ESXi ghettoVCB Backups

[Hightower]

We've had ghettoVCB configured here for our ESXi box for a number of months, but now the backups are not working. When I try to run the script manually with:

 

/vmfs/volumes/LocalDisk/scripts/ghettoVCB.sh -f /vmfs/volumes/LocalDisk/scripts/vms_to_backup

 

It comes up saying "snapshot exists, not backing up this VM" - the thing is, there are no snapshots/images/whatever on our NAS drive where it backs up to (it's completely empty).

 

Any ideas?

[apaton]

"snapshot exists, not backing up this VM" -

 

I'm not an expert on Getto, but sound like the VM has already has a snapshot.

Does Getto say which VM it failed to backup ?

 

Run the following command to see if a specific VM has a snapshot already.

 

Using VMA otherwise use vCenter Gui

List VM's on ESXi host

vmware-cmd -H  -l

Test to see if they have snapshot enabled.

vmware-cmd -H  /.vmx hassnapshot

 

Regards

 

Andy

[Duke]

I think Apaton knows VMware way better than I do, but also use the datastore browser to manually look at that VM's folder to see if there are any existing snapshot files. Sometimes snapshots can become disowned by ESXi and even though ESXi doesn't think there are any snapshots, the files are still there which will cause GhettoVCB to fail.

 

Chris

[Hightower]

I think it's a case of the snapshots becoming unlinked to the host, which could be caused if the ghettoVCB script is halted. As for the vmware-cmd post - my ESXi doesn't have this available.

 

Never-the-less, I think the solution is to create a snapshot for the machines that fail to backup and then delete ALL snapshots from within vSphere.

 

Trying this now but it takes a while so will post up it's success when I've tested it.

[apaton]

I think it's a case of the snapshots becoming unlinked to the host, which could be caused if the ghettoVCB script is halted. As for the vmware-cmd post - my ESXi doesn't have this available.

 

Never-the-less, I think the solution is to create a snapshot for the machines that fail to backup and then delete ALL snapshots from within vSphere.

 

Trying this now but it takes a while so will post up it's success when I've tested it.

 

I agree in that sounds like the snapshot have been dissociated, Duke's suggestion would show this.

 

As regards vmware-cmd, I would suggest installing a VMA (VMware Management Assistant) VM . Its very useful for managing ESXi environments from scripts/cli and its free!

 

 

Andy

[Hightower]

I agree in that sounds like the snapshot have been dissociated, Duke's suggestion would show this.

 

As regards vmware-cmd, I would suggest installing a VMA (VMware Management Assistant) VM . Its very useful for managing ESXi environments from scripts/cli and its free!

 

 

Andy

 

Ah, I used to have a vMA machine but couldn't find a use for it (until now) so scrapped it. There are files that look like snapshot files but I don't want to just manually delete them - but I think if I do it the way I stated above it should get rid of them.

 

I will let you know