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Nakivo : Backup da Vmware su QNAP

Di seguito un promemoria dei passi per eseguire la configurazione di una struttura composta da un server Vmware che contiene una appliance Nakivo e che deve eseguire i backup su un nas QNAP.

Installare l’appliance Nakivo sul server Vmware

Seguire i seguenti passaggi dalla seguente documentazione :

https://helpcenter.nakivo.com/User-Guide/Content/Deployment/Installing-NAKIVO-Backup-and-Replication/Deploying-VMware-Virtual-Appliance.htm

Configurazione QNAP

Nel QNPA creare una cartella dedicata (es. NakivoBck) , senza il cestino di rete (togliere il flag dalle proprietà della cartella).

Installare nel QNAP il Transporter Nakivo

documentazione : https://mecdata.it/2023/08/updating-nakivo-appliance-in-environment-with-qnap-nas/

Configurazione Nakivo

Usare il browser Edge per entrare in Nakivo

Alla voce Nodes configurare il Transporter di destinazione cioè quello inserito nel QNAP

Passare alla sezione Repositories. Creare unn nuovo backup Repository.

Selezionare CIFS Share e compilare

Name : un nome per identificare il repository sul transporter (qnap)

Assigned Trasporter : selezionare il trasporter inserito precedentemnete

Path to the share : \\ip del nas\cartella

username : del nas

password : del nas

 

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“Failed bios lock” when installing HPE Reseller Option Kit (ROK) 2019 – 2022 Server

Installing the HPE Re-seller Option Kit (ROK) Windows 2019 or 2022 Standard and Datacenter server software onto VMware virtual machine you should received “Failed BIOS Lock” error which means the HPE branded OS software needs HPE hardware to run.

To solve it, shout down virtual machine and :

  • Enter the Edit Settings of the VM
  • VM Options, Advanced, Edit Configuration, Add Configuration Params then type:
  • Name field: smbios.addHostVendor
  • Value field: TRUE

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vmware workstation – unable to connect guest to my PCIe LPT port

Scenario

You are are using vmware workstation and you have mount on your computer a PCIe LPT card. You are unable to connect this LPT port to your guest vm.

Solution

Uninstall VM-Ware and to Reinstallit


Note

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VMWARE – UNABLE TO REMOUNTING NFS datastore from the ESXi

You cannot see nfs datastore on esxi. Try to do the munting, but the procedure fails saying that the datastore already exists.

To resolve this issue, remove and re-add the datastore via the command line

  1. To list the mounted datastores on the host:
    esxcli storage nfs list
  2. Make a note of the NFS datastore from step 1. Run this command to delete the NFS mount:esxcli storage nfs remove -v NFS_Datastore_Name

 


Run this command to mount the NFS datastore:

esxcli storage nfs add -H NFS_IP|NFS_HOSTNAME -s Share_mount_point_on_the_NFS -v DatastoreName

Documentation

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vmware – lost connection to nfs datastore

In your vmware environment you have created a nfs datastore but when you are trying to copy files to it, you lost the connection.

Symptoms

You can check the file vmkernel.log that you can find in your esx host in :

/var/log

You should find these lines of error :

Lost connection to the server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx mount point /yourdatastorefolder mounted as ........... ("yourdatastorename")

Restored connection to the server xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx mount point /yourdatastorefolder mounted as ........... ("yourdatastorename")

or

vmnic3: 4026 bytes packet couldn't be sent (mtu=1500)

or

vmnic3: oversized tsoMss: 8948, mtu=1500

Solution

As explained in vmware documentation you have to check communication with your nfs datastore. So using , for example Putty over ssh, you can :

Ping your nfs datastore

vmkping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Find your vmkernel network card :

esxcfg-vmknic -l

In the output you can see the MTU value of your network card and which is the vmkernel network card. Now you can ping your datastore using the network card, trying different MTU values :

vmkping -I vmk1 -s 1420 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

You probably need to change the MTU of your esx host’s network card. Maybe you have an MTU set to 9000 and you need to set it to 1500.

Using the vsphere client : Configuration – Networking. Select vmkernel network card and select “Properties” . Select “Vmkernel” and click on “Edit” :

Change MTU:

You will be able to see the new MTU value using the previou command :

esxcfg-vmknic -l

 

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Ghetto backup for all (part 1)

Why to use Ghetto ?

There are a lot of backup softwares for vmware virtual machine and some are free, but in a scenario it should not be possible to use one of these : for example, if you have vmware esx hosts with old versions (4.0,5.5).

Prepare connection to esx host  via SSH

Usually you get connection to esx host using vsphere client, but you have to use ghetto script directly inside esx operating system. So you need to operate using a prompt via ssh. Download, for example, putty : https://www.putty.org/

Install putty.

SSH port in esx host is number 22. To understand if this port is open, you could open a dos prompt and type

telnet your_esx_ip_address 22

you should recive some response.

Enable SSH on the ESX Host

By default SSH is disabled on an ESXi host.

  1. Open and login to the vSphere Client
  2. Click on the configuration tab and then on Security profile
  3. Click on Properties and Remote Tech Support (SSH)
  4. Click on Options and choose the startup policy.

ESX user for SSH

To connect to esx host via putty you need to create a user on esx. Open vsphere client.

  1. Log in to the vSphere Client as a root user.
  2. Click Users & Groups.
  3. Right-click on a blank area and click Add.
  4. Enter a username and password. Confirm your password.
  5. Select Grant shell access to this user.
  6. Select root group from the dropdown and click Add > OK.

 

How to upload script on esx

Ghetto script is a file and you will have to upload on esx server this file. To do this task we”l use for example WinSCP that is a free and open-source file transfer utility for Windows. It can be used to transfer files between a local and remote machine over SSH. You can download it from here : https://winscp.net/eng/download.php

Install it. Now you have all tools and we can start to work on Ghetto.

Ghetto script

First of all you need to download ghetto from github repository : https://github.com/lamw/ghettoVCB   

Unzip it. Open with an editor the file ghettoVCB.sh. You have to update only one line of script :

VM_BACKUP_VOLUME=/vmfs/volumes/mini-local-datastore-hdd/backups

That you have to substitute with the path of the datastore where you’ll save the backup of vm.

Two options to find the datastore path :

  1. Via vsphere client : you have to find the list of datastores. Using datastore’s name the path will be : /vmfs/volumes/DATASTORENAME
  2. Usng Putty connection : go in vmfs folder, volumes folder.

Prepare virtual machine list

If you ‘ll call ghetto script , you’ll backup all machines in your esx. Instead you can backup only some specific virtual machine. Create a new file, for example mylist.txt with the esactly name of each virtual machine to backup, in each line.

Upload Files to Esx

So you have two files (ghettoVCB.sh, mylist.txt) to upload in esx environment. To do this you can use WinSCP. When the Login dialog pops up click on New Site, enter the IP address in the hostname field, the username and password and then click Login.

WinSCP window is divided in two part : on the left side there is your computer, on the right side there is the esx environment. On esx, create a new folder and upload in it the two files.

Prepare ghetto script to execute

Double click on the PuTTY shortcut , enter the IP address of the ESX  and click Open. Enter the username and your password and you should now be connected.

To continue you need to have administrator (root) priviliges. Write

su -

and enter the password of root user.

Now you need to give execution privileges to .sh file. Navigate in the folder where you have put your files and write the command

chmod +x ghettoVCB.sh

Run the script

Write the command :

./ghettoVCB.sh -f mylist.txt -l output.txt

This command will backup all the virtual machines written in mylist.txt and will write the log of process in the file output.txt in the same folder.