritas supports SLES, Red Hat, and Windows as the guest operating systems for the target VM.