NetBackup character restrictions for virtual machine names
When you configure a policy to back up an Acropolis cluster, you are required to add clients or virtual machines. To add a virtual machine to the policy, you must provide the name of the virtual machine.
You can obtain the name of the virtual machine from the VM Name column on the Prism web console.
The name of the virtual machine is case-sensitive. Certain characters are not allowed in the virtual machine name. If the name contains wrong or invalid characters, the backup may fail.
For NetBackup, the following characters are allowed in the virtual machine names:
Uppercase and lowercase ASCII characters
Numbers
Period (.)
Hyphen (-)
Underscore (_)
Plus sign (+)
Percent sign (%)
Left and right parentheses ()
Spaces
If the VM name contains a space, substitute the space with "%20". For example, if the VM name is Nutanix VM, you must enter Nutanix%20VM.
However, if the VM name itself contains "%20", it is interpreted as a space, which makes the virtual machine name invalid or non-existent. This interpretation of "%20" may fail the backup.
For example, the name of your virtual machine is "Nutanix%20VM". The policy interprets this name as "Nutanix VM", which is invalid and does not exist. Thus, failing the policy validation.
Further, using a consecutive sequence of "%20" is not allowed.