[DRBD-user] Backing up VMware VM's running DRBD with VMware Data Recovery (VDR)

Pascal BERTON pascal.berton3 at free.fr
Mon Feb 20 22:32:35 CET 2012

Note: "permalinks" may not be as permanent as we would like,
direct links of old sources may well be a few messages off.


Dan,

I was effectively meaning "VDR snapshots" : There are 2 options at vSphere
snapshot creation time to ensure data integrity : The 1st one consists of
dumping memory into VM's .vmsn file (default behavior). The second one
consists of syncing guest OS's buffers by calling VMware tools sync driver.
Unless the VM is powered off, not using either of these options will make
your backup or your user snapshot inconsistent. Using both sounds non-sense
unless your application software uses its own buffers (I.e. DBs)
When VDR requests a snapshot of the VM to be backed up, it doesn't use the
default dump option, .vmsn file stays small, instead it calls the sync
driver. In Mark's case, this process is failing. It might be that the VMware
tools are absent, or broken for whatever reason.
In any case, the 1st thing to do is to check the VMware tools...

Best regards,

Pascal.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : drbd-user-bounces at lists.linbit.com
[mailto:drbd-user-bounces at lists.linbit.com] De la part de Dan Barker
Envoyé : lundi 20 février 2012 21:51
À : drbd-user at lists.linbit.com
Objet : Re: [DRBD-user] Backing up VMware VM's running DRBD with VMware Data
Recovery (VDR)

Mark said: "Snapshot creation requires that VMware tools are installed".
This is not correct (at least on ESXi4 and 5).

"quiesce VM" requires VMware tools, VDR may require VMware tools, but
snapshots do not.

This doesn't affect the OP's problem, but the incorrect statement needed
illumination.

Dan in Atlanta


-----Original Message-----
From: drbd-user-bounces at lists.linbit.com
[mailto:drbd-user-bounces at lists.linbit.com] On Behalf Of Pascal BERTON
(EURIALYS)
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 6:52 AM
To: 'Mark Watts'; drbd-user at lists.linbit.com
Subject: Re: [DRBD-user] Backing up VMware VM's running DRBD with VMware
Data Recovery (VDR)

Mark,

Snapshot creation requires that VMware tools are installed, which brings the
sync driver onboard. "Cannot quiesce VM" means it is unable to contact the
sync driver. Have you installed the VMware Tools ?

Best regards,

Pascal.

-----Message d'origine-----
De : drbd-user-bounces at lists.linbit.com
[mailto:drbd-user-bounces at lists.linbit.com] De la part de Mark Watts
Envoyé : vendredi 17 février 2012 10:29 À : drbd-user at lists.linbit.com
Objet : [DRBD-user] Backing up VMware VM's running DRBD with VMware Data
Recovery (VDR)

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I have a pair of CentOS 5.7 VM's running an LVM/DRBD/EXT3 Pri/Sec cluster.

Since we use VDR to take snapshots of our VM's I naturally added these two
VM's to the backup rota.

Pretty much every night I get hundreds of errors in the VDR logs relating to
the Primary, giving the message:

"Failed to create snapshot for VDR01, error -3960 ( cannot quiesce virtual
machine)"


I'm taking a wild guess at this perhaps being related to DRBD; can anyone
suggest whether this is the issue?


Mark.

- --
Mark Watts BSc RHCE
Senior Systems Engineer, MSS Secure Managed Hosting www.QinetiQ.com QinetiQ
- Delivering customer-focused solutions GPG Key:
http://www.linux-corner.info/mwatts.gpg
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