Snapshot failure (Veritas Netbackup)

[Zibran]

hi, We use veritas netbackup to snapshot VMs. I have 2 VMs whose snapshot is failing with exit code 156 on the netbackup end.

when i browse the datastore of these VMs i can see many .vmsn files, i have attached the screenshot. however netbackup doesnt create .vmsn it creates files like 4429-00001.vmdk and so on. I cannot see the vmsn in the snapshot manager too. My guess is its because of these stray vmsn but not sure how to fix it.

Please help. The host is ESXi 4.1 348481 but other VMs on the host have no issues.

Thanks

[sparrowangelste]

you could svmotion to a new vmfs nd see if these vmsn files are left behind.

[Zibran]

I am afraid i cant do that...

[sparrowangelste]

if you have enough free space you could create another snapshot manually then do delete all, and then all your snaps should consolidate to your disk.

then you could manually delete the vmsn files.

if you have pre-4.2 then you need to make sure you have enough space before performing delete all.

lets see if everyone else agrees but I think that should work fine..

[Zibran]

yes, even i thought of the same thing, but no space left on datastore, manual snapshot would fail too.. :smileysad:

[sparrowangelste]

you could copy on of the 2 vms off to a usb drive or something if you have no vmfs space,

delete  vm1

do the delete all snapshot thing on vm2

then copy the vm1

copy out vm2

delete vm2

delete all snapshots with vm1

copy back vm1

above is really for worst case senario, and includes downtime.

[Zibran]

yea... these are production VMs backups are very important and i cant afford downtime of the VMs :smileysad:

[Zibran]

Sorry to be pest but could anyone provide me a heading.. i cannot apply any of the solutions for various reasons. Suggestions are helpful and i already had thought about them before.. Thanks

[a_p_]

As mentioned by UmeshAhuja it's important to find out what's causing this issue to ensure this will not happen again after cleaning up.

... however netbackup doesnt create .vmsn it creates files like 4429-00001.vmdk and so on ...

The -00000x.vmdk are the snapshots, not the .vmsn files. The .vmsn files are only needed in case you want/need to revert to a snapshot. Please post a complete list of files in the VM's folder showing all details (sizes, time stamps, ...). In addition to the list please post (attach) the VM's vmware.log file (if possible) and let us know how much free disk space you currently have on the datastore.

André

[Zibran]

Thanks Umesh .. got it solved...

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

First check the error message in the bpfis.logs of Netbackup and go with the solution mention in the below link.

There are many kinds of error message with error exit code 156

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=HOWTO44492