Veritas NetBackup™ for Hyper-V Administrator's Guide

Last Published:
Product(s): NetBackup (8.1)
  1. Introduction
    1.  
      About Hyper-V
    2.  
      Updates to this guide for NetBackup 8.1
    3.  
      NetBackup for Hyper-V environment
    4.  
      Hyper-V terminology related to backup
    5.  
      Basic phases in a NetBackup backup of a Hyper-V virtual machine
    6.  
      NetBackup administrator tasks for Hyper-V
    7.  
      Quick reference for troubleshooting
  2. Notes and prerequisites
    1.  
      NetBackup for Hyper-V prerequisites
    2.  
      NetBackup for Hyper-V notes and restrictions
    3.  
      NetBackup character restrictions for Hyper-V virtual machine display names
    4.  
      NetBackup character restrictions for vhd or vhdx names and the VM path when the Enable file recovery from VM backup option is used
    5.  
      Notes on Linux virtual machines
  3. Configure NetBackup communication with Hyper-V
    1.  
      Changing the NetBackup Legacy Network Service logon (vnetd.exe) to the domain user account
    2.  
      Setting global limits on the use of Hyper-V resources
  4. Configure NetBackup policies for Hyper-V
    1.  
      Creating a Hyper-V policy from the Policy Configuration Wizard
    2.  
      Creating a Hyper-V policy from the NetBackup Policies utility
    3.  
      Limit jobs per policy on the Attributes tab (for Hyper-V)
    4.  
      Virtual machine host names and display names should be unique if VMs are selected manually in the policy
    5. Hyper-V backup options
      1.  
        Optimization options (Hyper-V)
      2.  
        Primary VM identifier option (Hyper-V)
      3.  
        Enable offline backup of non-VSS VMs (Hyper-V with VSS)
      4.  
        Cluster shared volumes timeout (Hyper-V with VSS)
    6. Hyper-V - Advanced Attributes
      1.  
        Provider Type configuration parameter (VSS)
      2.  
        Snapshot Attribute configuration parameter (VSS)
      3.  
        Virtual disk selection parameter (WMI)
      4.  
        Existing snapshot handling parameter (WMI)
      5.  
        Consistency level parameter (WMI)
      6.  
        About the exclude disk options for virtual disk selection
      7.  
        Virtual disk selection options: an example to avoid
      8.  
        Restoring data from the backups that excluded the boot disk or data disks
    7. Configuration parameters for Hyper-V
      1.  
        Client Name Selection configuration parameter
      2.  
        Virtual Machine Backup configuration parameter
      3.  
        Provider Type configuration parameter (VSS)
      4.  
        Snapshot Attribute configuration parameter (VSS)
      5.  
        Allow Offline Backup of VM configuration parameter
      6.  
        CSV Timeout in Minutes configuration parameter
    8. Browse for Hyper-V virtual machines
      1.  
        About cached names for virtual machine backup
    9.  
      Prerequisites for alternate client backup of a virtual machine (VSS)
    10.  
      Configuring alternate client backup of virtual machines
    11.  
      Requirements for a NetBackup client inside the virtual machine
  5. Configure Hyper-V Intelligent Policies
    1.  
      About Hyper-V Intelligent Policy (automatic selection of virtual machines for backup)
    2.  
      The basics of a NetBackup query rule
    3.  
      Important notes on Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
    4.  
      NetBackup requirements for Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
    5.  
      Setting up Hyper-V Intelligent Policy: Task overview
    6.  
      Options for selecting Hyper-V virtual machines
    7.  
      Creating a Hyper-V policy for automatic virtual machine selection
    8.  
      Editing a query in Basic Mode
    9.  
      Using the Query Builder in Advanced Mode
    10.  
      AND vs. OR in queries
    11.  
      Examples for the NetBackup Query Builder
    12.  
      The IsSet operator in queries
    13.  
      About selecting virtual machines by means of multiple policies
    14.  
      Order of operations in queries (precedence rules)
    15.  
      Parentheses in compound queries
    16.  
      Query rules for virtual machine Notes that contain a newline character
    17.  
      Query Builder field reference
    18.  
      Test Query screen for Hyper-V
    19.  
      Test Query: Failed virtual machines
    20.  
      Effect of Primary VM identifier parameter on Selection column in Test Query results
    21.  
      Effect of Primary VM identifier parameter on VM Name column in Test query results
    22.  
      Restoring a VM that was backed up with a Hyper-V Intelligent Policy and that has a pass-through disk
  6. NetBackup Hyper-V for SCVMM
    1.  
      About backup of virtual machines in an SCVMM environment
    2.  
      Notes on NetBackup for Hyper-V with SCVMM
    3.  
      Creating a query to back up VMs in a localized SCVMM environment
  7. Windows Server failover cluster support
    1.  
      About virtual machines on Windows 2008, 2012, and 2016 failover clusters
    2.  
      Notes on CSV backup and restore
    3.  
      Creating a policy for virtual machines in a cluster
    4.  
      Location of the restored virtual machine in a cluster
    5. Virtual machine maintenance after a restore
      1.  
        Removal of cluster resources during restore
    6.  
      Hyper-V restore may fail if the VM was created on a CSV and the CSV is a reparse point on the destination drive
  8. Back up and restore Hyper-V
    1.  
      Backing up Hyper-V virtual machines
    2.  
      WMI backup method: State of the virtual machine before and after restore
    3.  
      Notes on individual file restore
    4.  
      Notes on full virtual machine restore
    5.  
      About restore of individual Hyper-V files
    6.  
      Restoring individual Hyper-V files to a host that has a NetBackup client
    7.  
      Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of individual Hyper-V files
    8. Restoring individual Hyper-V files to a shared location on the virtual machine
      1.  
        Setting up NetBackup Client Service for Hyper-V restores to a shared location on the virtual machine
    9.  
      Restoring the full Hyper-V virtual machine
    10.  
      Restore Marked Files dialog for restore of the Hyper-V virtual machine
    11.  
      About restoring common files
    12.  
      The BAR interface may list Hyper-V snapshot files when you browse to restore Hyper-V VM files
  9. Use Accelerator to back up Hyper-V
    1.  
      About the NetBackup Accelerator for virtual machines
    2.  
      Accelerator: full vs. incremental schedules
    3.  
      How the NetBackup Accelerator works with virtual machines
    4.  
      Accelerator notes and requirements for virtual machines
    5.  
      Accelerator forced rescan for virtual machines (schedule attribute)
    6.  
      Accelerator requires the OptimizedImage attribute
    7.  
      Accelerator backups and the NetBackup catalog
    8.  
      Accelerator messages in the backup job details log
    9.  
      NetBackup logs for Accelerator with virtual machines
    10.  
      About reporting the amount of Accelerator backup data that was transferred over the network
    11.  
      Replacing the Accelerator image size with the network-transferred data in NetBackup command output
  10. Best practices and more information
    1.  
      Best practices
  11. Troubleshooting
    1. NetBackup logs for Hyper-V and how to create them
      1.  
        Enabling VxFI logging
      2.  
        Configuring VxMS and vhd logging
      3.  
        Format of the VxMS core.log and provider.log file names
    2. Errors during policy creation
      1.  
        NetBackup policy validation failed
    3. NetBackup status codes related to Hyper-V
      1.  
        Snapshot error encountered (status code 156)
    4.  
      Backup job hangs for multiple virtual machines
    5.  
      Viewing or resizing Windows NTFS shadow storage
    6.  
      The Hyper-V integration component is not installed
    7.  
      LDM volumes and status code 1
    8.  
      Hyper-V snapshots (avhd or avhdx files) and status code 1
    9.  
      Unable to log in to the NetBackup Administration Console
    10.  
      When backing up the virtual machines that reside on the same CSV, Windows warning 1584 can be ignored
    11.  
      Problems with alternate client backup
    12.  
      Restored virtual machine fails to start
    13.  
      Problem with a restart of a restored virtual machine: Why did the computer shut down unexpectedly?
    14.  
      Problems with restore of individual Hyper-V files
    15.  
      Problems with restore of the full Hyper-V virtual machine
    16.  
      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
    17.  
      Increasing the WMI create disk time-out value
    18.  
      Linux VMs and persistent device naming
  12. Appendix A. VSS backup method: Hyper-V online and offline backups
    1.  
      About Hyper-V online and offline backups for VSS
    2.  
      Conditions that determine online vs. offline backup for VSS
    3.  
      Additional notes on offline backups with VSS
    4.  
      Hyper-V 2012 R2 virtual machines may be in the Off state when restored
  13. Appendix B. Hyper-V pass-through disks
    1.  
      About Hyper-V pass-through disks with NetBackup
    2.  
      Configurations for backing up pass-through disks
    3.  
      Requirements for backing up Hyper-V pass-through disks
    4.  
      Restrictions for Hyper-V pass-through disks
    5.  
      Configuring a local snapshot backup of Hyper-V pass-through disks
    6.  
      About alternate client backup of pass-through disks
    7.  
      Configuring an alternate client backup of Hyper-V pass-through disks
    8.  
      Important note on VSS and disk arrays
  14. Appendix C. NetBackup commands to back up and restore Hyper-V virtual machines
    1.  
      Using NetBackup commands to create a Hyper-V policy
    2.  
      Using NetBackup commands to create a Hyper-V Intelligent Policy
    3.  
      The bpplinfo options for Hyper-V policies
    4.  
      bpplinclude options for modifying query rules in Hyper-V policies
    5. Examples of nbrestorevm for restoring VMs to Hyper-V
      1.  
        Hyper-V examples of restore to original location
      2.  
        Hyper-V examples of restore to alternate locations
    6.  
      The nbrestorevm -R rename file for Hyper-V
    7.  
      Notes on troubleshooting the nbrestorevm command for Hyper-V
    8.  
      Logs for troubleshooting the nbrestorevm command

Notes on individual file restore

This topic pertains to NetBackup for Hyper-V.

Note the following:

  • If you are running antivirus protection on Hyper-V virtual machines, Veritas recommends Symantec Endpoint Protection 11.0 Maintenance Release 4 (build 11.0.4000) or later. Restores of virtual machine files complete faster if the virtual machine is running this version as opposed to an earlier version of Endpoint Protection.

  • Cross-platform restore of individual files is not supported. You can restore Windows files to Windows guest operating systems only, not to Linux. You can restore Linux files to Linux guest operating systems only, not to Windows.

  • To restore files to a shared location on the virtual machine, note: Virtual machines must be in the same domain as the NetBackup client and master and media server.

  • To restore an individual file that is larger than approximately 2 GB, restore the file to a host that has a NetBackup client. NetBackup for Hyper-V does not currently support restores of large files by means of a shared location on the virtual machine. This file size restriction does not apply to restore of an entire virtual machine.

    See Restoring individual Hyper-V files to a host that has a NetBackup client.

  • From a backup image that was made with the Enable file recovery from VM backup option: If you select individual files to restore, the selected files must 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 Hyper-V files.

  • 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:

    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.

  • For Linux, additional notes apply.

    See Notes on Linux virtual machines.

  • NetBackup for Hyper-V does not support individual file restore by means of ClientDirect Restore.