NetBackup for VMware: notes on Linux virtual machines
The following notes apply to virtual machines with Linux guest operating systems:
NetBackup cannot exclude unused or deleted blocks from the backup if the virtual machine is configured with software RAID volumes. The policy's option is not supported.
If snapshot quiesce is enabled in the Linux guest OS, NetBackup for VMware synchronizes the guest OS file system before it takes the snapshot. Contact your operating system vendor and VMware for additional information on enabling snapshot quiesce. Note: If snapshot quiesce is not enabled, NetBackup cannot guarantee that data in the file system is in a consistent state when the snapshot occurs.
Unmounted LVM2 volumes must start with /dev
If the path of an unmounted LVM2 volume does not start with /dev, the backup of the virtual machine fails. Note: The path of the volume is set with the dir parameter on the LVM volume configuration file. An example of this configuration file is /etc/lvm/lvm.conf.
For Linux files or directories, NetBackup for VMware has the same path name restriction as NetBackup on a Linux physical host. Files or directories with path names longer than 1023 characters cannot be individually backed up or restored. Such files can be restored when you restore the entire virtual machine from a full virtual machine backup.
The Linux ext4 file system includes a persistent pre-allocation feature, to guarantee disk space for files without padding the allocated space with zeros. When NetBackup restores a pre-allocated file (to any supported ext file system), the file loses its preallocation and is restored as a sparse file. The restored file is only as large as the last byte that was written to the original file. Subsequent writes to the restored file may be non-contiguous.
Note:
The restored file contains all of its original data.
The NetBackup policy's option is not supported for the disks inside a Linux guest OS that are configured as follows:
The disks are divided into logical volumes by means of the Linux Logical Volume Manager (LVM), and
The LVM volumes were created with thin-provisioning.
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