Forum ©XSIBackup: ©VMWare ©ESXi Backup Software

If you are backing up ([b]--backup[/b] action) across an unstable IP link you don't have to worry about the connection dropping. The [b]--backup[/b] action has been designed to be resilient under the most terrible circumstances. You won't be able to rely on the broken backup attempt (you should clean that folder from the remote repository), but next successful attempt will be O.K.

If you are using the [b]--replica[/b] action on a 200GB disk and your connection drops at 70% you should use Rsync instead or just use the [b]--backup[/b] action and then rebuild the VM on the target system, Rsync as well as [b]--backup[/b] action are more oriented towards reliability in unstable scenarios than [b](c)XSIBackup-DC[/b]'s [b]--replica[/b] method is.

We will improve [b](c)XSIBackup-DC[/b] as time passes and we will most probably add a retake broken transfer option from the previous block, but by now you need a reliable TCP link to transfer big files.

We just re-tested current trial version with no issue

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|||   (c)XSIBackup-Datacenter 1.1.0.3: Backup & Replication Software            |||
|||   (c)33HOPS, Sistemas de Informacion y Redes, S.L. | All Rights Reserved    |||
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                   (c)Daniel J. Garcia Fidalgo | info@33hops.com
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System Information: ESXi, Kernel 6 Major 7 Minor 0 Patch 0
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License: unlicensed trial version
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SSH: Wed Jan 15 19:51:14 UTC 2020
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Remote system: vmkernel
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PID: 2099656, Running job as: root
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(c)XSIBackup-Datacenter replicating data to /vmfs/volumes/backup4/DATACENTER-BACKUP-1M
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New backup/replica: Ubuntu02 | folder
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Backup start date: 2020-01-15 18:33:33
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2020-01-15 18:33:33 | Backing up 7 files, total size is 35433495354
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    NUMBER                                                         FILE            SIZE       PROGRESS
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     1/7                                                  Ubuntu02.vmx         2.89 KB | Done   0.00%
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     2/7                                            Ubuntu02-flat.vmdk        33.00 GB | Done   0.00%
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     3/7                                                Ubuntu02.nvram         8.48 KB | Done 100.00%%
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     4/7                                                 Ubuntu02.vmsd        45.00 B  | Done 100.00%
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     5/7                                                 Ubuntu02.vmdk       496.00 B  | Done 100.00%
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     6/7                                              Ubuntu02-aux.xml        13.00 B  | Done 100.00%
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     7/7                                              Ubuntu02.vmx.tmp         2.89 KB | Done 100.00%
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Total size:             33792 MB                                                        | Done 100.00%
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Backup end date: 2020-01-15 18:34:09
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Time taken:       36 sec.
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Total time:       36 sec.
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Full file speed:                                                                           938.67 mb/s
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Real data speed:                                                                             1.01 mb/s
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Item backup completed
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Data processing completed successfully
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Removed /tmp/xsi dir     OK
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Unlocked backup          OK
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SSH session was closed   OK
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Removed PID              OK
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Depending on the Linux distro you are using as a target, and most important: the OpenSSH version it incorporates, you may need to tweak some things. If you want to keep things easy, just use an ESXi host as a target and mount some Linux via NFS.

The abobe test was made to another ESXi server, we'll try to reproduce your error and reach you back.

UPDATE:

Well, your problem is simple, yet you will need to find out a way to silent your excesively verbose Linux system and we'll need to find a solution to pave your way as much as we can.

The thing is that [b](c)XSIBackup-DC[/b] probes your remote system to know what kind of system it's talking to. As your remote Linux OpenSSH server just can't keep its mouth shut even in the most intimate moments, it just spits the extremely annoying "FIPS mode initialized" message in a quite autistic manner, thus breaking the expected answer and making [b](c)XSIBackup-DC[/b] return an error.

We'll try to prevent this by keeping the SSH tunnel quiet in the probe and eventually release the fix as 1.1.0.4

Thank you for using [b](c)XSIBackup[/b]

Pruning a deduplicated repo is something not trivial, so we turned the message into a warning.

You have 20 key slots with your Pro license. Get the request.key file in your secondary hosts and upload them to get your license.key files for your secondary hosts. You may need to copy the file ./conf/err-imsgs manually. We'll fix that in next release so that it is automatically copied by the --host argument.

Contact support to request a quick fix if you are in a hurry, the fix is already available. Nevertheless copying the file manually will do it as well.

Just as long as your [b]-flat.vmdk[/b] files are present you are safe.

Programs outputs can show any kind of error, segfault conditions, etc..., nonetheless what we have not found so far is some log trying to cheat you (just kidding). What we mean by that is that if you are shown this:

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Rsync file transfer (1st)
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From: /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/vps3024/ubuntu16 image.vmdk
To: /vmfs/volumes/datastore2/11000/20200110151948/vps3024tempdevserver/ubuntu16 image.vmdk
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sending incremental file list
ubuntu16 image.vmdk
            558 100%    0.00kB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#1, to-chk=0/1)

sent 655 bytes  received 35 bytes  1,380.00 bytes/sec
total size is 558  speedup is 0.81
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There are many more chances that you are wrong somehow than the log is lying.
Have you tried looking for that [b]ubuntu16 image.vmdk[/b] file in your remote disk?

find / -name "ubuntu16 image.vmdk"

Have you monitored the backup in real time to see if the file is actually being copied and some other process is deleting it afterwards?, that'd be our next step to solve the mistery.

You can't totally discard a broken disk either, but you would receive low level errors. Run a SMART test on the remote disk anyway, just to be sure.

Edit the file [b]src/functions[/b] with vi and replace line 11

echo "$O"

by

echo -n "$O"

That should not affect error collection, but given the fact that different ESXi versions incorporate a wide variety of busybox components with a wide range of bahaviours, that "-n" will not hurt.

Given the fact that the "details" variable is not printed nor added to the ERR file unless it contains some value, it looks like something is not working as expected in your host. Reboot when you have the chance and retry. We will ad some additional code to double check that the variable printed in "details" is not empty.

(c)XSIBackup just creates a snapshot on top of any previously existing one and then deletes that very same snapshot, it doesn't take any action in regards to any previously existing one.

Remove [b]--snapshot=includememory[/b], this just adds the memory state of the backup snapshot which is useless 99,99% of the times.

Vmkfstools always consolidates snapshots into a unified base disk. If you want to preserve snapshots use some other backup program. This is plainly how Vmkfstools work, it creates a base disk from all the snapshots below the one you point Vmkfstools at. It's clearly stated in: [url]https://33hops.com/xsibackup-using-backup-programs.html[/url]

To preserve snapshots you may use [b]Onediff[/b] (this will create a replica, not a backup though), [b]XSIDiff[/b] or [b]Rsync[/b] (only over IP).

We have confirmed that some busybox components in ESXi 5.1 are not compatible with some newer releases. OpenSSL per instance outputs data in a different format. We'll try to work this around to offer a widely compatible version as 11.2.16, contact support if you need some help in the meanwhile.

UPDATE:

Seems there will be no problem to fix backward compatibility to ESXi 5.1, the fix will be available soon, as said, should you need some support in the meanwhile, contact us.

UPDATE:

The fix has already been published as 11.2.16

We will revise functionality in ESXi 5.1, nonetheless, as said, you may need to use some older release. The error you are getting is very gross, the main module is not able to find the [b]writeout[/b] function residing in the functions file, which is used all over xsibackup main module and the rest too.

The functions file is an include in the xsibackup main module, thus the only possibility that you get that error is that [b]src/functions[/b] is not found, way too weird unless we have hit some incompatibility with that ESXi build.

The easiest thing you can do is to use some older XSIBackup release which is known to work well on ESXi 5.1, like 11.1.10. We will try to keep backward compatibilty as much as possible, but 5.5 is the oldest ESXi release we are active and extensively testing new (c)XSIBackup-Pro releases.

Contact support to ask for an old release in case you don't have it.

You are mising the remote user: user@IP:port:/path, it's all explained in the manual.

You are somehow missing the [b]src/functions[/b] file. Please, make sure that you have that file there. Make the whole src folder executable in case you don't get it to work.

Apart from that ESXi 5.1 will soon require to use some older (c)XSIBackup version and also OpenSSH and OpenSSL versions present in 5.1 are incompatible with newer releases.