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#1 2017-07-25 04:10:31

andrew_ho_ka
Member
Registered: 2017-07-25
Posts: 3

sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

I am running the script below

/vmfs/volumes/datastore1/xsi-dir/xsibackup --backup-point=/vmfs/volumes/esxibackup --backup-type=custom --backup-vms="vm1,vm2,vm3" --mail-from=xsibackup-no-reply@aaa.com --mail-to=andrewcheung@aaa.com --smtp-srv=192.168.1.5 --smtp-port=25 --smtp-auth="none"


After that, sometimes I received no error.
But sometimes I receive KO in some machine or all machine.

The error message  below:



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.
.
.
.
Hot backup selected for VM: [vm1], will not be switched off
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Syncronizing config files
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No .vmxf file found for vm1 (10)
[andy-ubuntu] info: VMWare Tools detected, taking snapshot please wait...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Backing up virtual disks...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
scsi0:0.fileName = "vm1_0-000002.vmdk"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Destination disk format: VMFS thin-provisioned
Cloning disk '/vmfs/volumes/raid5-7TB/vm1/vm1_0-000002.vmdk'...
Clone: 8% done.[vm1] CLVMKFS1 error: Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtual disk (15).
Excerpt
.
.
.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I am using esxi 6.5 now and the newest version of XSIBACKUP free.

It is strange that, sometimes it work but sometimes it doesn't work.
What make it not working with the same script?

All the machine is running and it is production machine that I am not turning them off during backup.
This is supposed to be worked for a running machine in the manual.

Please advise? Thanks.

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#2 2017-07-25 16:50:15

roberto
Moderator
Registered: 2017-04-22
Posts: 49

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

This looks like a hardware/ driver related problem or vCenter moving around the VMs while in the middle of a backup, but even if vMotion would move a VM to a different host, the cloning process would not be interrupted that nasty way. If you start to clone a disk and suddenly the rules of the game change in the middle of the process, or it just sometimes works, then it most probably has to do with a lower level layer.

1 - Are you using vCenter?, is vMotion active? (just in case)
2 - If the answer to any of the above questions is no, then try with a different datastore cause you're most probably hitting a hardwate/ driver issue.

Last edited by roberto (2017-07-25 16:52:04)

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#3 2017-07-26 02:58:57

andrew_ho_ka
Member
Registered: 2017-07-25
Posts: 3

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Thanks for your reply.
1) No, I am not using vCenter and no vMotion is supported in my esxi server.

2) It is not easy for me to try another hardware. Actually, all the virtual machine is running quite well without any problem.
The datastore is a 4 x 4tb raid 5 hdd. It is just started for 7months.
So, it don't like it's the hardware problem?

Actually, are there any other way, sth like scandisk? disk check? that I can try?
Because it's a production machine, it is not supposed to be turned off. I am not hoping to do that.
Any other possible way to do a troubleshooting?

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#4 2017-07-26 08:23:24

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

You do have random and very nasty errors on copy. It's nothing with XSIBackup, the errors are returned by vmkfstools, which is a more than well tested tool, so, I would start by facing the truth, specially if it's a production machine.

You don't offer much information, being a 4 x 4tb RAID is generic information. If your device is a NAS and it has an OS you have all the tools that your NAS's OS may offer you to check the FS it may use, but it doesn't seem to be a filesystem related problem at all. It could be something as simple as a cable, a failing switch or a driver issue.

I would use one of your 4 tb. disks as a directly attached datastore, that way you would have a B plan.

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#5 2017-07-31 03:46:44

andrew_ho_ka
Member
Registered: 2017-07-25
Posts: 3

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

These few days, i have do another testing.
I have tried to use the following command to copy a big vmdk file from the same datastore to another datastore and it work without any problem. All of them work 100% done.

vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/raid5-7TB/vm1/vm1_0-000002.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/esxibackup/aaa.vmdk -d thin
vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/raid5-7TB/vm1/vm1_0-000002.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/esxibackup/aaa2.vmdk -d thin
vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/raid5-7TB/vm1/vm1_0-000002.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/esxibackup/aaa3.vmdk -d thin
vmkfstools -i /vmfs/volumes/raid5-7TB/vm1/vm1_0-000002.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/esxibackup/aaa4.vmdk -d thin
.
.
.
etc...


It don't seems like there is any issue on the raid.
And after that, I try using xsibackup again, the error message show again.

May I know what is the exact command xsibackup is using to clone the vmdk?
Maybe I can try that command manually?

Thanks.

Last edited by andrew_ho_ka (2017-07-31 03:47:54)

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#6 2017-07-31 07:33:21

roberto
Moderator
Registered: 2017-04-22
Posts: 49

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Check that no other program is accessing the file during the vmkfstools cloning process.

ps -c | grep "your-file"

Ommit the extension so that both .vmdk and -flat.vmdk files are sought.

XSIBackup is a script...

Last edited by roberto (2017-07-31 08:37:15)

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#7 2018-02-17 16:20:07

Int
Member
Registered: 2017-12-05
Posts: 58

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Is your datastore /vmfs/volumes/raid5-7TB
a local datastore or is it a NFS datastore?

If it's using NFS maybe NFS4.1 is the issue - xsibackup does not work with NFS4.1 , see:

https://33hops.com/xsibackup-most-common-issues.html

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#8 2018-02-19 10:10:04

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Int is right (thank you Int). Many people try to use NFS 4.1 to take advantage of NFS multipathing mainly, and they don't realize ESXi does not support it, but returns really weird behaviour instead of just stating: "No compatible". That has nothing to do with XSIBackup anyway, it's just a general issue affecting ESXi.

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#9 2018-03-28 12:46:30

epicurean
Member
Registered: 2017-12-04
Posts: 20

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Ever since I "updated" to the 10.3.0 xsibackup, I keep getting these errors of failure
"ERROR CLVMKFS1 details: [OP2_Win10] error: vmkfstools error details: Failed to clone disk:"
These are all Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 VMs. Is there something radically different in this new version ?

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#10 2018-03-29 11:12:34

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Windows OSs are radically Windows, they play in a different league.
In any case that is a vmkfstools error which normally indicates there's something wrong in the .vmdk disks themselves. On the other hand, there aren't any known compatibility issues, so...
Start by rebooting your host and if you still get that nasty error, try to think if those VMs have something in particular that could be causing the issue, namely: did you convert them from physical or some other format?, if so, what software did you use?, are they aligned to 1M block size?
Check the descriptor files (plain tiny .vmdk files), to verify to what -flat.vmdk files they point to.

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#11 2018-03-30 03:03:32

epicurean
Member
Registered: 2017-12-04
Posts: 20

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Hi Daniel,
Nothing has changed from these windows VM , only the xsibackup version. It was all good before moving to ver 10.
I will try rebooting.
Does placing the hosts into Vcenter make any difference?

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#12 2018-03-30 15:42:59

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Well, isn't something as "nothing has changed" and "Does placing the hosts into Vcenter make any difference?" a bit contradictory. That's not a little detail with no importance.

Of course it can make a difference, but that will depend on how you configure the thing.
If you have DRS enabled and your VMs are moved around without you knowing it, XSIBackup might be trying to backup a VM that is not registered to the host. So, start by reading this:

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/inde … .15.6.html

And then use XSIBackup's options as required:

--disable-vmotion might be particularly useful.

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#13 2018-04-02 00:13:24

epicurean
Member
Registered: 2017-12-04
Posts: 20

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

I did not enable DRS. no VMs are moved around. The statement about placing the hosts in Vcenter was a hypothetical question - it is something I need to do in the pipeline but I wanted to check that the backups work properly first.

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#14 2018-04-13 14:16:59

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

We have been trying to reproduce this error without success so far.
If anybody else is getting it, please provide all details: full log and backup job, otherwise we are just especulating.

The file specified is not a virtual disk (15)

is a generic vmkfstools error that is generally raised when you try to copy a file that is not a .vmdk descriptor.

Getting this error when using XSIBACKUP-FREE could only mean that the parsed file is not a .vmdk descriptor, that the file descriptor is corrupt, that the file is currently open by other process or some lower level cause. This post has many visits, but most of them are just generic searches not having to do with XSIBackup.

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#15 2018-04-23 14:07:52

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

SOLUTION:

We found where the problem may be
In line 2180 of main xsibackup file (approximately), you'll see this

cp "$NVRAMFILEPATH" "$thedir"

This is valid, not only for the .nvram file, but all the other config and state files: .vmx, vmxf, .vmsd, ...

If the directory $thedir does not exist, the contents of the config file are copied to a file named after the $thedir, instead of being copied to a file inside this directory.

But that directory is undoubtedly created around 18 lines above.

The only reason why this could happen, is that you are using asynchronous NFS and the directory creation is taking too long, so that when the copy operation takes place, the directory doesn't exist yet. So, switch back to sync NFS. Async NFS is not fully supported by XSIBackup-Free, but can be enabled on your NAS by default or by mistake.

When we say that it's not fully supported, we mean that it may very well work, but the logic of the program does not expect an async operation at that point.

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#16 2018-04-24 01:32:28

epicurean
Member
Registered: 2017-12-04
Posts: 20

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

Hi,
So the suggested solution is to change the NAS configuration to sync NFS if it was on Async NFS? How do you do that for an iscsi volume from a synology NAS?

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#17 2018-04-24 08:22:15

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

You will see that option in the NFS configuration page on the DSM GUI, you can't miss it. Sync NFS is the default value in Synology devices.

To my surprise QNap devices have this option for SMB but not for NFS in the GUI. You need to tweak the NFS daemon init script in case of QNap devices.

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#18 2018-04-24 08:23:41

admin
Administrator
Registered: 2017-04-21
Posts: 2,057

Re: sometimes KO, Failed to clone disk: The file specified is not a virtu

We'll release a fix for the Pro version first and depending on the load of work apply it to the free version. While this happens, you just need to make sure XSIBackup can work synchronously.

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