Troubleshooting VMware tag usage
Tag associations are backed up and restored as part of the VMware backup process. Backup and restore of tag associations is a best effort. Any tag collection errors are shown in the Activity Monitor for the virtual machine snapshot job.
Because of the best effort on backup and restore of tag associations, you may receive unexpected behavior. Please be aware of the following:
You can receive a NetBackup Status Code 0 even if the tag associations are not captured during the backup. Because tag backup is best effort, this error is not considered a failure that halts a backup. Any tag collection errors that occur in the backup are shown in the Activity Monitor for the virtual machine snapshot job.
You can receive a NetBackup Status Code 0 on a restore even if tag associations are not restored. Any tag collection errors that occur in the backup are shown in the Activity Monitor for the virtual machine snapshot job.
Restores receive a NetBackup Status Code 1 when:
The tag doesn't exist on the target vCenter Server. Be aware that NetBackup restores tag associations to virtual machines by the tag identifier not tag name.
The virtual machine was restored to a pre-6.0 vCenter Server.
Other VMware failures.
Table: NetBackup query behavior for tag field keyword with unsupported versions of VMware
Version of VMware | Behavior | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
vCenter earlier than 5.1 | Virtual machines are evaluated as if tags are not set. | N/A |
vCenter 5.1 and 5.5 | Virtual machine selection is marked as Failed. | If tag information is required to determine virtual machine selection, the virtual machine is marked as Failed with NetBackup Status Code 4266. |
ESX server | Virtual machine selection is marked as Failed. | If tag information is required to determine virtual machine selection, the virtual machine is marked as Failed with NetBackup Status Code 4265. |
If the list of possible values does not return any results when the Tag Field is selected in the Policy Query Builder, there are several causes of this problem.
Confirm that your version of vCenter Server is 6.0 or later.
NetBackup support for tags starts with VMware vCenter Server 6.0.
See Notes and limitations for tag usage in VMware Intelligent Policy queries.
Confirm there are tags defined using the vSphere Web Client.
Confirm that all tags and categories have descriptions.
If one of the tags does not have a description, when you attempt to browse for tags in the VMware Intelligent Policy, no tags are displayed.
Veritas has confirmed that this issue is resolved in vCenter Server 6.0 Update 1.
VMware Knowledge Base article: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2124204
Confirm the system times of the discovery host and the vCenter Server are synchronized.
VMware Knowledge Base article: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2125193
In large VMware environments, you may experience timeout issues during the discovery job or the test query. Review the NetBackup Activity Monitor for this message:
09/21/2015 10:23:05 - Error nbpem (pid=13064) VMware vCloud Suite SDK API Failed, msg = [This method requires authentication.], display name = [display_name], server = [server_name]
This message indicates that the discovery job exceeded the bearer timeout. You need to increase this timeout for the job to complete successfully.
To adjust the timeout on the vCenter
- Open the VMware vSphere Web Client.
- Select Administration > Single Sign-On > Configuration > Policies > Token Policy.
- Increase Maximum bearer token lifetime from the default 300 seconds. Because each environment is unique, Veritasdoes not have any recommendations on this value. Increase the value until the problem is eliminated.