PowerProtect Data Manager 19.11 Virtual Machine User Guide

Removal of pre-existing snapshots required before running virtual machine restore

A virtual machine restore cannot be completed when a pre-existing VMware snapshot is present on the virtual machine. An error similar to the following appears:

Session 'session ID' is unsuccessful: There are 1 pre-existing snapshot present on this VM. Recover is not possible. Remove snapshot(s) and try again.

Verify that no pre-existing snapshots exist on the virtual machine, and then retry the restore operation from the System Jobs window of the PowerProtect Data Manager UI.

Some operations fail for vTPM virtual machine in a DRS-enabled cluster with dedicated vCenter user account

The following operations fail for virtual Machines with a Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) when the virtual machines are in a DRS-enabled cluster and using a dedicated vCenter user account:

• The vTPM virtual machines cannot be powered on after a restore to the original virtual machine or restore to a new virtual machine , with the error Permission to perform this operation was denied displaying.
• For an instant access restore, migration is unsuccessful, with the error Unable to complete vMotion task Task:task-3785. Permission to perform this operation was denied displaying.

To avoid these issues, ensure that the privilege Cryptographic operations > Migrate is included as part of the dedicated vCenter user role. Specify the required privileges for a dedicated vCenter user account provides more information.

Virtual machine restores fail when vProxyd or vrecoverd disruption occurs

A virtual machine restore hangs and VPOD will not be able to reconnect to the restore session when the following scenarios occur:

• A disruption to the vrecoverd process on any external VM Direct Engine.
• A disruption to the vProxyd process during a Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original Files or Create and Restore to New VM operation that uses Transparent Snapshot Data Mover (TSDM) as the protection mechanism.

After several retry attempts, VPOD marks the restore session as "Failed" and releases the vProxy associated with the restore.

If this failure occurs during a Create and Restore to New VM, you can delete the new virtual machine and restart the restore operation.

If this failure occurs during a Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original Files, you must remove the vProxy lock on the virtual machine from the vCenter server, and then retry the restore operation. In the vSphere Client, the vProxy lock appears as a custom attribute with the name Dell EMC vProxy Session.

Virtual machine restores directly to NFS datastores on ESXi fail

When attempting to restore a virtual machine directly to an NFS datastore on ESXi, you might see an error message similar to the following:

Unable to find datastore "/mnt/pool1": "ServerFaultCode: The object 'vim.Datastore:/mnt/pool1' has already been deleted or has not been completely created."

DD NFS share not removed after restore to original

The NFS share might not be removed after a successful virtual machine restore to original. When this occurs, the restore hangs and the following NFS clients appear enabled in the DD system.

If you encounter this issue, you can wait 24 hours for PowerProtect Data Manager to clean up the DD NFS shares, or you can stop the restore and clean up the DD NFS clients manually by performing the following steps:

1. Restart the VMDM service by typing /usr/local/brs/lib/vmdm/bin/vmdm restart.
2. Clean up DD NFS clients by typing nfs del <Path> <Client>.
3. In the vSphere Client's Configuration tab, manually unmount the EMC-vProxy-vm-qa-xxxxx DDNFS datastore that is mounted on the ESXi host.

IP address change required after successful image-level restore to a new virtual machine

After performing a successful image-level restore to a new virtual machine, ensure that you change the IP address immediately in order to avoid IP conflicts with the original virtual machine. If you do not change the IP to a unique value, subsequent data protection operations might fail on the restored virtual machine, even if that virtual machine's network interfaces are disconnected.

Virtual machine protection copy does not display under available copies

If a virtual machine protection copy does not display under the available copies in PowerProtect Data Manager, verify the following:

• Ensure that protection of the virtual machine completed successfully.
• Check that the desired copy has not expired according to the PowerProtect Data Manager protection policy.

Virtual machine restore fails with name resolution error

 com.emc.brs.vmdm.http.HttpsConnector - null: Temporary failure in name resolution
java.net.UnknownHostException : null: Temporary failure in name resolution

Ensure that you have proper name resolution between protection storage and either PowerProtect Data Manager or the vCenter or ESXi server.

Virtual machine restore fails when the previous restore of this virtual machine is in progress or did not complete

  Error : There is another running restore operation that conflicts with this request.

If the previous restore operation for this virtual machine is still in progress, monitor the progress in PowerProtect Data Manager until the restore completes. If the virtual machine restore is complete but the task stops responding, then you must manually cancel the restore in PowerProtect Data Manager by restarting the VMDM service. You can restart the VMDM service by typing /usr/local/brs/lib/vmdm/bin/vmdm restart.

Virtual machine restore fails with error due to VM Direct corruption

 com.emc.dpsg.vproxy.client.VProxyManager - Error(createSession): javax.net.ssl.SSLException:
Unrecognized SSL message, plaintext connection

Ensure that the vproxyd service is running in PowerProtect Data Manager by typing the following command.

ps xa | grep vproxy

Ensure that the vproxy rpm is installed as expected in PowerProtect Data Manager by typing the following command.

rpm -qa | grep vProxy

When logged in as the root user, restart the vproxyd service on PowerProtect Data Manager by typing the following command.

systemctl restart vproxyd

Virtual machine restore fails with error "User UserEARA does not have proper privileges"

A virtual machine restore fails with the error "User UserEARA does not have proper privileges" when the user does not have adequate privileges to perform the restore operation.

Ensure that the PowerProtect Data Manager user performing the restore belongs to System Tenant and has the Administrator or Restore Administrator role.

Filtering virtual machine copies by File Indexing column is not available

When you select a virtual machine for restore in the PowerProtect Data Manager UI and then click View Copies to select from one of the available copies, using the filter in the File Indexing column does not return any results. Use the filters from other columns to locate the virtual machine asset copies that you want to restore.