Managed Backup Service VMware Console Plug-In and ESX Server Agent Version Release Notes

Transcription

1 Managed Backup Service VMware Console Plug-In and ESX Server Agent Version Release Notes

2 1 1 Overview This document contains release notes for this release of the VMware Console Plug-In for the VMware ESX Server 3 Console. The Agent and plug-in are for use with Remote Agent Console 5.61 or Windows Agent Console version The VMware Console Plug-In, ESX Server Agent, is an entry-level enterprise solution that provides disaster recovery protection of VMware ESX environments. The Agent and Plugin are provided as a single package (tar file) that will be installed together. This Agent software kit consists of three programs, "VV" and "VVAgent/BUAgent", and the VMware plug-in. VVAgent or BUAgent is the (daemon) Agent program, while VV is a command line program used to perform such tasks as backup, restore, synch and other requests. 1.1 Release History and Changes for version 5.6 May 30th, First release, version FEATURES The VMware Console Plug-in has been designed to allow a user to perform a "hot" backup of a VMware virtual machine. There is minimal disruption to the VM during the backup. Centralised control (administration) is managed with the Remote Agent Console or the Windows Agent Console. There is no requirement for installation of any software on each virtual machine. The Agent and plug-in are installed together on the VMware server console. This package requires two licenses: a Server Agent license, and a VMware Console Plugin license. This will allow backups of any VM hosted by a specific ESX Server. You can select one or more virtual machines for backups or restores. Wildcards may be used to select multiple VMs based on the names of the VMs. The plug-in shows the name of the VM as it appears in the Virtual Infrastructure Management Console. Virtual machines can only be restored to their original location if the target VM is not present or is not running if it is present. Virtual machine component files may be restored to an alternate location, but they will not be recognised by the ESX server console. VMs backed up from one ESX Server can be restored to another ESX Server with the Restore from another computer workflow. Ability to disable pre-scanning on backups. This means that backups are faster, but you may lose some hard links.

3 2 Wildcards in Directory searches. Backups allow wildcards in directory searches, as well as for filenames. Access Control List support. This version will now backup and restore native, local, file system ACL's. Restore from another computer. The User can restore from another computer when the job name is identical on both computers. Cross catalog searching. Users can search through all available catalogs when restoring files, without switching Restore Wizard screens. You can select one, or a range of safesets for selection. Bandwidth Throttling: The user now has the capability to either let the Agent use as much bandwidth as available for backups and restores, or "throttle back" and restrict the usage (i.e.: in Kb/sec). Bandwidth Throttling can also be scheduled (turned on and off) by time of day, and days of the week. Advanced Filtering to improve backup performance and usability. 3 FIXES n/a 4 KNOWN ISSUES & LIMITATIONS The plug-in does not support backing up of RDM (Raw Device Mapping) logical or physical disks. Any snapshots of a VM, except those created by the plug-in, will be included in the plugin's backup of a VM as part of the VM's data files. If one of the plug-in's snapshots is deleted while the backup is running, the backup will fail. Errors will be reported for the VM if a non-plug-in snapshot is removed during backup. The plug-in does not backup removable storage devices, such as floppy disks and CD- ROMs, on the virtual machine. These are files inside the VM, and can be backed up with an additional local file backup. The plug-in only works at the Console level. If the Console is managed by a Virtual Center in a VI3 environment, the plug-in is unaware of the Infrastructure management. VMs that are moved around in the infrastructure may be viewed as newly added or deleted machines. For a backup or restore task on an NFS system to succeed you need to have proper permissions to read, write, and create files and directories on the mounted Network File System. This includes the remote system allowing operations for an anonymous user. A good test is to try it from the command line first. If you cannot read/write/create files and directories on NFS manually, then the Agent backup and restore will also not work.

4 3 Certain file systems and directories cannot be restored to their original locations. These include the /dev (device) directory (including the devpts file system at /dev/pts), /boot directory, /var/run directory, and the proc filesystem (usually at /proc). The Agent only protects these locations under their default names. These files must be restored to an alternative location and replaced manually if necessary, as automatic replacement may leave the operating system in an unusable state. On a complete system backup, /dev and /proc directories are NOT backed up. DTS# VM names with a colon used in Jobs and filters may cause problems. The Job may fail, or the filter will function unexpectedly. DTS# A Backup with suspended VMs may cause error messages in the log, such as " VMWR-E-0003 failure due to a malformed request to the server", and "VMWR-E <name> was backed up incomplete". The backup completes with errors. DTS# If VMotion moves a VM while a VMware plug-in backup is running, the backup may fail. Subsequent backups may reseed if the VM is returned to the original Console. During a VMware restore, the Administrator must ensure that the same VM is not running on another ESX Console in a VI3 environment. DTS# Independent-persistent disks cannot be backed up when the VM is powered on. When snapshots are created, any independent-persistent disks are skipped. They are locked by VMware, so the Agent cannot access them for the backup. DTS# A forward slash can be used in a virtual machine name, but it cannot be used in a wildcard search of VM names. DTS#8262 You may see a restore fail on a large file. The backup was successful, but the restore to the same location fails. As a workaround, you can change the file system related user limits. DTS#8226 Unable to browse an NFS mount when attempting to restore an NFS backup to an alternate location. DTS#4089 Restoring to an alternate location will fail where the alternate location pathname and(+) the original pathname results in a very long pathname (greater than 512 characters). Recommendation: Restore to original location. 5 INSTALLATION NOTES 5.1 Installation Requirements Hardware The VMware Console Plug-In and ESX Server Agent must be installed on an ESX Server version 3 Console. Software * Director version 5.53 or above.

5 4 * Windows Agent Console version * Windows Agent Console version 5.61 * Network - A TCP/IP stack (to communicate with Agent systems) 5.2 Conditional Requirements This version of VMware Console Plug-In and ESX Server Agent must be used as a new install for this release. The ESX Server must be version Configuration Each machine to be backed up must have the Agent software installed and subsequently configured with: * Windows Agent Console version 5.64 or * Windows Agent Console version 5.61 See the Agent Console User's Guide for detailed information.

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