NetBackup10 AdminGuide Hyper-V
NetBackup10 AdminGuide Hyper-V
NetBackup10 AdminGuide Hyper-V
Administrator's Guide
Release 10.0
NetBackup™ for Hyper-V Administrator's Guide
Last updated: 2022-03-04
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Contents
About Hyper-V online and offline backups for VSS ............................. 173
Conditions that determine online vs. offline backup for VSS ................. 174
Additional notes on offline backups with VSS .................................... 175
Hyper-V 2012 R2 virtual machines may be in the Off state when
restored .............................................................................. 175
■ About Hyper-V
About Hyper-V
NetBackup for Hyper-V provides snapshot-based backup of the virtual machines
that run on Hyper-V servers. For a list of supported Hyper-V servers, see the
NetBackup Software Compatibility List available from the following location:
NetBackup Compatibility List for all Versions
The principal features of NetBackup for Hyper-V are the following:
■ NetBackup for Hyper-V uses snapshot technology to keep virtual machines
100% available to users. NetBackup for Hyper-V creates quiesced Windows
snapshots using Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and Windows
Management Instrumentation (WMI).
■ NetBackup for Hyper-V performs full backups and file-level incremental backups
of the virtual machine. With the WMI backup method, it also performs block-level
incremental backups and Accelerator backups.
■ Can restore the full virtual machine from the following:
■ Full backups of the VM.
Introduction 11
NetBackup for Hyper-V environment
■ Can restore individual files of the virtual machine from the following:
■ Full backups of the VM.
■ File-level incremental backups of the VM.
■ Block-level incremental backups of the VM.
■ Accelerator backups of the VM.
■ Can restore to the original virtual machine, to other locations on the Hyper-V
server, or to a different Hyper-V server.
NetBackup primary Runs the backup policies and starts backups and restores.
server
NetBackup media server Reads and writes backup data and manages NetBackup storage media. The NetBackup
media server can be installed on the Hyper-V host or on a different host.
For a more efficient backup, install the NetBackup media server on the Hyper-V host.
If the Server Type on the policy Clients tab is System Center Virtual Machine Manager,
a NetBackup client must also be installed on the SCVMM server.
Note: In most cases, the client does not need to be installed on any virtual machine. For
exceptions, refer to the following topics.
See “Requirements for a NetBackup client inside the virtual machine” on page 55.
See “Prerequisites for alternate client backup of a virtual machine (VSS)” on page 53.
Hyper-V server A Windows hypervisor virtualization system, for creating the virtual machine guests that
run in a Windows Server host computer.
Hyper-V integration Provides the integration between the Hyper-V server and the virtual machines.
services (integration
Note: The Hyper-V backup integration service must be enabled.
components)
NetBackup
primary server
LAN / WAN
Term Description
avhd, avhdx file A snapshot file that Windows Hyper-V creates, for point-in-time recovery of the virtual machine.
See “Basic phases in a NetBackup backup of a Hyper-V virtual machine” on page 13.
Common vhd, vhdx Refers to a virtual disk (vhd or vhdx file) that contains the files that multiple virtual machines
files require. Instead of copies of the same file existing at multiple places, the virtual machines
share a single vhd or vhdx file (the parent).
Term Description
CSV A cluster-shared volume in a failover cluster. Refer to your Microsoft documentation for more
details regarding CSV.
Differencing disk A differencing disk is in a child relationship to the parent disk (see common vhd, vhdx files).
The parent and child virtual disks may be on the same physical drive or on different physical
drives. This mechanism enables common files to be shared across virtual machines.
HA (high availability) Describes a virtual machine that is configured in a cluster. If the virtual machine's Hyper-V
host goes down, the virtual machine automatically moves to another Hyper-V host in the
cluster. Users perceive little or no downtime on the virtual machine. Refer to your Microsoft
documentation for more details.
Pass-through disk Any disk that the Hyper-V server can access. It can be locally attached to the Hyper-V server,
or on a SAN. The pass-through disk is attached to a virtual machine, but the disk is not in
vhd or vhdx format.
vhd, vhdx file A file in a Windows Hyper-V installation that contains the virtualized contents of a hard disk.
The vhd or vhdx files can contain an entire virtual operating system and its programs. Hyper-V
supports several kinds of these files, such as fixed, dynamic, and differencing.
Virtual machine NetBackup backs up these files as part of a full virtual machine backup.
configuration files:
The bin and the vsv files are visible only when the virtual machine is running.
xml, bin, vsv, vmcx,
The vmcx files and vmrs files are for VM configuration versions later than 5 (Hyper-V 2016).
vmrs
Table 1-3 VSS backup method: Phases of NetBackup for Hyper-V backup
Phase Description
Phase 3 On Windows 2012 hosts: The VSS Hyper-V writer quiesces the Windows virtual machine (places the
data in a consistent state) and creates the snapshot on the host volume. If the Hyper-V writer cannot
quiesce the virtual machine, the virtual machine is placed in the Saved state before creation of the
snapshot.
On Windows hosts: The Hyper-V writer quiesces the Windows virtual machine and creates a .avhd or
.avhdx snapshot on the host volume. See the following Microsoft article:
Phase 4 On Windows 2012 hosts: If the virtual machine was placed in the Saved state, Hyper-V returns the virtual
machine to its original state.
Phase 5 The NetBackup client on the Hyper-V host reads the data from the snapshot of the virtual machine and
transfers the data to the media server. The media server writes the data to the NetBackup storage unit.
Phase 6 The NetBackup client on the Hyper-V host deletes the host volume snapshot.
Table 1-4 WMI backup method: Phases of NetBackup for Hyper-V backup
Phase Description
Phase 2 The NetBackup client on the Hyper-V host initiates a virtual machine snapshot (checkpoint).
Phase 3 On Windows 2016 hosts or later, the NetBackup client on the Hyper-V host creates a virtual machine
snapshot (checkpoint).
■ If the Hyper-V policy Consistency level option is set to Application Consistent or Application
Consistent Then Crash Consistent: The VSS integration services component inside the guest OS
attempts to quiesce the virtual machine.
■ If the Hyper-V policy Consistency level option is set to Crash Consistent: The virtual machine is
not quiesced.
If the backup uses block-level incremental backup (BLIB), the snapshot is converted to a reference point.
Resilient change tracking (RCT) is used to perform faster backup of the virtual machines by moving only
the blocks that have changed between backups.
As a result of the virtual machine snapshot (checkpoint), the .avhd or .avhdx files are created for the
virtual machine. All subsequent writes from the virtual machine go to these files.
Note: The Consistency level option is set on the policy's Hyper-V tab, under Advanced....
Introduction 15
NetBackup administrator tasks for Hyper-V
Table 1-4 WMI backup method: Phases of NetBackup for Hyper-V backup
(continued)
Phase Description
Phase 4 The NetBackup client reads the data directly from the virtual machine files on the Hyper-V host and
transfers the data to the media server. The media server writes the data to the storage unit.
Phase 5 The NetBackup client on the Hyper-V host deletes the virtual machine snapshot (checkpoint). As a result,
the.avhd or .avhdx files that were created during the backup are merged back into the original virtual
machine disks.
■ NetBackup character restrictions for vhd or vhdx names and the VM path when
the Enable file recovery from VM backup option is used
Note: The SAN Client feature for Hyper-V is only supported for the VSS backup
method (not for WMI).
■ The following is due to a Microsoft limitation: If the VM's virtual disk files reside
in a volume or folder that is compressed, NetBackup cannot use the WMI backup
method to create a snapshot of the VM. The snapshot job fails with status 156,
“snapshot error encountered.”
As a workaround, remove compression from the volume or folder where the
virtual disk resides and rerun the backup.
■ NetBackup for Hyper-V supports Windows NTFS file encryption and compression,
for backup and restore. However, it does not support NetBackup’s compression
or encryption options (in the NetBackup policy attributes).
For UNIX or Linux guest operating systems: NetBackup for Hyper-V does not
support any type of compression or encryption, whether they are set in
NetBackup or in the guest OS.
Note: The compressed Windows NTFS files are backed up and restored as
compressed files.
■ If a policy is changed from manual selection to Intelligent policy (or vice versa),
note: The next backup of the VM is a regular full backup, even if a backup already
exists for that VM.
Notes and prerequisites 19
NetBackup for Hyper-V notes and restrictions
For example:
■ In a new Hyper-V policy, the Select manually option on the Clients tab is
used to select a VM. The first backup from the policy runs.
■ In the policy, an Intelligent Policy query is used to select the same VM, and
the VM is backed up a second time. Because of the switch from manual
selection to query-based selection, this second backup is a regular full
backup. Note that for a policy that uses Enable block-level incremental
backup (BLIB) or BLIB plus Accelerator, the backup processing is not limited
to changed blocks only.
For the second backup, the Detailed status log includes a message similar
to the following:
■ For the WMI backup method with the Enable block-level incremental backup
option (with or without Accelerator): If the VM has multiple virtual disks that have
the same disk UUID, NetBackup performs a full backup of those disks. It does
not perform an incremental backup of them. The disks that have unique IDs
undergo an incremental backup, as expected. In the Activity Monitor, the job
details include messages such as the following:
■ The following is due to a Microsoft limitation: NetBackup for Hyper-V does not
support backup of encrypted vhd or vhdx files.
■ The following is due to a Microsoft limitation; this note applies to the VSS backup
method only. For the virtual machines that have a FAT or FAT32 file system,
NetBackup supports only Hyper-V offline backup.
See “About Hyper-V online and offline backups for VSS” on page 173.
■ The WMI backup method (for Hyper-V Server 2016 and later) does not employ
online vs offline backups.
See “WMI backup method: State of the virtual machine before and after restore”
on page 109.
■ For the VSS backup method: If a virtual machine is in the Paused state when
the backup starts, the virtual machine is placed in the Saved state after the
backup completes.
■ The WMI backup method supports a new Hyper-V policy option: Consistency
level (on the policy's Hyper-V tab under Advanced). The available settings are
Application Consistent Then Crash Consistent, Application Consistent,
and Crash Consistent.
For the WMI backup method, note the following:
■ If a virtual machine is in the Paused state during backup and Consistency
level is set to Application Consistent, the backup fails during snapshot
creation. If Consistency level is set to Application Consistent Then Crash
Consistent or Crash Consistent, the backup succeeds. The virtual machine
is in the Off state after the restore.
■ If a virtual machine is in the Saved state during backup and Consistency
level is set to Application Consistent, the backup fails during snapshot
creation. If Consistency level is set to Application Consistent Then Crash
Consistent or Crash Consistent, the backup succeeds. The virtual machine
is in the Saved state after the restore.
See “Consistency level parameter (WMI)” on page 49.
■ NetBackup for Hyper-V has certain character restrictions for virtual machine
display names.
See “NetBackup character restrictions for Hyper-V virtual machine display
names” on page 21.
■ NetBackup for Hyper-V does not support restores with the Fibre Transport data
transfer method.
■ More information is available on the restore of Hyper-V virtual machines.
See “Notes on individual file restore” on page 109.
See “Notes on full virtual machine restore” on page 111.
Notes and prerequisites 21
NetBackup character restrictions for Hyper-V virtual machine display names
For the policies that select virtual machines automatically: A space in a display
name is converted to "%20" in the test query results if the virtual machine is listed
as included.
Additional character restrictions for VM names can be found in the NetBackup Cloud
Administrator's Guide, available from this location:
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000003214
Notes and prerequisites 22
NetBackup character restrictions for vhd or vhdx names and the VM path when the Enable file recovery from
VM backup option is used
Note: Because VMs can automatically migrate from one cluster node to another,
it is important to allow the policy to search the entire cluster. The node where the
VM currently resides may have changed since the VM was last backed up.
To verify the privileges that are needed to discover the failover cluster
Run the Failover Cluster Manager as the Failover Cluster Manager user.
Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V 25
Changing the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon (vnetd.exe) to the domain user account
Note: The Resource Limit screen applies only to policies that use automatic selection
of virtual machines (Query Builder). If virtual machines are selected manually on
the Browse for Virtual Machines screen, the Resource Limit settings have no effect.
Note: To limit the number of simultaneous jobs per policy, use the Limit jobs per
policy setting on the policy Attributes tab. The effect of this option depends on
how the policy selects virtual machines.
See “Limit jobs per policy on the Attributes tab (for Hyper-V)” on page 40.
Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V 27
Setting global limits on the use of Hyper-V resources
Active VSS Controls the maximum number of active backup jobs per Hyper-V server. Applies to a
Snapshots Per standalone Hyper-V server as well as to every Hyper-V server in a cluster.
Server
The typical setting for this resource type is 2.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 32 snapshot jobs. 12 snapshot jobs and their
backup jobs are active. 20 snapshot jobs are queued. As active backup jobs are
completed, queued snapshot jobs become active.
Example 2:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 64 VMs in the cluster.
■ Active Snapshots Per Server: 12.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 64 snapshot jobs. 12 snapshot jobs for VMs on
Node1 are active and another 12 snapshot jobs for VMs on Node2 are active. 40 snapshot
jobs are queued. As active backup jobs are completed, queued snapshot jobs become
active.
Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V 28
Setting global limits on the use of Hyper-V resources
Active VSS Controls the maximum number of active backup jobs per Hyper-V cluster.
Snapshots Per
The typical setting for this resource type is 4.
Cluster
Example 1:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 60 VMs in the cluster.
■ Active Snapshots Per Cluster: 20.
■ Active Snapshots Per Server: No Limit.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 60 snapshot jobs. For the VMs in the cluster, 20
snapshot jobs are active. 40 snapshot jobs are queued. As active backup jobs are
completed, queued jobs become active.
Example 2:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 60 VMs in the cluster.
■ Active Snapshots Per Cluster: 20.
■ Active Snapshots Per Server: 5.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 60 snapshot jobs. 10 snapshot jobs for the VMs
in Node1 and Node2 are active. 50 snapshot jobs are queued. Even though the Active
Snapshots Per Cluster setting is higher, the Active Snapshots Per Server setting
controls the number of active jobs.
Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V 29
Setting global limits on the use of Hyper-V resources
Snapshot VSS Controls the maximum number of simultaneous VSS operations such as create snapshot
Operations Per and delete snapshot on a Hyper-V server or a Hyper-V server in a cluster. Applies only
Server during the snapshot creation and snapshot deletion phase of a backup. Does not control
the number of simultaneous backup jobs.
Each VM backup consists of a snapshot job and a subsequent backup job. Note:
Snapshot Operations Per Server controls VSS snapshot creation and deletion, which
are part of the snapshot job. When snapshot creation is completed, the backup job starts.
When the backup job is active, the snapshot job is still shown as active even though the
snapshot creation is completed. Therefore, this resource does not control the number of
active backup jobs. See the following examples.
Example 1:
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 32 snapshot jobs. 2 snapshot jobs are active and
30 snapshot jobs are queued. When the first snapshot job completes the snapshot
creation, its backup job starts and the third snapshot job becomes active. When the
second snapshot job completes snapshot creation, its backup job starts and the fourth
snapshot job becomes active. When all the snapshots are created, there are 32 active
backup jobs.
Example 2:
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 32 snapshot jobs. 2 snapshot jobs are active and
30 snapshot jobs are queued. When the first snapshot job completes snapshot creation,
its backup job starts and the third snapshot job becomes active. When the second
snapshot job completes snapshot creation, its backup job starts and the fourth snapshot
job becomes active. This process continues until there are 10 active snapshot jobs and
their backup jobs. When the first backup job completes, the eleventh snapshot job
becomes active, and so forth.
Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V 30
Setting global limits on the use of Hyper-V resources
Snapshot VSS Controls the maximum number of simultaneous VSS operations such as create snapshot
Operations Per and delete snapshot within a cluster. Applies only during the snapshot creation and
Cluster snapshot deletion phase of a backup. Does not control the number of simultaneous
backup jobs.
For example:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 60 VMs in the cluster.
■ Snapshot Operations Per Cluster: 5.
■ Active Snapshots Per Cluster: 12.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 60 snapshot jobs. 5 snapshot jobs are active and
55 snapshot jobs are queued. When the first snapshot job completes snapshot creation,
the corresponding backup job starts and the sixth snapshot job becomes active. When
the second snapshot job completes snapshot creation, its backup job starts and the
seventh snapshot job becomes active, and so forth. When 12 backup jobs are active,
the thirteenth and following backup jobs are queued because Active Snapshots Per
Cluster is set to 12.
Active Backups WMI Controls the maximum number of active backup jobs per Hyper-V server. Applies to a
Per Hyper-V standalone Hyper-V server as well as to every Hyper-V server in a cluster.
Server
The typical setting for this resource type is 2.
Example 1:
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 32 snapshot jobs. 12 snapshot jobs and their
backup jobs are active. 20 snapshot jobs are queued. As active backup jobs are
completed, queued snapshot jobs become active.
Example 2:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 40 VMs in the cluster (10 on Node1 and 30 on
Node2).
■ Active Backups Per Hyper-V Server: 12.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 40 snapshot jobs. 10 snapshot jobs for VMs on
Node1 are active and 12 snapshot jobs for VMs on Node2 are active. 18 snapshot jobs
are queued for the VMs on Node2.
Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V 31
Setting global limits on the use of Hyper-V resources
Active Backups WMI Controls the maximum number of active backup jobs per Hyper-V cluster.
Per Hyper-V
The typical setting for this resource type is 6.
Cluster
Example 1:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 60 VMs in the cluster.
■ Active Backups Per Hyper-V Cluster: 20.
■ Active Backups Per Hyper-V Server: No Limit.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 60 snapshot jobs. 20 snapshot jobs for VMs on
the cluster are active. 40 snapshot jobs are queued. As active backup jobs are completed,
queued snapshot jobs become active.
Example 2:
■ A cluster has two nodes (Node1 and Node2), each node with 32 VMs.
■ A Hyper-V Intelligent Policy discovers 60 VMs in the cluster.
■ Active Backups Per Hyper-V Cluster: 20.
■ Active Backups Per Hyper-V Server: 5.
The NetBackup Activity Monitor shows 60 snapshot jobs. 10 snapshot jobs for VMs on
Node1 and Node2 are active. 50 snapshot jobs are queued. Even though the Active
Backups Per Hyper-V Cluster setting is higher, the Active Backups Per Hyper-V
Server setting controls the number of active jobs.
3 Click Hyper-V.
4 Click in the Resource Limit column to change the limit for a resource. The
settings apply to all policies for the primary server.
■ Virtual machine host names and display names should be unique if VMs are
selected manually in the policy
Note: The Policy Configuration Wizard does not support the WMI backup method.
To create a policy with WMI, use the NetBackup Policies utility.
4 In most cases, you can leave the Disable client-side deduplication option
at the default (unchecked).
The Disable client-side deduplication option is described in the NetBackup
Administrator's Guide, Volume I.
5 Use the Schedules tab to define a schedule.
On the Schedules Attributes tab, you can select Full backup, Differential
Incremental Backup, or Cumulative Incremental Backup.
For the VSS backup method on the Hyper-V tab, incremental backups require
selection of the Enable file recovery from VM backup option.
6 Use the Hyper-V tab to set Hyper-V options.
The following backup methods are available:
■ Hyper-V Host 2008 SP2 or later (VSS)
For Hyper-V hosts running Windows Server 2012 . This method does not
support block-level incremental backups or Accelerator.
■ Hyper-V Host 2016 or later (WMI)
This method enables the faster Hyper-V backup features for Hyper-V hosts
running Windows Server 2016 or later. The virtual machines must be at a
VM configuration version later than 5.
Note: This WMI method is recommended for Windows Server 2016 or later
and is required for block-level incremental backups and Accelerator.
System Center Virtual Machine Manager An SCVMM server that manages Hyper-V
servers or clusters.
9 On the Clients tab: For Server Name, enter the name of the Hyper-V server
or cluster. This host must contain a NetBackup client to perform backups of
the virtual machines.
Important: IPv6 addresses are not supported for Server Name. Use fully
qualified domain names (FQDN) or host names instead.
10 On the Clients tab: Select the virtual machines to back up.
■ To manually select the virtual machines to back up, click Select manually
then click New....
■ To set up the rules that select virtual machines automatically, click the
Select automatically through Hyper-V Intelligent Policy query option.
This option is required for VMs that an SCVMM server manages.
Automatic selection of virtual machines is explained in different topics:
See “About Hyper-V Intelligent Policy (automatic selection of virtual
machines for backup)” on page 57.
See “Options for selecting Hyper-V virtual machines” on page 63.
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection”
on page 65.
See “About backup of virtual machines in an SCVMM environment”
on page 95.
11 For manual selection of virtual machines: In the Browse for Virtual Machines
dialog, do the following:
■ Under Enter the VM display name, type the name of the virtual machine
to back up.
■ Or, click Browse for Virtual Machines, and click the appropriate check
boxes to select the virtual machines to back up.
Configure NetBackup policies for Hyper-V 40
Limit jobs per policy on the Attributes tab (for Hyper-V)
are allowed to execute simultaneously. Only the initial discovery job counts against
Limit jobs per policy. If you begin a second backup of the policy, its discovery job
cannot start until all the child jobs from the first backup are complete.
Enable file VSS, WMI This option allows the restore of individual guest OS files from the backup, such as
recovery from VM text files and other documents.
backup
Note: With or without this option, you can restore the entire virtual machine.
Enable WMI For block-level backups of the virtual machine. Uses Microsoft's resilient change
block-level tracking (RCT) to perform faster backup of virtual machines.
incremental
This option also reduces the size of the backup image.
backup
Note: When you select this option, Perform block level incremental backups (on
the Attributes tab) is automatically selected by default and grayed out.
Use Accelerator WMI NetBackup Accelerator uses Microsoft's resilient change tracking (RCT) to perform
faster backups (full and incremental backups).
Exclude deleted WMI Reduces the size of the backup image by excluding any unused or deleted blocks
blocks within the file system on the virtual machine. This option uses proprietary mapping
technology to identify vacant sectors (allocated but empty) within the file system.
This option supports the following file systems: Windows NTFS, and Linux ext2, ext3,
and ext4. It also supports the Windows Logical Disk Manager (LDM) and the Linux
Logical Volume Manager (LVM2).
Configure NetBackup policies for Hyper-V 43
Backup options on the Hyper-V tab
Exclude swap WMI Reduces the size of the backup image by excluding the data in the guest OS system
and paging files paging file (Windows) or the swap file (Linux).
Note: This option does not exclude the swapping and paging files from the backup:
it only excludes the data in those files. If the files are restored, they are restored as
empty files.
Note: For a Linux virtual machine, this option disables the swap file when you restore
the virtual machine. You must reconfigure the swap file after the virtual machine is
restored. To allow the virtual machine to be restored with its swap file enabled, do
not select Exclude swap and paging files.
See “NetBackup character restrictions for vhd or vhdx names and the VM path
when the Enable file recovery from VM backup option is used” on page 22.
Option Description
VM hostname Specifies the network host name for the virtual machine.
Note: For VMs in a Hyper-V server or cluster, the host name is available only when the virtual
machine is running. If you select VM hostname but the virtual machine is not running at the time
of the backup, the backup may fail.
Note: On the policy Clients tab, if the Server Type is System Center Virtual Machine Manager,
NetBackup can back up VMs by their host name even if they are powered off.
VM display name Specifies the name of the virtual machine as it appears in the Hyper-V Manager console.
Note: NetBackup for Hyper-V does not currently support the virtual machine display names that
contain non-US-ASCII characters. If the display name contains such characters, select VM
hostname or VM GUID.
Note: When virtual machines are included in a NetBackup policy, restrictions apply to the
characters that are allowed in the virtual machine display name.
See “NetBackup character restrictions for Hyper-V virtual machine display names” on page 21.
Configure NetBackup policies for Hyper-V 44
Backup options on the Hyper-V tab
Option Description
VM GUID Specifies the unique ID assigned to the virtual machine when the virtual machine was created.
Note: If you create a policy and then change the Primary VM identifier, you may
have to delete the virtual machine selections on the Clients tab. Otherwise,
NetBackup may no longer be able to identify the virtual machines to back up.
For example: if you change the Primary VM identifier from VM hostname to VM
display name, and the display names of the virtual machines are different from
the host names, note: The host names in the Clients tab cannot be used and the
virtual machines are not backed up. You must delete the host name entries on the
Clients tab and browse the network to select the virtual machines by their display
names.
Note: When creating virtual machines, consider using the same name for both the
host name and the display name. If the Primary VM identifier is changed, the
existing entries on the Clients tab still work.
Note: Online vs. offline backup are Microsoft backup types and are not configured
in NetBackup.
Virtual disk selection WMI See “Virtual disk selection parameter (WMI)”
on page 47.
System Uses the Microsoft system provider, for a block-level copy on write
snapshot.
Unlike the Hardware type, the System provider does not require
any specific hardware.
Hardware Uses the hardware provider for a disk array. A hardware provider
manages the VSS snapshot at the hardware level by working with
a hardware storage adapter or controller.
Note: A virtual machine that is restored from this backup cannot start. Data files
are available in the restored data disks.
The virtual machine's data disks (for example the D drive) are not included in
the backup. Only the boot disk is backed up. Consider this option only if you
have a different policy that backs up the data disks.
Note: When the virtual machine is restored from the backup, the virtual machine
data for the data disk may be missing or incomplete.
Note: If the virtual machine is in the saved state or the paused state, it cannot
be quiesced and the backup job fails. You must use one of the other Consistency
level options.
■ Crash Consistent
The snapshot is created without quiescing I/O on the virtual machine. In this
case, you must perform your own analysis for data consistency in the backed-up
data.
Note: When the virtual machine is restored from the backup, the virtual machine
data for the boot disk may be missing or incomplete.
■ Exclude data disks: Consider this option if you have a different policy or other
backup program that backs up the data disks. If Exclude data disks is enabled
in a policy, that policy does not back up the data disks.
Note the following about excluding data disks:
■ If the virtual machine has only one disk (such as C:), that drive is backed
up. It is not excluded.
Configure NetBackup policies for Hyper-V 51
Hyper-V - Advanced Attributes
■ If the virtual machine's boot disk is an independent disk, and the virtual
machine has a separate data disk, the boot disk is backed up. The restored
boot disk however contains no data, because NetBackup cannot back up
the data in an independent disk.
Note: When the virtual machine is restored from the backup, the virtual machine
data for the data disk may be missing or incomplete.
Caution: Use of the exclude disk options can have unintended consequences if
these rules are not followed.
The following topics contain important guidance on the exclude disk options:
See “Restoring data from the backups that excluded the boot disk or data disks”
on page 51.
See “Virtual disk selection parameter (WMI)” on page 47.
Restoring data from the backups that excluded the boot disk or data
disks
If the policy's Virtual disk selection option excluded the boot disk or data disks,
you can restore the backed-up data as follows:
■ If Enable file recovery from VM backup was enabled on the backup policy:
You can restore individual files from those portions of the virtual machine that
the Virtual disk selection option did not exclude.
■ If the Virtual disk selection option was set to Exclude boot disk: You can
restore the virtual machine and move the restored data disk(s) to another virtual
machine.
Configure NetBackup policies for Hyper-V 52
Browse for Hyper-V virtual machines
Option Description
Browse for Virtual Click this option to discover Hyper-V servers or cluster nodes (shown in the left pane).
Machines You can select virtual machines from a list (in the right pane).
The virtual machine names that are listed may be derived from a cache file. Use of the
cache file is faster than rediscovering the virtual machines on the network if your site
has a large number of virtual machines. If the virtual machine is turned off but was
turned on when the cache file was last created, its name appears in the list.
If the display name of the virtual machine was recently changed in the Hyper-V Manager,
note: The virtual machine name that was used for the backup does not change.
If NetBackup cannot obtain the IP address of the virtual machine, the IP address is
displayed as NONE.
Last Update To update the cache file and re-display virtual machines, click the refresh icon to the
right of the Last Update field. This field shows the date and time of the most recent
cache file that contains the names of virtual machines.
them on the network. This approach can save time if your site has a large number
of virtual machines.
If you change the VM display name in the Hyper-V Manager, the new name may
not be used for backups until the cache is renewed. On the policy's Browse for
Virtual Machines dialog box, click the refresh icon to the right of the Last Update
field to update the list of virtual machines.
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy from the NetBackup Policies utility” on page 34.
Enable file recovery from This option supports full and incremental schedules.
VM backup
■ Query rules for virtual machine Notes that contain a newline character
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 57
About Hyper-V Intelligent Policy (automatic selection of virtual machines for backup)
■ Restoring a VM that was backed up with a Hyper-V Intelligent Policy and that
has a pass-through disk
Example Description
Add new virtual machines At the next backup, the policy can automatically discover the virtual machines
that have recently been added to the environment. If the virtual machines
match the query rules that you configure in the policy, they are automatically
backed up.
Rule Description
Displayname Contains "vm" NetBackup selects the virtual machines that have the
characters vm anywhere in their display names.
Displayname EndsWith "vm" NetBackup selects the virtual machines that have the
characters vm at the end of their display names.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 59
Important notes on Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
Rule Description
Powerstate Equal poweredOn NetBackup selects only the virtual machines that are
currently turned on.
Note! Explanation
Create rules carefully.... Instead of manually selecting virtual machines for backup, you create guidelines for
automatic selection of virtual machines. The guidelines are called rules; you enter the
rules in the policy's Query Builder.
If the rules state: Back up all virtual machines with a host name that contains "prod",
NetBackup does that. Any virtual machine that is added to the environment with a host
name containing "prod" is automatically selected and backed up when the policy runs.
Virtual machines with the names that do not contain "prod" are not backed up. To have
other virtual machines automatically backed up, you must change the query rules (or
create additional policies).
Changes to the virtual If many virtual machines are temporarily added to your environment and happen to fall
environment can affect within the scope of the query rules, they are backed up. The backups can therefore
backup times. run much longer than expected.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 60
Important notes on Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
Note! Explanation
Test the query rules. Test the query rules ahead of time. The policy includes a Test Query function for that
purpose. It's important to verify that your query operates as expected. Otherwise, the
query may select too many or too few virtual machines.
As an alternative, you can use the nbdiscover command to test a query. Refer to
the NetBackup Commands Reference Guide.
Note also: The policy's Primary VM identifier parameter can affect the automatic
selection process.
A query test does not create The automatic selection process is dynamic. Changes in the virtual environment may
the backup list. NetBackup affect which virtual machines the query rules choose when the backup runs.
creates the backup list when
Note: If virtual machine changes occur, the virtual machines that are selected for
the backup runs.
backup may not be identical to those listed in your query test results.
Backup
list
Query test
Backup
list
Backup
execution
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 61
NetBackup requirements for Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
Note! Explanation
The policy does not display a If you select virtual machines manually (with the Browse for Virtual machines screen),
list of the virtual machines the selected virtual machines are listed on the policy Clients tab. But when you use
that are to be backed up. the Query Builder for automatic selection, the selected virtual machines are not listed
on the Clients tab.
Use the Activity Monitor or
OpsCenter. For a list of the backed up virtual machines, use the NetBackup Activity Monitor or the
OpsCenter web interface.
When you save the policy, the When you save a policy, policy validation does not consult the query rules and select
query rules are not validated. virtual machines for backup. Because of the potential for changes in the virtual
environment, virtual machine selection must wait until the backup runs. As a result,
when you save the policy, NetBackup does not check the policy attributes against a
backup list. If the query rules select the virtual machines that are incompatible with a
policy attribute, policy validation cannot flag that fact. The incompatibility becomes
apparent when NetBackup determines the backup list at the time of the backup.
Policy
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy from the NetBackup Policies utility” on page 34.
Set rules for virtual machine selection On the policy Clients tab, click Select automatically through Hyper-V
in the policy Query Builder Intelligent Policy query.
Choose a host for virtual machine selection (the default is the Hyper-V server).
Test the rules Click Test Query in the Query Builder on the Clients tab. Virtual machines
are labeled as included or excluded, based on the rules.
Note: The list of virtual machines is not saved in the Clients tab.
Note: The query rules are also displayed in the Backup Selections tab. The
backup selections are pre-set to All_LOCAL_DRIVES (not displayed).
Execute a backup When the policy executes, NetBackup consults the rules in the Query Builder,
creates a list of virtual machines, and backs them up.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 63
Options for selecting Hyper-V virtual machines
Check the backup To see which virtual machines were backed up, use the Activity Monitor, or
run a Virtual Client Summary report in OpsCenter.
Table 5-5 Virtual machine selection options (not available on the Backup
Policy Configuration Wizard panel)
Option Description
Server Type Select the type of environment in which NetBackup searches for the VMs to back up.
Server Name Enter the name of the Hyper-V server or SCVMM server.
For a clustered environment, note:
■ Enter the name of the cluster (or one of the Hyper-V cluster nodes).
■ Set the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon to the cluster user.
See “Changing the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon (vnetd.exe) to the domain
user account” on page 24.
■ The NetBackup primary server should not be installed on any Hyper-V nodes in the cluster.
If the primary server resides on one of the nodes, you cannot log on to the NetBackup
Administration Console.
Select manually Click this option and click New to manually enter virtual machines names, or to browse and
select them from a list.
Table 5-5 Virtual machine selection options (not available on the Backup
Policy Configuration Wizard panel) (continued)
Option Description
Select automatically Click this option to allow NetBackup to automatically select virtual machines for backup based
through Hyper-V on the rules that you enter in the Query Builder.
Intelligent Policy
query
Option Description
Query Builder (Join, Use these pull-down fields to define rules for automatic selection of virtual machines. From
Field, Operator, left to right, each pull-down refines the rule.
Values)
Click the plus sign to add the rule to the Query pane.
Click the reset icon (curved arrow) to blank out the pull-down fields.
Advanced Places the Query Builder in Advanced Mode for manual entry of rules.
Basic Returns the Query Builder from Advanced Mode to Basic Mode.
Edit Use this option to change an existing query rule when in Basic Mode, as follows:
Remove Deletes a query rule when in Basic Mode. Click on the rule and then click Remove.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 65
Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection
Option Description
Test Query Click this option to test which virtual machines NetBackup selects based on the rules in the
Query Builder.
Note: This test option does not create the backup list for the policy. When the next backup
runs from this policy, NetBackup re-discovers virtual machines and consults the query rules.
At that time, NetBackup backs up the virtual machines that match the rules.
As an alternative, you can use the nbdiscover command to test a query. Refer to the
NetBackup Commands Reference Guide.
Figure 5-1 Policy Clients tab for automatic selection of virtual machines
5 For Server Name, enter the name of the Hyper-V server, cluster, or SCVMM
server.
Important: IPv6 addresses are not supported for Server Name. Use fully
qualified domain names (FQDN) or host names instead.
Another topic describes the requirements for SCVMM:
See “About backup of virtual machines in an SCVMM environment” on page 95.
For a clustered environment, note the following:
■ Enter the name of the cluster (or one of the Hyper-V cluster nodes) in the
Server Name field.
■ Set the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon to the domain user
account:
See “Changing the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon (vnetd.exe)
to the domain user account” on page 24.
■ The NetBackup primary server should not be installed on any Hyper-V
nodes in the cluster. If the primary server resides on one of the nodes, you
cannot log on to the NetBackup Administration Console.
6 To create a rule, make selections from the Query Builder pull-down menus.
■ For the first rule, you can start with the Field pull-down, depending on the
type of rule. For the first rule, the only selections available for the Join field
are blank (none), or NOT.
Select a keyword for Field:
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 68
Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection
■ Select an Operator:
The arrow icon resets the Join, Field, Operator, and Value(s) fields to
blank.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 69
Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection
7 Click the plus sign to add the rule to the Query pane.
6 To insert a rule between existing rules, place the cursor where you want the
new rule to start and type it in.
When you create a rule with the drown-down menus, it appears at the end of
the query. You can cut and paste it to a different position.
7 To establish the proper order of evaluation in compound queries, use
parentheses to group rules as needed. Compound queries contain two or more
rules, joined by AND, AND NOT, OR, or OR NOT.
More information is available on the use of parentheses and on the order of
precedence.
See “AND vs. OR in queries” on page 71.
See “Order of operations in queries (precedence rules)” on page 76.
See “Parentheses in compound queries” on page 78.
Note: Do not use AND to join the rules that are intended to include additional virtual
machines in the backup list. For instance, AND cannot be used to mean "include
virtual machine X AND virtual machine Y."
For example: To include the virtual machines that have either "vm1" or "vm2" in
their names, use OR to join the rules:
the result is different: the backup list includes only the virtual machines that have
both vm1 and vm2 in their names (such as "acmevm1vm2"). A virtual machine with
the name "acmevm1" is not included in the backup.
No query rules specified (Query pane is All virtual machines are added to the backup list. Exceptions are those that
empty) do not have a host name, or that have invalid characters in the display name.
Displayname Contains "prod" All virtual machines with the display names that contain the string "prod" are
added to the backup list.
Displayname AnyOf The virtual machines named "grayfox7”and "grayfox9" are added to the
"grayfox7”,"grayfox9" backup list. Note that each value must be enclosed in its own quotes, with
a comma in between.
powerstate Equal "poweredOn" Any virtual machine that is turned on is added to the backup list.
powerstate Equal "poweredOn" Any virtual machine that is turned on and resides on Hyper-V server
HV_serv1 is added to the backup list.
AND HypervServer Equal "HV_serv1"
IsClustered Equal TRUE Any virtual machine that is in a clustered Hyper-V server is added to the
backup list.
Displayname Contains "pre-prod" Any virtual machine with a display name containing "pre-prod" and that is
not in a clustered Hyper-V server is added to the backup list.
AND IsClustered Equal FALSE
IsClustered Equal TRUE Adds to the backup list any virtual machine in a clustered Hyper-V server if
the virtual machine has "pre-prod" in its Notes field.
AND Notes Contains "pre-prod"
Displayname StartsWith "prod" Adds to the backup list any virtual machine with a display name starting with
"prod" or with Notes that contain "prod."
OR Notes Contains "prod"
ConfigurationVersion Greater "5" Adds to the backup list any virtual machine that has a VM configuration
version greater than 5.
Table 5-8 Query Builder examples for server type System Center Virtual
Machine Manager
Name StartsWith "prod" Adds to the backup list any VMs that have a display name that starts with
"prod".
Note: For VMs that reside under SCVMM, a Hyper-V Intelligent policy can
back up VMs by their host name even if they are powered off. In this example:
even if the policy's Primary VM identifier is set to VM hostname, VMs are
added to the backup list whether they are powered on or powered off.
ComputerName Contains "VM" Adds to the backup list any VMs that have a network host name that contains
"VM".
See the note in this table for the example Name StartsWith "prod".
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 74
The IsSet operator in queries
Table 5-8 Query Builder examples for server type System Center Virtual
Machine Manager (continued)
VMHost AnyOf "hv1","hv2" Adds to the backup list any VMs that reside on Hyper-V servers "hv1" or
"hv2" if the VM has "pre-prod" in its Description field.
AND Description Contains "pre-prod"
The SCVMM Description field is similar to the VM's Notes field in Hyper-V.
Generation Equal "2" Adds to the backup list any VMs of Generation 2.
IsUndergoingLiveMigration Equal Adds to the backup list any VM that is not in live migration.
FALSE
VirtualMachineState Equal "Running" Adds to the backup list any VM that is running.
Cloud Contains "cloud9" Adds to the backup list any VM that meets the following: the VM is part of
an SCVMM cloud that contains cloud9 in its name, if the VM is in a cluster
AND HasSharedStorage Equal TRUE
that has shared storage.
IsHighlyAvailable Equal TRUE Adds to the backup list any VM that resides in a CSV cluster if the VM is not
marked for fault tolerance.
AND IsFaultTolerant Equal FALSE
VMConfigurationVersion Greater "5" Adds to the backup list any virtual machine that has a VM configuration
version greater than 5.
Click Advanced to see the query rule in Advanced Mode. Only Advanced Mode
supports the use of parentheses for grouping sets of rules.
Query rules with IsSet operator Effect of the query on virtual machine selection
Displayname Contains "prod" INCLUDED: Any virtual machine with a display name that contains the string
"prod" if the virtual machine also has Notes.
AND Notes IsSet
EXCLUDED: Any virtual machines that do not have Notes.
Without Notes IsSet in this query, virtual machines without Notes cannot be
excluded.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 75
About selecting virtual machines by means of multiple policies
Query rules with IsSet operator Effect of the query on virtual machine selection
Cluster Contains "dev" INCLUDED: Any virtual machine in a cluster that has a name that contains
the string "dev" if the virtual machine also has Notes.
AND Notes IsSet
EXCLUDED: Any virtual machines that do not have Notes, and any virtual
machines that have Notes but that are not in a cluster that has a name that
contains “dev”.
Table 5-10 Three policies that back up the virtual machines in phases
First policy Notes IsSet This policy backs up all virtual machines that have a
host name and any Notes. Any virtual machines that
Primary VM identifier
do not have a host name and do not have Notes are
parameter: VM hostname
either excluded from the backup or listed as FAILED.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 76
Order of operations in queries (precedence rules)
Table 5-10 Three policies that back up the virtual machines in phases
(continued)
Second policy NOT Notes IsSet This policy backs up all virtual machines that have a
display name, that are clustered, and that do not have
Primary VM identifier AND IsClustered Equal
any Notes. Any virtual machines that have Notes but
parameter: VM display name ‘TRUE’
are not clustered are excluded from the backup.
Third policy NOT Notes IsSet This policy backs up the virtual machines that were not
backed up by the first two policies. This policy selects
Primary VM identifier AND IsClustered NotEqual
the virtual machines that do not have any Notes and
parameter: VM GUID ‘TRUE’
are not clustered, but that do have a GUID.
More information is available on the Primary VM identifier parameter and its effect
on virtual machine selection.
See “Effect of Primary VM identifier parameter on Selection column in Test Query
results” on page 90.
x Equal y Is x equal to y 4
Note: Only the Query Builder's Advanced Mode supports the use of parentheses.
HypervServer Equal "HV-serv1" OR All virtual machines in HV-serv1 (regardless of their power state), and any
IsClustered Equal TRUE AND virtual machines that are turned on in a clustered environment.
powerstate Equal ON
To select only the virtual machines that are turned on both in the Hyper-V
server and in clustered environments, use parentheses (see next example).
(HypervServer Equal "HV-serv1" OR All the virtual machines that are turned on in HV-serv1 and in clustered
IsClustered Equal TRUE) AND environments.
powerstate Equal ON
For example: If the VM's Notes contain the following words with a newline in between
them:
Server Location
Building A
Then the browsing icon returns “Server Location Building A”. The resulting query
rule is:
Since the newline character is not included in the query, the VM may not be backed
up. To include the VM in the backup, create the query manually without using the
browsing icon.
For this example, create the query: Notes Contains “Server Location” AND
Notes Contains “Building A”:
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 80
Query Builder field reference
Table 5-13 Query Builder drop-down options: Join, Field, Operator, Value(s)
For the first rule, choices are blank (none) or NOT. After you add a rule,
the available connectors are AND, AND NOT, OR, OR NOT.
Allows browsing for values, depending on the selections that are made
in the other drop-down fields. Use the pop-up to select the value(s):
Table 5-13 Query Builder drop-down options: Join, Field, Operator, Value(s)
(continued)
Field (keywords)
The following tables describe the keywords available in the Field drop-down. The
tables also indicate whether the values for each keyword (in the Values field) are
case-sensitive.
Note that the Field keyword does not determine by itself the inclusion or exclusion
of virtual machines. Selection of virtual machines depends on the rule you construct:
the combination of Join, Field, Operator, and Value(s).
The available keywords depend on the Server Type that is selected:
■ For a description of the Hyper-V Standalone/Cluster keywords, see Table 5-14.
■ For a description of the System Center Virtual Machine Manager keywords,
see Table 5-15.
IsClustered Boolean TRUE if the virtual machine resides in a Hyper-V server that is in a cluster.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 82
Query Builder field reference
Notes Alphanumeric A note that was recorded about the virtual machine, in the virtual machine's
string Summary tab in Hyper-V Manager.
Table 5-15 For server type System Center Virtual Machine Manager:
Keywords in the Field drop-down
Cloud Alphanumeric The name of the SCVMM cloud that the VM is a part of.
string
Values are not case-sensitive.
CloudVMRoleName Alphanumeric The name of the VM role for the SCVMM cloud.
string
Values are not case-sensitive.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 83
Query Builder field reference
Table 5-15 For server type System Center Virtual Machine Manager:
Keywords in the Field drop-down (continued)
Description Alphanumeric The VM's description in SCVMM. This field is similar to the VM's
string Notes field in Hyper-V.
See “Query rules for virtual machine Notes that contain a newline
character” on page 78.
Generation Numeric string The numeric Generation (or type) of the VM that the SCVMM
server manages.
HasVirtualFibreChannelAdapters Boolean TRUE if the VM has virtual Fibre Channel adapters. These
adapters enable Hyper-V VMs to have direct access to Fibre
Channel SAN array resources.
IsFaultTolerant Boolean TRUE if the VM is marked for fault tolerance (if it can run without
interruption in the case of a host failure).
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 84
Query Builder field reference
Table 5-15 For server type System Center Virtual Machine Manager:
Keywords in the Field drop-down (continued)
IsHighlyAvailable Boolean TRUE if the virtual machine resides in a Hyper-V server that is
in a CSV cluster.
IsRecoveryVM Boolean TRUE if the VM is a replicated copy (of the primary VM) at a
secondary Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) site.
You can exclude such VMs from the backup by creating queries
such as: IsTestReplicaVM Equal ‘FALSE’
RecoveryPointObjective Numeric The recovery point objective (RPO) value for this VM.
Tag Alphanumeric The name of the tag. A tag is a string for logical grouping of VMs
string in the NetBackup Administration Console.
TotalSize Numeric The total size on disk (in bytes) of all the VM's VHDs.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 85
Query Builder field reference
Table 5-15 For server type System Center Virtual Machine Manager:
Keywords in the Field drop-down (continued)
UserRole Alphanumeric The user role the VM is a part of, such as Administrator, Fabric
string Administrator, or Tenant Administrator.
Table 5-15 For server type System Center Virtual Machine Manager:
Keywords in the Field drop-down (continued)
VMHost Alphanumeric The name of the Hyper-V host for this VM.
string
Values are not case-sensitive.
Operators
Table 5-16 describes the operators available in the Operator drop-down.
Operator Description
For example: If the display names in the Value(s) field are "vm01","vm02","vm03", AnyOf matches
any VM that has one of those names. If the names of your VMs are not identical to any of the
specified values, no match occurs. A VM that is named "vm01A" is not a match.
Contains Matches the value in the Value(s) field wherever that value occurs in the string.
For example: If the Value(s) entry is "dev", Contains matches strings such as "01dev",
"01dev99", "devOP", and "Development_machine".
EndsWith Matches the value in the Value(s) field when it occurs at the end of a string.
For example: If the Value(s) entry is "dev", EndsWith matches the string "01dev" but not
"01dev99", "devOP", or "Development_machine".
Equal Matches only the value that is specified in the Value(s) field.
For example: If the display name to search for is "VMtest27", Equal matches virtual machine
names such as "VMTest27" or "vmtest27" or "vmTEST27", and so forth. The name "VMtest28"
is not matched.
Greater Matches any value that is greater than the specified Value(s), according to the ASCII collating
sequence.
GreaterEqual Matches any value that is greater than or equal to the specified Value(s), according to the ASCII
collating sequence.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 87
Query Builder field reference
Operator Description
IsSet Determines whether a value is returned for the Field keyword. Use IsSet with another rule as a
condition, to ensure that the query selects the appropriate virtual machines.
Note that you do not make an entry under Value(s) for a rule that uses IsSet.
See “Effect of Primary VM identifier parameter on Selection column in Test Query results”
on page 90.
Less Matches any value that is less than the specified Value(s), according to the ASCII collating
sequence.
LessEqual Matches any value that is less than or equal to the specified Value(s), according to the ASCII
collating sequence.
NotEqual Matches any value that is not equal to the value in the Value(s) field.
StartsWith Matches the value in the Value(s) field when it occurs at the start of a string.
For example: If the Value(s) entry is "box", StartsWith matches the string "box_car" but not
"flat_box".
Value(s)
Table 5-17 describes the characters that can be entered in the Value(s) field. The
Field keyword determines case sensitivity.
Note: The character string you enter in the Value(s) field must be enclosed in single
quotes or double quotes.
For example: "*prod*" matches the string "prod" preceded or followed by any characters.
For example: "prod??" matches the string "prod" followed by any two characters.
Escape character \ (backslash) escapes the wildcard or meta-character that follows it.
For example: To search for a string that contains an asterisk (such as test*), enter "test\*"
Quotation marks Note: The characters you enter in Value(s) must be enclosed in single or double quotes.
To search for a string that contains quotation marks, either escape each quote (\") or enclose
the entire string in the opposite type of quotes.
For example: To search for a string that includes double quotes (such as "name"), enter
'"name"' (enclosing it in single quotes) or "\"name\"".
Note: An alternative to the Test Query screen is the nbdiscover command. For
more information, see the NetBackup Commands Reference Guide.
The Test Query function runs in the background. You can continue to configure
the policy while the test runs. Any changes you make in the Query Builder however
are not included in the currently running test. You must re-initiate the test to see
the results of your Query Builder changes.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 89
Test Query: Failed virtual machines
Field Description
Test query for Lists the rules in the Query Builder that were used in this test. The rules
policy are specified in the Query Builder on the policy Clients tab.
Test Query VM Name: Shows the display name of all discovered virtual machines.
Results Selection: Lists the virtual machines that were discovered, as follows:
Included: The bottom of the screen gives a tally of how many virtual machines were
included, excluded, or failed in the test.
Excluded:
Failed:
Explanation: The virtual machine Win%1 in the example does not have a host name.
In the NetBackup policy, on the Hyper-V tab, the Primary VM identifier parameter
may be set to VM hostname. In that case, NetBackup cannot refer to the virtual
machine by its host name and thus cannot back it up.
To fix this problem, use the Hyper-V Manager to configure a host name for the
virtual machine.
See “The IsSet operator in queries” on page 74.
The Primary VM identifier parameter has a direct effect on the query test results.
Note that for each virtual machine, the query test result is one of three possibilities:
INCLUDED, EXCLUDED, or FAILED.
If NetBackup cannot identify a virtual machine according to the Primary VM
identifier parameter, one of two test results can occur:
■ If the virtual machine is filtered out by the query rules, it is listed as EXCLUDED.
■ If the virtual machine is not filtered out by the query rules, it is listed as FAILED.
The following table gives the test query results from example combinations of
the Primary VM identifier parameter and a query rule.
Table 5-19 Effect of Primary VM identifier parameter and query rules on test
query results
VM hostname Displayname Contains INCLUDED: Any virtual machines that have a host name and
"VM" that have a display name that contains "VM".
VM display name Displayname Contains INCLUDED: Any virtual machines with the display names that
"VM" contain "VM". Since the Primary VM identifier parameter tells
NetBackup to select the virtual machine by display name, it
can back up the virtual machines.
■ If a virtual machine is listed as INCLUDED, note: The name that appears under
VM Name is the type of name that is specified on the Primary VM identifier
parameter.
For example: If the Primary VM identifier parameter is VM hostname, the
included virtual machine is listed according to its host name. Even if the query
rule specified Display name (such as Displayname Equal "vm1"), the virtual
machine appears on the Test Query screen by its host name.
The message includes the name of the VM, its virtual machine ID, and related
details.
Note: Although the VM does not start, the VM data (including the pass-through
disk) is successfully restored.
When the restored virtual machine is set to high availability, it should start
normally.
4 Right-click on the VM and click Start.
Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies 93
Restoring a VM that was backed up with a Hyper-V Intelligent Policy and that has a pass-through disk
Note: To restore the VMs, you can use the NetBackup Backup, Archive, and Restore
interface, or the NetBackup Add-in for SCVMM.
NetBackup primary
server
UNIX, Linux, or Windows
LAN / WAN
SCVMM
server
Hyper-V
servers
Virtual machines
VM VM VM
VM VM VM
Note: This SCVMM feature adds a new capability: For VMs that reside under
SCVMM, NetBackup can identify and back up VMs by their host name even if they
are shut down.
The following topics contain further information on NetBackup for Hyper-V with
SCVMM:
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection” on page 65.
See “Examples for the NetBackup Query Builder” on page 72.
See “Query Builder field reference” on page 80.
See “Notes on NetBackup for Hyper-V with SCVMM” on page 97.
NetBackup Hyper-V for SCVMM 97
Notes on NetBackup for Hyper-V with SCVMM
■ Any VMs that do not reside on a Hyper-V server, such as VMware VMs.
Note: SCVMM can manage non-Hyper-V VMs. NetBackup for Hyper-V does
not back up these VMs. To back up VMware VMs for example, use
NetBackup for VMware.
The Test Query dialog lists these types of VMs as Excluded, with a message
that explains the reason for the exclusion. (The Test Query option is available
on the policy Clients tab.)
■ Changes that are made through Hyper-V Manager on individual Hyper-V hosts
or clusters can take up to 24 hours to be reflected in SCVMM. This delay is due
to the Microsoft SCVMM refresh cycle. In an SCVMM environment, Microsoft
recommends making VM configuration changes through SCVMM (not through
the Hyper-V Manager on individual hosts or clusters). Changes that are made
through the SCVMM Console are reflected immediately in SCVMM.
■ In an SCVMM environment, the VM GUID is referred to as the VM ID.
NetBackup Hyper-V for SCVMM 98
Creating a query to back up VMs in a localized SCVMM environment
Caution: If the SCVMM environment includes multiple VMs that have the same
VM ID, each SCVMM refresh cycle reports only one of the VMs. Any other VM
with the same VM ID is not visible. The NetBackup policy can back up only the
VM that is currently reported or visible. Any other VM that has the same VM ID
is not visible and is not backed up.
To make sure that NetBackup can discover and back up all VMs, avoid duplicate
VM IDs in the SCVMM environment.
In this example, the browse icon returned the possible values for the
VirtualMachineState keyword.
3 Click the value to use in the query.
When restoring a clustered virtual machine to its original location, note the following:
Windows Server failover cluster support 101
Notes on CSV backup and restore
To create a policy for the virtual machines that are in a CSV cluster
1 Select Hyper-V as the policy type.
2 Click the Hyper-V tab and select the backup method (VSS or WMI).
3 For the VSS backup method only: Note the following options on the Hyper-V
tab:
Cluster shared Determines how many minutes the backup job waits, in case
volumes timeout another node backs up the same shared volume(s) that this
backup requires.
Note: This option is not used if the cluster is on Windows
2012.
4 On the Clients tab, enter the name of the cluster in the Hyper-V server field.
5 On the Clients tab, click New.
Note: This procedure describes how to select virtual machines manually. For
automatic selection of virtual machines with a Hyper-V Intelligent policy, see
the following topics:
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection”
on page 65.
See “Changing the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon (vnetd.exe) to
the domain user account” on page 24.
6 You can enter the host name, display name, or GUID of the virtual machine to
back up, or click Browse and select Virtual Machine.
Windows Server failover cluster support 103
Location of the restored virtual machine in a cluster
The cluster name and its nodes (Hyper-V servers) appear in the left pane,
under Hyper-V Manager. The virtual machines appear in the larger pane to
the right.
The High Availability column indicates whether the virtual machine is
configured as highly available in the cluster.
Note the following:
■ The host name or display name must appear in the list according to the
Primary VM identifier option on the Hyper-V tab. If you selected VM
hostname for the Primary VM identifier option, and a host name for the
virtual machine does not appear: The virtual machine cannot be added to
the Clients list.
The host name of a virtual machine is available only when the virtual
machine is in the running state. The display name and GUID are always
available. If the host name does not appear, make sure that the virtual
machine is turned on. To update the cache file and re-display virtual
machines, click the refresh icon to the right of the Last Update field.
■ If the right pane reads "Unable to connect," the highlighted node in the left
pane is down or the NetBackup client service is not running.
node after the backup occurred, what is the original location? Is it the node (Hyper-V
server) where the virtual machine resided when it was backed up, or the node where
it now resides?
The following table is a decision chart for restore to original location in a cluster. It
indicates where the virtual machine is restored. The location depends on the virtual
machine's high availability (HA) state when it was backed up and when it was
restored.
Is the virtual Is the virtual Virtual machine is restored to this node (to non-HA
machine status HA machine status HA state):
at time of backup? at time of restore?
Restored to the node that owns the virtual machine at the time of
restore.
Restored to the node where the virtual machine resided at the time
of backup.
Restored to the node where the virtual machine resided at the time
of backup.
Note: In all cases, the virtual machine is restored to the non-HA state.
Windows Server failover cluster support 105
Virtual machine maintenance after a restore
Is the HA virtual machine These group resources are removed along with
based on a CSV volume? the existing virtual machine:
Is the HA virtual machine These group resources are removed along with
based on a CSV volume? the existing virtual machine:
■ WMI backup method: State of the virtual machine before and after restore
■ Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of the Hyper-V virtual machine
■ The BAR interface may list Hyper-V snapshot files when you browse to restore
Hyper-V VM files
For further information on NetBackup policies and backup schedules, see the
chapter on creating backup policies in the NetBackup Administrator's Guide, Volume
I.
To create the policy, you can use the Policies option of the NetBackup
Administration Console, or you can use the Policy Configuration Wizard.
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy from the NetBackup Policies utility” on page 34.
See “Creating a Hyper-V policy from the Policy Configuration Wizard ” on page 33.
To back up a virtual machine manually from an existing policy
1 In the NetBackup Administration Console, click on Policies, select the policy
name, and click Actions > Manual Backup.
The Manual Backup dialog appears.
Table 8-1 WMI backup method: State of the virtual machine before and
after restore
Running Off
Saved Saved
Paused Off
Off Off
have originally resided on the same virtual machine volume. If some files resided
on one volume and other files resided on a different volume, the restore fails.
■ To restore Windows encrypted files, the NetBackup Client Service must be
logged on as Administrator on the target host for the restore. Under services on
the control panel, change the logon for the NetBackup Client Services from
Local System Account to Administrator.
■ Files that use NTFS-file system features cannot retain those features if you
attempt to restore the files to a FAT or FAT32 file system.
Note the following:
■ Files that were compressed under NTFS are restored as uncompressed files
in a FAT or FAT32 file system.
■ Files that were encrypted under NTFS cannot be restored to a FAT or FAT32
file system.
■ Files that had NTFS-based security attributes are restored without those
attributes in a FAT or FAT32 file system.
■ The restore fails with NetBackup status 2817 when the files that have
alternate data streams are restored to a FAT or FAT32 file system.
■ On a restore, NetBackup recreates the linking between a hard link and its original
file only if the link file and its target file are restored in the same job. If each file
is restored individually in separate restore jobs, they are restored as separate
files and the link is not re-established.
■ On a Linux virtual machine, a backup that was made with the Enable file
recovery from VM backup option may have file-mapping issues if the virtual
machine experiences heavy I/O. (Windows Hyper-V provides no mechanism
for quiescing file system activity on Linux virtual machines.)
See “Problems with restore of individual files” on page 166.
■ For Linux virtual machines, only the ext2, ext3, and ext4 file systems are
supported for individual file restore. If a partition uses some other file system,
the backup succeeds but files in that partition cannot be individually restored.
Note: The "/" (root) partition must be formatted with ext2, ext3, or ext4 so that
NetBackup can present mount points in the Backup, Archive, and Restore
interface.
■ The Linux ext4 file system includes a persistent pre-allocation feature, to
guarantee disk space for files without padding the allocated space with zeros.
When NetBackup restores a pre-allocated file (to any supported ext file system),
the file loses its preallocation and is restored as a sparse file.
■ To migrate an ext2 or ext3 file system to ext4: See the instructions under
Converting an ext3 file system to ext4 on the following page of the Ext4 wiki:
Back up and restore Hyper-V 111
Notes on full virtual machine restore
https://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Ext4_Howto#Converting_an_ext3_filesystem_to_ext4
If you do not follow these instructions, data in a newly created ext4 file is not
promptly flushed from memory to disk. As a result, NetBackup cannot back up
the data of recently created files in the ext4 file system. (The NetBackup snapshot
captures the file as zero length.) As a workaround for the file systems that were
not correctly migrated, note: Run the Linux sync command on the ext4 file system
before starting each backup.
■ NetBackup supports backup of Linux FIFO files and socket files. Note however
that NetBackup does not support restoring FIFO files and socket files individually.
FIFO files and socket files can be restored along with the rest of the virtual
machine data when you recover the entire virtual machine.
■ For Linux virtual machines, NetBackup cannot restore individual files from
software RAID volumes. The files are restored when you restore the entire virtual
machine
■ NetBackup supports backup and restore of Linux LVM2 volumes, including
individual file restore from an LVM2 volume. Note however that NetBackup does
not support individual file restore from a snapshot that was created by means
of the snapshot feature in LVM2. If an LVM2 snapshot exists at the time of the
backup, the data in the snapshot is captured in the backup. The data can be
restored along with the rest of the virtual machine data when you recover the
entire virtual machine.
■ For VMs on a Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V server, the BAR interface may list
Hyper-V snapshot files when you browse to restore VM files. In some cases,
the snapshot file data is not application consistent and the file should not be
restored.
To identify the snapshot file and to decide whether to restore it:
See “The BAR interface may list Hyper-V snapshot files when you browse to
restore Hyper-V VM files” on page 130.
■ For Linux, additional notes apply.
See “Notes on Linux virtual machines” on page 22.
■ NetBackup for Hyper-V does not support individual file restore by means of
ClientDirect Restore.
■ By default, the NetBackup client on the Hyper-V server does not have Windows
Administrator privileges. You can restore a full virtual machine from the
NetBackup server. You cannot restore a full virtual machine from a NetBackup
client that does not have Administrator privileges.
■ For the virtual machines that are configured in a volume GUID with a differencing
disk in another volume GUID, redirected restores are not supported.
See “Restored virtual machine fails to start” on page 164.
■ When you restore the virtual machine to its original location with the Overwrite
virtual machine option, note: The same virtual machine on the Hyper-V server
is automatically turned off and deleted before the restore. The vhd or vhdx files
of the virtual machine on the Hyper-V server are overwritten by the vhd or vhdx
files from the backup image. If any new vhd or vhdx files were created after the
backup, those files are not removed.
■ When you restore the virtual machine to a different location on the original
Hyper-V server or to a different server, note: The same virtual machine (if it
exists) on the Hyper-V server is automatically turned off and deleted before the
restore if you choose the Overwrite virtual machine option. The .vhd or .vhdx
files of the deleted virtual machine, however, are not deleted. You must delete
those files.
■ When you restore the virtual machine to a Hyper-V server that has a virtual
machine of the same GUID, you must select the Overwrite virtual machine
option. Otherwise, the restore fails.
■ If you restore a virtual machine without the Overwrite virtual machine option,
note: You must remove the current virtual machine and its vhd or vhdx files from
the destination server before you start the restore. If you remove the virtual
machine but leave one or more of its virtual disk files on the destination server,
the virtual disk files from the backup are not restored.
■ (This item is a limitation in VSS, not in NetBackup.) Immediately after a full virtual
machine is restored, the virtual machine volume may be larger than it was when
the virtual machine was backed up. The increase is normal: After the restore,
snapshot-related cache files remain on the volume. After about 20 minutes, the
cache files are automatically removed and the volume returns to its original size
Note: A new backup of the restored virtual machine could fail if the virtual
machine volume contains insufficient space to create a snapshot for the backup.
According to Microsoft, this situation should not occur as long as the virtual
machine volume has at least 10 to 15% free space.
■ In the following case a race condition may result:
■ You attempt to do a full restore of two virtual machines at the same time.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 113
About restoring individual files
■ The two virtual machines also share a virtual hard disk (vhd or vhdx file) that
both restore jobs have selected to restore.
The two jobs may simultaneously attempt to access the same vhd or vhdx file,
but only one job gains access to the file. The other job is denied access, and
that job may fail with error code 185.
See “NetBackup status codes related to Hyper-V” on page 156.
■ If you restore a virtual machine to a different Hyper-V server, the original Hyper-V
server and the target server must have the same number of network adapters
(NICs). You must configure the network adapter(s) for the restored virtual
machine on the target server.
See “Restored virtual machine fails to start” on page 164.
■ A restore of a virtual machine to an alternate location fails if any of its virtual
disks has an ampersand (&) in its path. As a workaround, restore the virtual
machine to its original location, or restore to a staging location and register the
virtual machine manually.
■ Install a NetBackup client on another computer. Restore the files to that computer
and then copy the files to the virtual machine.
To restore encrypted files, you must install a NetBackup client on the virtual
machine and restore the files directly to the virtual machine.
See “Restoring individual files to a host that has a NetBackup client” on page 114.
You can use the NetBackup Backup, Archive, and Restore interface to restore files
and folders from NetBackup for Hyper-V backups.
Important notes on Hyper-V restore are also available.
See “Notes on full virtual machine restore” on page 111.
See “Notes on individual file restore” on page 109.
Server to use for backups Enter the NetBackup primary server that performed the
and restores Hyper-V backup.
Source client for restores Enter the Hyper-V virtual machine that was backed up.
Destination client for Enter a physical host or a virtual machine. The host or
restores virtual machine must contain a NetBackup client.
3 Click OK.
4 Under Restore type, click Normal Backups.
5 Enter a date and time range within which to search for backups.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 115
Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of individual files
Table 8-2 Options for individual file restore on the Restore Marked Files
dialog box
Option Description
Restore everything to Restores the folders and files to the location where they resided
its original location when the backup occurred.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 117
Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of individual files
Table 8-2 Options for individual file restore on the Restore Marked Files
dialog box (continued)
Option Description
Restore everything to Restores the folders and files with their original hierarchy, but to a
a different location different location.
(maintaining existing
Use the Destination field to enter the restore location.
structure)
Click Browse to browse to the restore location.
If the original volume at the time of backup (such as E:\) does not
exist on the destination client for this restore, the restore fails.
Restore individual Restores the folders and files to individually designated locations.
folders and files to To designate a restore destination for each source folder, double
different locations click on its row.
(double-click to
modify)
Restore options Most of these options do not apply to the restore of a Hyper-V virtual
machine.
Overwrite existing If any of the files to restore already exist at the restore destination,
files the restore overwrites the existing files.
Do not restore the file If any of the files to restore already exist at the restore destination,
the restore does not overwrite those files. Restores only the files
that do not already exist at the destination.
Override default job Determines the restore job's priority for restore resources. A higher
priority priority means that NetBackup assigns the first available drive to
the first restore job with the highest priority. Enter a number
(maximum 99999). The default for all restore jobs is 0, the lowest
priority possible. Any restore job with a priority greater than zero
has priority over the default setting.
Media Server You can use this option to select a media server that has access
to the storage unit that contains the backup image. An example of
such an environment is a Media Server Deduplication Pool (MSDP)
with multiple media servers.
Note: If the storage unit that contains the backup image is not
shared with multiple media servers, this option is grayed out.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 118
Restoring individual files to a shared location on the virtual machine
Server to use for backups Specify the NetBackup primary server that performed the
and restores Hyper-V backup.
Source client for restores Specify the Hyper-V virtual machine that was backed up.
(or virtual client for
backups)
Destination client for Select the host that has the NetBackup client. The virtual
restores machine to which you want to restore must have a share
for this host.
Date / time range The time period within which to search for backups.
5 Click OK.
6 Click Select for Restore > Restore from Normal Backup.
7 Under All folders and Contents, select the files to restore.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 119
Restoring individual files to a shared location on the virtual machine
NetBackup restores the files to the shared location on the virtual machine.
10 You may have to change the logon for the NetBackup Client Service.
See “Setting up NetBackup Client Service for restore to a shared location on
the virtual machine” on page 119.
Server to use for Enter the NetBackup primary server that performed the
backups and restores Hyper-V backup.
Source client for Enter the Hyper-V virtual machine that was backed up.
restores (or virtual
client for backups)
Destination client for This field is ignored when you restore an entire virtual machine.
restores
A later step in this procedure explains how to restore to a
different Hyper-V server.
Date / time range The time period within which to search for backups.
3 Click OK.
4 Click File > Select Files and Folders to Restore > From Virtual Machine
Backup.
A restore window displays the backups available for restore.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 121
Restoring the full Hyper-V virtual machine
5 Select the backup of the virtual machine that you want to restore.
In the NetBackup History pane, click on the Hyper-V backup, then click the
check box under All Folders. You must select the entire virtual machine.
6 Click the Start Restore of Marked Files icon.
7 Select from the following options on the Restore Marked Files dialog box.
Hyper-V virtual machine Shows the Hyper-V hostname and GUID (Globally Unique
GUID Identifier) of the virtual machine that was backed up. Use
this value to verify that this backup represents the virtual
machine that you want to restore. The GUID is a unique
string for a virtual machine in addition to the hostname.
Restore Options
Restore to Hyper-V Restores the virtual machine to its original location on the
server original Hyper-V server.
Restore to staging Restores the virtual machine files to the staging location on
location the server that you specify under Hyper-V server and
Restore everything to different directory. Use this option
if:
For instance, you can use this option to add restored files
as a .vhd volume to a virtual machine other than the one
from which they were backed up.
Restore Destinations
Back up and restore Hyper-V 123
Restoring the full Hyper-V virtual machine
List of backed up files Lists the Hyper-V virtual machine files as they existed when
(Source) the virtual machine was backed up. By default, all listed files
are selected for restore.
Override default job Determines the restore job's priority for restore resources.
priority A higher priority means that NetBackup assigns the first
available drive to the first restore job with the highest priority.
Enter a number (maximum 99999). The default for all restore
jobs is 0, the lowest priority possible. Any restore job with
a priority greater than zero has priority over the default
setting.
8 Select restore options and the restore destination on the Restore Marked
Files dialog.
See “Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of the Hyper-V virtual machine”
on page 124.
9 Click Start Restore.
When the restore is complete, the restored virtual machine is placed in the
Saved or Off state. The state after restore depends on its state at the time of
the backup and the type of Hyper-V backup that occurred.
See “About Hyper-V online and offline backups for VSS” on page 173.
See “About restoring individual files” on page 113.
See “NetBackup administrator tasks for Hyper-V” on page 15.
See “Problems with restore of the full virtual machine” on page 167.
Note: The available options depend on the backup method that was used to make
the backup: WMI or VSS.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 126
Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of the Hyper-V virtual machine
Option Description
Hyper-V virtual Shows the Hyper-V GUID (globally unique identifier) of the virtual machine that was backed up.
machine GUID Use this value to verify that this backup represents the virtual machine that you want to restore.
The GUID is a unique string for a virtual machine in addition to the host name.
Restore to original Restores the virtual machine to its original location on the original Hyper-V server.
Hyper-V server
Restore to different Restores the virtual machine to a different location on the original Hyper-V server, or restores
location on the it to a different Hyper-V server.
original or different
Hyper-V server
Restore to staging Restores the virtual machine files to the staging location on the server that you specify under
location Hyper-V server and Restore everything to different directory. Use this option if:
For instance, you can use this option to add restored files as a vhd volume or vhdx volume to
a virtual machine. The virtual machine must not be the one from which they were backed up.
Overwrite virtual If you selected Restore to Hyper-V server or Restore to different locations on same /
machine different Hyper-V server, note the following:
(If you selected ■ If a virtual machine with the same GUID exists at the destination server, that virtual machine
Restore to staging is removed with its configuration files and snapshot files. Any existing vhd or vhdx files for
location, this option the virtual machine on the destination server are overwritten. The virtual machine that you
is Overwrite selected to restore is restored from the backup.
existing files) ■ If the Overwrite virtual machine option is not selected and a virtual machine with the same
GUID exists on the destination server, the restore fails.
■ If the Overwrite virtual machine option is not selected and vhd or vhdx file(s) for the virtual
machine still exist on the destination: The vhd file(s) or vhdx file(s) from the backup are not
restored.
See “Problems with restore of the full virtual machine” on page 167.
If you selected Restore to staging location, note the following:
■ If the vhd file or vhdx file already exists on the destination server in the restore location, that
file on the destination server is overwritten.
■ If the Overwrite existing files option is not selected and any file you want to restore already
exists in the restore location, the file is not overwritten. Any other files that are selected for
restore are restored. The restore is reported as a partial success.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 127
Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of the Hyper-V virtual machine
Table 8-3 Options on the Restore Marked Files dialog box (continued)
Option Description
Retain original Keeps the original GUID for the restored virtual machine.
GUID
To generate a new GUID for the restored virtual machine, clear this option.
Note: This option applies only to the virtual machines on Hyper-V Server 2016 (and later) that
were backed up with the WMI method.
Note: For restore to the original location (Restore to original Hyper-V server), the Retain
Original GUID option is selected and cannot be deselected.
Note: NetBackup does not generate a new GUID if you select Restore to staging location.
Hyper-V virtual You can enter a new display name for the restored virtual machine.
machine display
Note: This option applies only to virtual machines on Hyper-V Server 2016 and later.
name
Note: This option is not available if you select Restore to staging location.
Hyper-V server If you selected Restore to Hyper-V server (to restore to the original location), note: the restore
destination is the name of the Hyper-V server from which the virtual machine was backed up.
In this case, the destination cannot be changed.
For the other restore options (restore to a different location, or restore to a staging location),
enter the destination Hyper-V server for the restore.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 128
Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of the Hyper-V virtual machine
Table 8-3 Options on the Restore Marked Files dialog box (continued)
Option Description
List of backed up Lists the Hyper-V virtual machine files as they existed when the virtual machine was backed
files (Source) up. By default, all listed files are selected for restore.
If you do not want the restore to replace certain files on the current virtual machine on the
destination server, deselect those files. Leave a check mark next to the files that you want to
restore. The files that are not selected are not restored. Note that the following virtual machine
configuration files are not de-selectable in restores other than staging restores:
The xml, vsv, and bin files, and avhd or avhdx files.
Caution: Replacing common files with earlier versions can be problematic for the virtual machines
that rely on the common files. If you do not want to overwrite the common files on the Hyper-V
server, deselect the common files that you do not want to restore.
■ If you do not select any vhd files or vhdx files, NetBackup tries to find them in their original
location. If they are absent from the original location, the restore fails. If a parent vhd or vhdx
file was in E:\myVhds\ on the original virtual machine and is not selected during restore,
NetBackup looks for the parent file in E:\myVhds\ on the target virtual machine. If the file
does not exist, the restore fails.
■ For Restore to Hyper-V server or Restore to different locations on same / different
Hyper-V server, you can deselect any vhd files or vhdx files in this list. All other files are
pre-selected and cannot be deselected.
■ For Restore to staging location, you can deselect any files in the list.
■ Configuration files (such as xml, bin, vsv, and snapshot files) are always restored when you
restore the full virtual machine.
Restore everything This field is disabled if you selected Restore to Hyper-V server.
to different
For restore to a different location or to a staging location: Enter the path on the server or other
directory
computer that you specified under Hyper-V server or Staging machine name. NetBackup
creates the appropriate subdirectories.
View Paths Displays the directories on the destination server in which the Hyper-V files are to be restored.
You must specify a destination path in the Restore everything to different directory field.
Override default Determines the restore job's priority for restore resources. A higher priority means that NetBackup
job priority assigns the first available drive to the first restore job with the highest priority. Enter a number
(maximum 99999). The default for all restore jobs is 0, the lowest priority possible. Any restore
job with a priority greater than zero has priority over the default setting.
Back up and restore Hyper-V 129
About restoring common files
Table 8-3 Options on the Restore Marked Files dialog box (continued)
Option Description
Media Server You can use this option to select a media server that has access to the storage unit that contains
the backup image. An example of such an environment is a Media Server Deduplication Pool
(MSDP) with multiple media servers.
Note: If the storage unit that contains the backup image is not shared with multiple media
servers, this option is grayed out.
Caution: Use care when restoring common files. If you restore an earlier version
of the common files (overwriting the current version), the virtual machines that rely
on those files may experience problems.
■ To overwrite the existing common files, select all the vhd files or vhdx files from
the List of backed up files. However, if the common files are in use on the
destination server, the restore fails. For the restore to succeed, the virtual
machines that use the common files must be in the Off or Saved state.
■ To restore common files without overwriting any common files that exist on the
destination server: Specify a different location on the Restore Marked Files
dialog box under Restore everything to different directory.
In this case, use the following criteria (based on Hyper-V server version) to identify
the snapshot file and to decide whether to restore it:
Note: In the snapshot’s parent file (apvm.vhd in the example) and in the other VM
files, the data is complete. To restore the VM data, you should restore those files.
Note: In the snapshot’s parent file (apvm.vhd in the example) and in the other VM
files, the data is complete. To restore the VM data, you should restore those files.
■ About reporting the amount of Accelerator backup data that was transferred
over the network
made within a virtual machine. Only the changed data blocks are sent to the
NetBackup media server, to significantly reduce the I/O and backup time. The media
server combines the new data with previous backup data and produces a traditional
full NetBackup image that includes the complete virtual machine files.
Note: Accelerator is most appropriate for virtual machine data that does not
experience a high rate of change.
Note: After upgrade from any of the previous release, If the customer has configured
accelerator enabled Hyper-v policy, then optimization will be lost only for first backup.
The NetBackup Accelerator creates the backup stream and backup image for each
virtual machine as follows:
■ If the virtual machine has no previous backup, NetBackup performs a full backup.
Hyper-V resilient change tracking (RCT) is enabled to track the data in use for
each virtual disk.
■ At the next backup, NetBackup identifies data that has changed since the
previous backup. Only changed blocks and the header information are included
in the backup, to create a full virtual disk backup.
■ The backup host sends to the media server a tar backup stream that consists
of the following: The virtual machine's changed blocks, and the previous backup
ID and data extents (block offset and size) of the unchanged blocks.
■ The media server reads the virtual machine's changed blocks, the backup ID,
and information about the data extents of the unchanged blocks. From the
backup ID and data extents, the media server locates the rest of the virtual
machine's data in existing backups.
■ The media server directs the storage server to create a new full image that
consists of the following: The newly changed blocks, and the existing unchanged
blocks that reside on the storage server. The storage server may not write the
existing blocks but rather link them to the image.
in the checkpoint (the size of the checkpoint file). The smaller the checkpoint
file, the higher the rate of optimization in the third backup.
Similarly, if a checkpoint is deleted after the second backup, the optimization
rate in the next backup depends on the size of the virtual disk that was affected
by the checkpoint deletion.
■ Supports the disk storage units that have the following storage destinations:
■ Cloud storage. Storage that a supported cloud storage vendor provides.
■ NetBackup Media Server Deduplication Pool. In addition to NetBackup media
servers, NetBackup 5200 series appliances support Media Server
Deduplication Pool storage.
■ Qualified third-party OpenStorage devices.
To verify that your storage unit supports Accelerator, refer to the NetBackup
hardware compatibility list for the currently supported OST vendors:
NetBackup Compatibility List for all Versions
■ It is recommended that you do not enable Expire after copy retention for any
storage units that are used with storage lifecycle policies (SLP) in combination
with Accelerator. The Expire after copy retention can cause images to expire
while the backup runs. To synthesize a new full backup, the SLP backup needs
the previous backup image. If the previous image expires during the backup,
the backup fails.
■ Update the NetBackup device mapping files if needed.
The NetBackup device mapping files contain all storage device types that
NetBackup can use. To add support for the new devices or upgraded devices
that support Accelerator, download the current device mapping files from the
Veritas Technical Support website.
See the NetBackup Administrator's Guide Volume I for information on the device
mapping files and how to download them.
■ Storage unit groups are supported only if the storage unit selection in the group
is Failover.
■ Supports the full backups and incremental backups. Every Accelerator backup
(from a full schedule or incremental schedule) results in a complete image of
the virtual machine.
■ You can use incremental backups (cumulative or differential) as follows: To
reduce the file-mapping overhead and to reduce the number of files that are
recorded in the NetBackup catalog. Cumulative backups may involve more
file-mapping because they do not use the random indexing method to determine
which files have changed. In some cases, differential backups may be faster
than cumulative backups.
Use Accelerator to back up Hyper-V 137
Accelerator forced rescan for virtual machines (schedule attribute)
■ If a backup of the virtual machine does not exist, NetBackup performs a full
backup. This initial backup occurs at the speed of a normal (non-accelerated)
full backup. Subsequent Accelerator backups of the virtual machine use resilient
change tracking (RCT) to accelerate the backup.
■ If the storage unit that is associated with the policy cannot be validated when
you create the policy, note: The storage unit is validated later when the backup
job begins. If Accelerator does not support the storage unit, the backup fails. In
the bpbrm log, a message appears that is similar to one of the following:
...
When subsequent backups of the virtual machine use Accelerator, the following
messages appear in the job details log:
...
This message is a key trace for Accelerator. In this example Accelerator was
successful at reducing the backup data by 98.7%.
Windows: install_path\NetBackup\logs\bptm
Windows: install_path\NetBackup\logs\bpbkar
Windows: install_path\NetBackup\logs\bpfis
Use Accelerator to back up Hyper-V 140
About reporting the amount of Accelerator backup data that was transferred over the network
To create the log directories, run the following command on the NetBackup servers
and backup host:
On Windows:
install_path\NetBackup\logs\mklogdir.bat
On UNIX/Linux:
/usr/openv/netbackup/logs/mklogdir
bpdbjobs, Windows:
bpimagelist
install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\
UNIX, Linux
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/
bpclimagelist Windows:
install_path\NetBackup\bin\
UNIX, Linux
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/
The following example uses the bpimagelist command to show the results of a
backup of acmevm2:
bpimagelist -backupid acmevm2
Example output:
Note: This example output is for a VMware backup, but the output formatting is the
same for Hyper-V.
In this example, the backup image size in kilobytes is 7799632, and the amount of
data that was transferred over the network is 225792.
You can use the following commands to show the amount of data that was
transferred over the network for an Accelerator backup.
Use Accelerator to back up Hyper-V 142
About reporting the amount of Accelerator backup data that was transferred over the network
bpimagelist
bpimagelist -backupid backup_id [-l | -L | -json | -json_compact]
Brackets [ ] indicate optional elements, and the vertical bars | indicate that you can
choose only one of the options within the brackets.
Table 9-3 describes how the network-transferred data field appears in the
bpimagelist output.
"kilobytes_data_transferred": 225792,
"kilobytes_data_transferred":225792,
bpdbjobs
bpdbjobs –jobid job_id -report –most_columns
or
bpdbjobs –jobid job_id -report –all_columns
bpclimagelist
bpclimagelist -client client_name
This command can only show the network-transferred data in the field that normally
shows the Accelerator backup image size. To show the network-transferred data
with this command, you must configure a NetBackup setting:
See “Replacing the Accelerator image size with the network-transferred data in
NetBackup command output” on page 143.
Use Accelerator to back up Hyper-V 143
Replacing the Accelerator image size with the network-transferred data in NetBackup command output
Note: This example output is for a VMware backup, but the output formatting is the
same for Hyper-V.
Note: The same change occurs in the labeled output of the commands (such as
with the -L option of bpimagelist). For example, the Kilobytes field shows the
transferred data value (225792 in the example) rather than the Accelerator backup
image size.
Incremental Windows
Hyper-V
Accelerator echo REPLACE_IMAGE_SIZE_WITH_DATA_TRANSFERRED = REPLACE_IMAGE_SIZE_
backups FOR_ACCL_INC_HYPERV | install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\bpsetconfig
UNIX, Linux
UNIX, Linux
Incremental Windows
Accelerator virtual
machine backups echo REPLACE_IMAGE_SIZE_WITH_DATA_TRANSFERRED = REPLACE_IMAGE_SIZE_
(VMware and FOR_ACCL_INC_VIRTUAL | install_path\NetBackup\bin\admincmd\bpsetconfig
Hyper-V)
UNIX, Linux
UNIX, Linux
echo "REPLACE_IMAGE_SIZE_WITH_DATA_TRANSFERRED =
REPLACE_IMAGE_SIZE_DISABLED" |
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bpsetconfig
Chapter 10
Best practices and more
information
This chapter includes the following topics:
■ Best practices
Best practices
It is recommended the following for NetBackup for Hyper-V:
■ When creating virtual machines, use the same name for the VM's host name
and display name. If the NetBackup policy's Primary VM identifier option is
changed, the existing entries on the NetBackup policy Clients tab still work.
See “Primary VM identifier option (Hyper-V)” on page 43.
■ In a virtual desktop infrastructure where VMs share a common parent disk, do
the following when restoring a VM to its original location: Restore the VM's
differencing disk but not its parent disk. Make sure that the parent disk already
exists on the same restore path.
On the Restore Marked Files dialog, under List of backed up files, clear the
check mark from the parent disk. In the following example, the parent disk
vm1.vhdx is unselected:
Best practices and more information 148
Best practices
Note: If you restore the parent disk to the original location, the other linked VMs
that share the parent disk cannot be used. Their connection to the parent disk
is lost. Instead, restore the differencing disk without the parent disk and make
sure that the parent disk already exists on the same restore path. Otherwise,
the restore fails because the parent disk does not exist.
Note: This issue does not apply when you restore the VM to an alternate location.
As long as no other VMs at the restore location share the parent disk, you can
restore the parent disk along with the differencing disk.
Caution: For restore to the original location: If you restore the parent disk and
edit the linked VMs by reconnecting their differencing disks to the restored parent
disk, VM data may be lost.
■ When backing up the virtual machines that reside on the same CSV, Windows
warning 1584 can be ignored
■ Problem with a restart of a restored virtual machine: Why did the computer shut
down unexpectedly?
■ Unable to change virtual disk settings for a VM after restore if the VM had user
checkpoints during a backup that used the WMI method
Troubleshooting 150
NetBackup logs for Hyper-V and how to create them
Table 11-1 NetBackup logs that pertain to Hyper-V backup and restore
Table 11-1 NetBackup logs that pertain to Hyper-V backup and restore
(continued)
\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Snapshot creation and VSS NetBackup client on the
Shared\VxFI\4\logs\ APIs. Hyper-V server
Note: These log folders must already exist in order for logging to occur. If these
folders do not exist, you must create them.
To create most of these log folders, run the following command on the NetBackup
servers and on the Hyper-V server:
Windows:
install_path\NetBackup\logs\mklogdir.bat
For more detail on snapshot-related logs, logging levels, and the required folders,
see the NetBackup Snapshot Client Administrator’s Guide.
A broader discussion of NetBackup logging is available in the NetBackup
Troubleshooting Guide.
Note: VxMS logging may require significant resources on the Hyper-V server.
Note: If you have run the NetBackup mklogdir.bat command, the VxMS log
directory already exists.
See “NetBackup logs for Hyper-V and how to create them” on page 150.
Note: You can use NTFS compression on VxMS log folders to compress the
log size. The new logs are written in compressed form only.
Note: If the VxMS log location is changed, the Logging Assistant does not
collect the logs.
Troubleshooting 154
NetBackup logs for Hyper-V and how to create them
Note: Logging levels higher than 5 cannot be set in the Logging Assistant.
Note: Logging levels higher than 5 should be used in very unusual cases only. At
that level, the log files and metadata dumps may place significant demands on disk
space and host performance.
Level Description
0 No logging.
1 Error logging.
4 Same as level 3.
5 Highly verbose (includes level 1) + auxiliary evidence files (.mmf, .dump, VDDK
logs, .xml, .rvpmem).
You can set the logging level for the VDDK messages.
Windows VxMS-thread_id-user_name.mmddyy_tag.log
For example:
VxMS-7456-ALL_ADMINS.070214_core.log
VxMS-7456-ALL_ADMINS.070214_provider.log
For example:
VxMS-27658-root.log.081314_core
VxMS-27658-root.log.081314_provider
In either case, the NetBackup client service is not running on the current owner
(node) of the cluster. Start the NetBackup client service on the cluster node and
create the policy again.
42, network read The Windows shadow storage for the volume may have insufficient space to hold all required
failed snapshots. A larger shadow storage area may be required.
The virtual machine is either not running, or it is starting up. Make sure that the virtual
machine is running and then rerun the backup.
Troubleshooting 157
NetBackup status codes related to Hyper-V
84, media write error Incremental backups of the VM may fail if the NTFS file system in the guest OS is corrupted
and the backup uses MSDP storage. This error may occur in the following case:
■ The VMware or Hyper-V backup policy specifies Media Server Deduplication Pool (MSDP)
storage.
■ The backup schedule includes incrementals (differential or cumulative).
■ The NTFS file system in the VM’s guest OS is corrupted. For example, the file system
contains orphaned file record segments. The bptm debug log contains messages similar
to the following:
Use the chkdsk command to examine the file system in the guest OS and repair it as
needed. Then restart the VM and rerun the backup.
156, snapshot error See “Snapshot error encountered (status code 156)” on page 159.
encountered
185, tar did not find If you attempt to do a full restore of two VMs at the same time, note: If the two VMs share a
all the files to be virtual hard disk that contains a file that both restore jobs must restore, a race condition may
restored result. The two jobs may simultaneously attempt to access the same file, but only one job
gains access to the file. The other job is denied access, and that job may fail with status code
185.
After the first restore job successfully completes, retry the second job.
Troubleshooting 158
NetBackup status codes related to Hyper-V
4207, Could not fetch For details on this status code, refer to the NetBackup Status Codes Reference Guide:
snapshot metadata or
http://www.veritas.com/docs/000003214
state files
4287, A NetBackup See “Existing snapshot handling parameter (WMI)” on page 48.
snapshot of the
For additional details on this status code, refer to the NetBackup Status Codes Reference
virtual machine exists
Guide:
and the policy option
specifies aborting the http://www.veritas.com/docs/000003214
backup
Troubleshooting 159
NetBackup status codes related to Hyper-V
The virtual A mismatch may exist between the virtual machine names that are specified on the policy Clients
machine name is tab and the actual names on the Hyper-V server. Check the actual names as listed in the Hyper-V
incorrectly Manager on the Hyper-V server.
specified in the The following are the recommended actions:
NetBackup policy.
■ In the NetBackup policy, the virtual machines must be specified as fully qualified names.
■ In the NetBackup policy, the virtual machine name may have been entered incorrectly.
If you browsed for the virtual machines on the Clients tab and selected names from the list,
the list may be out of date. (The list is derived from a cache file.) Refresh the list by clicking
on the icon next to the Last Update field.
Volumes on the Volumes on the virtual machine do not have enough free space for the snapshot. Microsoft
virtual machine are recommends that at least 10% of the virtual machine volume is available for the snapshot.
almost full.
Recommended action: create more space on the volume.
The Hyper-V The Hyper-V integration component is not properly installed in the virtual machine.
integration
Recommended action:
component is
absent. See “The Hyper-V integration component is not installed” on page 162.
Troubleshooting 160
NetBackup status codes related to Hyper-V
The VSS The following application error event may be written to the virtual machine during backup:
framework in the
virtual machine Event Type: Error
does not work Event Source: VSS
properly Event Category: None
Event ID: 12302
Date: 1/8/2009
Time: 1:36:21 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ARTICTALEVM8
Description:
If no writer is listed in the output and a similar error is logged, refer to the following to resolve this
issue:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940184
One or more or the required cluster shared volumes (CSV) cannot be prepared in the specified
timeout period. A current backup that started from another node needs one or more of the same
CSVs.
Increase the Cluster shared volumes timeout period and rerun the backup, or try the backup
at another time.
See “Cluster shared volumes timeout (Hyper-V with VSS)” on page 45.
Troubleshooting 161
Backup job hangs for multiple virtual machines
A local disk has For a successful backup of a virtual machine on a CSV, the virtual machine must use CSV
been added to a volumes only. If a local disk on the Hyper-V server (not a CSV volume) is added to the virtual
VM that is on CSV machine, the backup fails.
Reconfigure the virtual machine to use CSV volumes only, and rerun the backup.
NetBackup is not allowed to perform an offline backup of the virtual machine, because the Enable
offline backup for non-VSS VMs option is disabled.
See “Enable offline backup of non-VSS VMs (Hyper-V with VSS)” on page 44.
For the backups that are made with the System Provider Type (for a block-level
copy-on-write snapshot), note: Windows shadow storage for a volume on a Hyper-V
host must have enough space to hold all required snapshots. If too little space is
available, the backup fails with status code 42, "network read failed." In that case,
Troubleshooting 162
The Hyper-V integration component is not installed
You must restore the controller type of the .vhd disk to the controller type originally
assigned before the LDM volume was created. Then retry the backup.
Troubleshooting 163
Hyper-V snapshots (avhd or avhdx files) and status code 1
For this case, Microsoft has acknowledged that message 1584 is a false alarm. For
NetBackup backups of the virtual machines that reside on the same CSV, this
warning can be safely ignored.
Troubleshooting 164
Problems with alternate client backup
■ The restored virtual machine may fail to start if the virtual machine was not in
the Off state at the time of backup.
■ For the virtual machines that are configured in a volume GUID with a differencing
disk in another volume GUID, redirected restores are not supported. Note that
redirected restores are supported if the virtual machine's vhd or vhdx file is
configured in a drive-letter volume rather than a volume GUID.
A virtual machine restore to an alternate location may fail in the following case:
■ The virtual machine's vhd or vhdx file is in a GUID-based volume, and
Troubleshooting 165
Restored virtual machine fails to start
After the restore, you must configure a new virtual machine and attach the
restored vhd or vhdx files to the new virtual machine. The restored .xml file
contains information on the original configuration of the virtual machine.
■ When a virtual machine is restored to a different Hyper-V server: The location
of a virtual CD or DVD drive may prevent the virtual machine from restarting.
The problem occurs in the following case:
■ The original virtual machine had a CD ISO image that is attached to a virtual
CD or DVD drive.
■ On the Hyper-V server where the virtual machine was restored: The ISO
image is not on the same path as on the original Hyper-V host during backup.
For example: The virtual machine originally had E:\cd1.iso attached to its
virtual DVD drive. But E:\cd1.iso does not exist on the target Hyper-V host,
or it exists at a different location, such as F:\cd1.iso. In either case, the
restored virtual machine does not turn on.
Files are selected from For example: The original virtual machine had two drives (C:\ and D:\), and files from each
multiple drives (volumes) drive are selected in the same restore operation. Messages similar to the following appear
on the virtual machine. in the job progress log:
Select files from a single drive at a time. Selecting files from multiple drives is not supported.
You have attempted to Restore the files by means of a shared location on the virtual machine (with a UNC path)
restore the files into a rather than by means of a mapped drive.
mapped drive on the
See “Restoring individual files to a shared location on the virtual machine” on page 118.
virtual machine. The
restore fails with
NetBackup status code
185.
The snapshot contains Windows Hyper-V provides no mechanism for quiescing file system activity on Linux virtual
invalid inodes. machines. As a result, invalid inodes may be present in the snapshot. A backup that was
made with the Enable file recovery from VM backup option may have file-mapping failures
if the virtual machine experiences heavy I/O. The failures are reported in the NetBackup
Administration Console in this form:
Note that the backup succeeds, but any files with metadata errors cannot be restored
individually.
For the backups that enable individual restore of all files, schedule the backup when the
I/O activity is lower. If metadata errors persist, shut down the virtual machine during the
backup.
The virtual machine restore job fails but the virtual machine
is nonetheless registered in the Hyper-V server.
The Hyper-V-VMMS writes the following warnings in the events log:
Event ID: 10127, sample event log message:
One or more errors occurred while restoring the virtual machine from backup.
The virtual machine might not have registered or it might not start. (Virtual
machine ID "0AD8DFCC-BDC0-4718-B6DF-7A3BA2A735BF ")
The Hyper-V writer encountered a Network configuration error. The restored virtual
machine can be started after you change the Network Adaptor configuration in the
virtual machine settings.
that owns the virtual machine is not the node from which the virtual machine
was backed up.
■ For a redirected restore: The virtual machine is HA but the node that owns the
virtual machine is not the restore server (the node that performs the restore).
See the recommended actions in the tar log message.
\\?\Volume{1a2b74b1-1b2a-11df-8c23-0023acfc9192}\
\\?\Volume{1a2b74b1-1b2a-11df-8c23-0023acfc9192}\
The virtual machine is then restored to a different volume GUID, such as:
\\?\Volume{2a3b70a1-3b1a-11df-8c23-0023acfc9192}\
If the restored virtual machine is backed up and you do a redirected restore from
the backup, the restore may fail.
To avoid this problem in a redirected restore, restore the virtual machine to a
subdirectory of the volume GUID, such as to the following:
\\?\Volume{1a3b70a1-3b1a-11df-8c23-0023acfc9192}\REDIR_subdirectory\
Note: The VM’s files are restored, but NetBackup was unable to restore the owner
of the vhd or vhdx file(s).
When these changes are complete, rerun the restore. The restore job should return
status 0, "the requested operation was successfully completed."
Note: The default time-out period for Hyper-V disk creation is 24 hours.
Troubleshooting 171
Linux VMs and persistent device naming
Where host is the name of the NetBackup primary server where the
configuration is to be updated.
2 At the nbsetconfig prompt, enter the following to allow more time for creation
of the virtual disk.
This example sets the period to 48 hours:
HYPERV_WMI_CREATE_DISK_TIMEOUT = 48
Note: A value of 0 means the restore job never times out during virtual disk
creation.
To prevent this issue on Linux VMs with multiple disk controllers, it is recommended
a persistent device-naming method for mounting the file systems. When persistent
naming is in place, device mounting is consistent and this issue does not occur
when you restore files from future backups.
For persistent device naming, you can mount devices by UUIDs. The following is
an example of the /etc/fstab file that contains the devices that are mounted by
UUIDs:
Note: Limit the number of characters for each fstab entry to 90 on a VMware VM.
To find the device UUIDs, you can use either of the following commands:
blkid
ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
Note: NetBackup also supports the by-LABEL method for persistent device naming.
Appendix A
VSS backup method:
Hyper-V online and offline
backups
This appendix includes the following topics:
■ Hyper-V 2012 R2 virtual machines may be in the Off state when restored
Online Specifies that a virtual machine that is in the Running state is briefly quiesced
for the backup. User access during the backup continues without interruption.
Offline Specifies that a virtual machine that is in the Running or Paused state is
rendered temporarily inactive. It is returned to its original state before the
backup completes. User access during the backup is interrupted.
VSS backup method: Hyper-V online and offline backups 174
Conditions that determine online vs. offline backup for VSS
The following table shows the possible combinations of virtual machine state and
the type of backup (online or offline) when you use the VSS backup method.
Table A-1 VSS backup: State of virtual machine before and after restore
Note: The WMI backup method (for Hyper-V Server 2016 and later) does not employ
online vs offline backups.
See “WMI backup method: State of the virtual machine before and after restore”
on page 109.
on the C:\ volume. The shadow copy storage for D:\ must be on D:\, and so
forth.
If these conditions are not met, the backup is performed offline. An offline backup
results in some downtime on the virtual machine. If the virtual machine is in the
Running or Paused state, it is put in a Saved state as part of the offline backup.
After the backup is completed, the virtual machine is returned to its original state.
■ The virtual machine's operating system does not support Windows Volume
Shadow Copy Service (VSS).
■ The virtual machine does not have Hyper-V integration services enabled.
During the backup, the virtual machine is not placed in the Saved state (the bin file
and vsv file are not generated or backed up). The Hyper-V VSS writer instead
creates a checkpoint of the virtual machine. As a result, the virtual machine remains
in the Off state when it is restored.
The following MSDN article contains more information:
Hyper-V Backup doesn’t interrupt running virtual machines (anymore)
Appendix B
Hyper-V pass-through
disks
This appendix includes the following topics:
The devices that NetBackup supports for pass-through are the same as for a physical
(non-hypervisor) environment: the device vendor however must support the device
in a virtual environment.
Note: The NetBackup for Hyper-V feature and Hyper-V snapshot method (as
described in other chapters of this guide) do not back up pass-through disks.
Note: The requirements for the NetBackup for Hyper-V feature do not apply to
backups of the disk arrays that are configured as pass-through disks. The NetBackup
for Hyper-V feature (using the Hyper-V snapshot method as described in other parts
of this guide) does not back up pass-through disks.
9 In the policy Clients tab, select the virtual machine that has a pass-through
disk configured.
10 In the policy’s Backup Selections tab, specify the pass-through disk that you
want to back up. Or specify the files or volumes that reside on the pass-through
disk.
■ A snapshot of the data is created on the disk array and is mounted on the
alternate client. The alternate client creates a backup image from the snapshot,
using original path names, and streams the image to the NetBackup media
server.
■ The alternate client handles the backup I/O processing; the backup has little or
no effect on the virtual machine. The media server reads the snapshot data from
the alternate client and writes the data to storage.
8 For Machine, enter the name of the host that is configured as an off-host
backup computer (the alternate client).
The following shows the Snapshot Client panel of the policy Attributes tab.
9 Click Options.
The Snapshot Options dialog box appears.
10 Select the VSS snapshot method.
The Hyper-V method does not apply to alternate client backup and is not
available in the list.
The array may require additional OS and NetBackup configuration as described
in the disk arrays chapter of the NetBackup Snapshot Client Administrator's
Guide.
11 Specify snapshot options for VSS.
Select the following:
■ Provider Type: For disk arrays, select 3-hardware as the provider type.
Depending on your array and on the snapshot attribute you select, certain
preconfiguration of the array may be required. In the NetBackup Snapshot
Client guide, see the chapter on snapshot methods for disk arrays, for the
appropriate topic for your disk array and the VSS method.
Hyper-V pass-through disks 183
Important note on VSS and disk arrays
12 On the Clients tab, specify the virtual machine that has a pass-through disk
configured.
13 On the Backup Selections tab, specify the pass-through disk that you want
to back up, or the files or volumes that reside on the pass-through disk.
See “Using NetBackup commands to create a Hyper-V Intelligent Policy” on page 187.
The NetBackup commands for policy creation are in the following directory:
Windows: install_path\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd
Note: To run virtual machine backups, a NetBackup client must be installed on the
Hyper-V server.
For example:
bppolicynew HVpolicy1
Notes:
■ The -hyperv_server option specifies the Hyper-V host, Hyper-V cluster,
or SCVMM server that contains the VMs to back up.
■ The option -snapshot_method "HV" specifies the WMI snapshot method
for VMs on Hyper-V Server 2016. (-snapshot_method "Hyper-V_v2"
specifies the VSS method, which does not support block-level incremental
backup or Accelerator.)
■ The option -blkincr: 1 enables block-level incremental backup (BLIB).
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 186
Using NetBackup commands to create a Hyper-V policy
For the -st option, the available schedule types are FULL (full), INCR (differential
incremental), or CINC (cumulative incremental).
For example:
bpplsched policy1 -add Full -st FULL
On this command, specify one virtual machine at a time. Specify the virtual
machine's display name, host name, or GUID. You can use the Hyper-V
management console to obtain the display name or GUID.
For example:
bpplclients policy1 -add prodvm1.acme.com
Windows: install_path\Veritas\NetBackup\bin\admincmd
Note: To run virtual machine backups, a NetBackup client must be installed on the
Hyper-V server, and on the SCVMM server (if any).
For example:
bppolicynew p1_auto_select_VMs
Notes:
■ The -hyperv_server option specifies the Hyper-V host, Hyper-V cluster,
or SCVMM server that contains the VMs to back up.
■ The option -snapshot_method "HV" specifies the WMI snapshot method
for Hyper-V Server 2016. (-snapshot_method "Hyper-V_v2" specifies the
VSS method, which does not support block-level incremental backup or
Accelerator.)
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 188
Using NetBackup commands to create a Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
For the -st option, the available schedule types are FULL (full), INCR (differential
incremental), or CINC (cumulative incremental). For example:
bpplsched p1_auto_select_VMs -add Full -st FULL
Note: To allow the policy to search all nodes of the cluster, you must set
the Netbackup Legacy Network Service logon to the domain user account.
See “Changing the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon (vnetd.exe)
to the domain user account” on page 24.
To find the hardware type and operating system for your server, run the
following on the NetBackup primary server:
bpplclients
For further information, see the examples under bpplclients in the NetBackup
Commands Reference Guide.
5 Create a query rule to select virtual machines automatically.
bpplinclude policy_name -add
"hyperv:/;server_type=value?filter=query_rule”
The possible values for server_type=value are the following (these values
are not case-sensitive):
■ Hyperv
NetBackup discovers the VMs by communicating with the Hyper-V server
or cluster. The Hyper-V server or Hyper-V cluster must contain the
NetBackup client software.
■ Scvmm
NetBackup discovers the VMs by communicating with the SCVMM server.
The SCVMM server (as well as each of the Hyper-V hosts) must contain
the NetBackup client software.
For example:
This query rule selects from the virtual machines that an SCVMM server
manages. This example selects only the virtual machines with the display
names that contain the word "Production". Contains means that other
characters can also appear in the display names.
For the filter options that you can use in a Hyper-V query rule, refer to the Field
keywords in the following:
See “Query Builder field reference” on page 80.
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 190
The bpplinfo options for Hyper-V policies
A plus sign (+) appears before the virtual machines that the query rule selects
for the backup: those virtual machines are included in the backup when the
policy runs.
The virtual machines to be excluded from the backup appear with a minus sign
(-).
The -noreason option omits explanations as to why the query excluded a
virtual machine or why the query failed. For explanations, omit -noreason.
For more details on most of the command options, see the man page or the
NetBackup Commands Reference Guide.
-hyperv_server WMI, VSS The name of the Y Clients tab > Hyper-V server
Hyper-V server
-application_discovery WMI, VSS 0 disabled, 1 enabled N (only for Clients tab > Select
automatic automatically through Hyper-V
selection of VMs Intelligent Policy query
through a query
rule)
0 disabled, 1 enabled
alt_client_name VSS The name of the Y (with Attributes tab > Perform
alternate client use_alt_client) off-host backup > Machine
Table C-2
Virtual_machine_ WMI, VSS 1 Disable file-level recovery Hyper-V tab > Enable
backup= file recovery from VM
2 Enable file-level recovery
backup
nameuse= WMI, VSS 0 Use VM host name to identify backup image Hyper-V tab > Primary
VM identifier
1 Use VM display name to identify backup image
allow_offline_ VSS 0 Do not allow offline backup of non-VSS virtual Hyper-V tab > Enable
backup= machines offline backup of
non-VSS VMs
1 Allow offline backup of non-VSS virtual machines
csv_timeout= VSS Determines how many minutes the backup job waits, Hyper-V tab > Cluster
in case another node in the cluster backs up the same shared volumes
shared volume at the same time. timeout
prov_type= VSS 0 Automatic selection of provider. Allows VSS to use Hyper-V tab >
the best possible provider for the snapshot. Advanced > Provider
Type
1 Use system provider
exclude_swap= WMI Reduces the size of the backup image by excluding Hyper-V tab
the data in the guest OS system paging file (Windows)
or the swap file (Linux).
0 Disable
1 Enable
hv_snapshot_ WMI Determines whether the VM's file system data is Hyper-V tab >
consistency_level= consistent (quiesced) before the backup starts. Advanced >
Consistency level
0 Application Consistent Then Crash Consistent
1 Application Consistent
2 Crash Consistent
Option Description
-addtoquery query_string ... Adds the specified query string to the end of the policy query rules, or creates a query
if none exists.
Examples:
-addtoquery -f file_name Adds the entries to the query rules from the specified file, or creates a query if none
exists.
Example:
Note: You can place entries on multiple lines in the file. All entries are added to the
end of the query (if a query already exists).
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 195
Examples of nbrestorevm for restoring VMs to Hyper-V
Option Description
-deletefromquery query_string Deletes the specified query string from the policy query rules.
...
Examples:
To delete vm27 from the list of values in the query rule of policy1:
This example also deletes the comma preceding vm27 if such a comma exists in the
query rules.
Note: The -deletefromquery option deletes a comma if: the phrase in the query_string
does not begin or end with a comma and the character preceding the deleted string
is a comma.
-deletefromquery -f file_name Deletes the file entries from the query rules.
Example:
/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/nbrestorevm
The following nbrestorevm options are used in the examples in this topic:
■ –vmhv
Indicates a restore to the original location.
■ -vmhvnew
Indicates a restore to a different location (instead of –vmhv).
■ -vmhvstage
Indicates a restore to a staging or temporary location.
■ -vmncf
For a VM that uses files in common with other VMs, this option restores the VM
but does not restore the common files.
■ -C virtual_machine_to_restore
Identifies the VM to restore. The VM name must match the type of name that
was selected in the Primary VM identifier option of the backup policy. For
example, if the VM was backed up by its VM display name, use the VM's display
name on the -C option.
■ -vmid
For restore to an alternate location, retains the original GUID for the restored
VM (prevents the creation of a new GUID).
■ -R absolute_path_to_rename_file
For restore to an alternate location, describes the path to a text file (the rename
file) that contains directives for restoring the VM's files. The rename file specifies
the original paths and the new paths for the restored VM files (xml, bin, vsv,
vhd). The rename file must specify paths for all four VM file types.
See “Hyper-V examples of restore to alternate locations” on page 198.
Further notes are available on the rename file:
See “The nbrestorevm -R rename file for Hyper-V” on page 200.
■ -vmserver Hyper-V_server
Specifies a different server as the target for the restore. The default is the
Hyper-V server that backed up the VM. To restore to the Hyper-V server that
backed up the VM, omit this option.
■ –S primary_server
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 197
Examples of nbrestorevm for restoring VMs to Hyper-V
Specifies the primary server that made the backup (if different from the current
primary server).
■ -O
Overwrites the VM and the associated resources if they already exist. This option
is required if the VM exists in the target location.
■ -w [hh:mm:ss]
The nbrestorevm command waits for completion of the restore before it returns
to the system prompt.
Without the -w option, nbrestorevm initiates the restore and exits. You can verify
the job completion status in the Activity Monitor of the NetBackup Administration
Console.
■ -L progress_log_file [-en]
Specifies an existing file to contain debug information about the restore. If the
server where you run nbrestorevm is configured for a non-English locale, the
-en option creates an additional log file in English.
The -O option overwrites the existing VM. This option is required if the VM already
exists.
The file renamefile2 specifies the new display name. The following example rename
file changes the display name to vm6:
change /F/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.VMRS
to /F/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.VMRS
change /F/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.vmcx
to /F/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.vmcx
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 198
Examples of nbrestorevm for restoring VMs to Hyper-V
Note: The paths in the rename file should be identical for both change and to. Only
the last directive (change vmname to vm6) specifies the new display name, where
vmname is a required literal entry, and to specifies the new name.
In the -R option rename file, enter the full path to a text file that contains the following
kinds of entries:
Make sure to include all four change entries to specify locations for the VM's files
(xml, bin, vsv, vhd). If any of the VM file paths are omitted, the restore may not
succeed.
Note: From the backups that were made with the WMI method, nbrestorevm
generates a new VM GUID by default when you restore to an alternate location.
To retain the original GUID, add the -vmid option.
Note: The -R option must specify the absolute path to the rename file. In this
example, renamefile1 contains the following directives to change the VM's file
paths at the alternate restore location:
change /F/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.VMRS
to /D/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.VMRS
change /F/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.vmcx
to /D/VMs/vm1/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.vmcx
change /F/VMs/vm1/Virtual Hard Disks/vm1.vhdx
to /D/VMs/vm1/Virtual Hard Disks/vm2.vhdx
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 200
The nbrestorevm -R rename file for Hyper-V
The -vm_server option specifies the target server for the restore.
See example A or B for rename file examples.
■ The -vmhvstage option restores the virtual machine files to a staging location.
■ The -vmserver option specifies the host for the staging location.
■ The -L option specifies the name of an existing file in which to write progress
information.
■ For restore to a staging location, NetBackup does not generate a new GUID.
■ The file rfile4.tmp.chg specifies the new paths for the virtual machine files
at the staging location:
change /F/VMs/vm6/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.VMRS
to /E/VMs/vm6/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.VMRS
change /F/VMs/vm6/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.vmcx
to /E/VMs/vm6/2D7C007E-90FB-44EC-ABB2-6733D42A51F5.vmcx
change /F/VMs/vm6/Virtual Hard Disks/vm1.vhdx
to /E/VMs/vm6/Virtual Hard Disks/vm2.vhdx
Note: The -R option and rename file are not required when you restore the VM to
its original location with all its original settings.
NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines 201
Notes on troubleshooting the nbrestorevm command for Hyper-V
change /original_VM_GUID.xml_path to The path to the VM's original .xml file and to the restored
/new_VM_GUID.xml_path .xml file.
change /original_VM_GUID.bin_path to The path to the VM's original .bin file and to the restored
/new_VM_GUID.bin_path .bin file.
change /original_VM_GUID.vsv_path to The path to the VM's original .vsv file and to the restored
/new_VM_GUID.vsv_path .vsv file.
change /original_VM.vhd_path to The path to the VM's original vhd file and to the restored
/new_VM.vhd_path vhd file.
23, socket The time span that is specified on the –w option is earlier than the time
read failed of the restore.
You can use -w without time values. The nbrestorevm job waits for the
restore to complete and then exits.
135, client The media server or recovery host where you are running nbrestorevm
is not is not allowed to access the NetBackup primary server.
validated to
Add the media server or recovery host to the primary server's Additional
perform the Servers list. In the NetBackup Administration Console, click Host
requested Properties > Master Servers > double-click the primary server > Servers.
operation
190, found A name or value that is supplied with nbrestorevm does not match the
no images or VM's actual name or value.
media
The VM name as specified on nbrestorevm must match the type of name
matching the that was selected in the Primary VM identifier option of the backup
selection policy. For example, if the VM was backed up by its VM display name,
criteria use the VM's display name on the -C option.
Note: Spaces in the VM name must be represented as %20 on the
nbrestorevm -C option. For example, if the VM's name is acme vm1,
enter acme%20vm1 on the -C option.
Linux, UNIX
/usr/openv/netbackup/logs/bprd
A B
Accelerator 134 backing up pass-through disks
and the NetBackup catalog 138 configurations 178
and the WMI backup method 134 requirements 178
logs for 139 restrictions 179
messages in the backup job details log 139 backup
replacing image size with network-transferred Hyper-V virtual machines 107
data in command output 143 backup and restore
reporting network-transferred data in command Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) 101
output 140 backup job hangs
Accelerator, policy option 42 for multiple virtual machines 161
administrator tasks backups
NetBackup 15 Hyper-V online and offline 173
Advanced Mode replacing Accelerator image size with
Query Builder 70 network-transferred data in command
alternate client backup output 143
issues 164 reporting network-transferred data for
of pass-through disks 180 Accelerator 140
of virtual machines Basic Mode
prerequisites 53 edit rule in Query Builder 70
alternate client backup of pass-through disks Query Builder 65
configuring 181 basic phases
alternate client backup of virtual machines in NetBackup backup of a Hyper-V virtual
configuring 54 machine 13
AND vs OR 76 Block-level incremental backup (BLIB) 42
Join field in Query Builder 71
Application Consistent 49 C
automatic selection of virtual machines
cached names
about 57
for virtual machine backup 52
Advanced Mode 70
catalog
Basic Mode 65
and use of Accelerator 138
Clients tab 63
Clients tab
examples 57, 72
automatic selection of virtual machines 63
for VMs in SCVMM 95
description of fields for queries 80
notes on 59
cluster resources
Query Builder fields 80
removal during restore 105
requirements 61
Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)
task overview 62
backup of virtual machines that reside on same
testing 88
CSV 163
with multiple policies 75
Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV)
backup and restore 101
Index 205
U
Use Accelerator 42
V
values
in Query Builder 87
view or resize
Windows NTFS shadow storage 161
Virtual disk selection parameter (WMI) 47
virtual machine
maintenance after a restore 105
NetBackup client inside 55
virtual machine backup
cached names 52
Virtual machine quiesce option 49
virtual machines
alternate client backup 53
backup on the same CSV 163
configure for auto selection of 65
notes on query builder 59