Restore Guest VM / Entire host server?

[garyb]

Hi,
Just trialling BA 5.4.6 on Hyper-V Core and have a few questions before deciding if to purchase if I may? I ran a full image backup last night to a network share, I can see the backup completed with a range of xml files and 1 large VHD.

1 - I have 2 guest VMs on the host, if I needed to restore a single guest VM how would I achieve this, I look st agranular restore but it seems I can only grab individual files not a full guest vhd?

2 - It states in the log that my backup succeeded but I cannot recover a full host server image, is this because I backed up to network location rather than local USB drive/tape. I chose to do full server image to restore the Hyper-V host os and all guest vms to recover in a DR scenario:

Log section below:

Retrieving volume information...
This will back up volume Local Disk(C:) to \\192.168.168.10\BACKUP\HYPER-V.
Note: The list of volumes included for backup does not include all the
volumes that contain operating system components. This backup cannot be used
to perform a system recovery. However, you can recover other items if the
destination media type supports it.

Kind regards

[michael.jones]

Hello,

Thanks for contacting us in relation to BackupAssist. I'm Michael Jones, one of the technical support engineers.

Restoring on the same machine
Scenario: the virtual machine’s setup and configuration are fine, but you need to restore the virtual hard drives.

Stop the Virtual Machine from the Hyper-V Manager
Optionally copy your old VHD file(s) to somewhere else, just in case…
Restore the VHD file(s) for that machine to the same location.
Launch the Windows Server Backup admin console
Click on “Recover” in the right hand pane
Choose the following options: “This Server” -> the appropriate point in time -> Files and folders [note: not Applications] -> locate your VHD file(s) -> recover to Original Location
Start your Virtual Machine from the Hyper-V Manager
If the VM was running at the time of your backup, the boot manager will point out that the machine was not shut down cleanly. That’s fine – just boot normally.



Restoring to a different host machine (or same host machine with corrupt config)
Scenario: virtual machine needs to be restored to a different host. However, it’s not possible to import a virtual machine onto the new host from a backup. Instead, follow this procedure.

Restore the VHD file(s) for your virtual machine to a new location.
Launch the Windows Server Backup admin console
Click on “Recover” in the right hand pane
Choose the following options: “Another Server” -> the appropriate point in time -> Files and folders [note: not Applications] -> locate your VHD file(s) -> recover to Another Location, and choose a directory to restore to
Create a new Virtual Machine from within Hyper-V Manager.
Set the RAM to match the RAM of the old machine
Set the network card to match the network card of the old machine
For your virtual hard disk, select “Use an existing virtual hard disk” and point it to your first restored VHD.
Complete the wizard.
If you had more than one HDD, stop the machine, add in the extra HDDs (File -> Settings
If the VM was running at the time of your backup, the boot manager will point out that the machine was not shut down cleanly. That’s fine – just boot normally.
In our tests, we did not have to reactivate the virtual machine when running on a host with dissimilar hardware. However, that’s no guarantee that you won’t need to reactivate it on your environments.


Should you have additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me - I'd be glad to assist you.

[garyb]

Hi Michael, thanks for your reply.
I am running Hyper-V Core so do not have Windows Server Backup admin console, can any of this be achieved via command line, sure it would be harder but I need to know I could make it work should we purchase?

Also in regards to my other question can you shed any information?

"2 - It states in the log that my backup succeeded but I cannot recover a full host server image, is this because I backed up to network location rather than local USB drive/tape. I chose to do full server image to restore the Hyper-V host os and all guest vms to recover in a DR scenario:

Log section below:

Retrieving volume information...
This will back up volume Local Disk(C:) to \\192.168.168.10\BACKUP\HYPER-V.
Note: The list of volumes included for backup does not include all the
volumes that contain operating system components. This backup cannot be used
to perform a system recovery. However, you can recover other items if the
destination media type supports it."

Regards

Gary

[michael.jones]

Hello,


In answer to question 2, yes, in order to to do image recovery other than a complete image restore, you must be backing up to and restoring from, a usb or other locallly attached drive.
In the case of a core hyper-v server, the management of the guest vm's is done from the command line. Please see this TechNet article:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/maga ... 67786.aspx

Should you have additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me - I'd be glad to assist you.

[garyb]

Hi Michael,
Is your software not simply using the Windows Backup tool? Am I missing something, why would I not just use that instead of purchasing the software?

Perhaps my requirements may be too simply for BackupAssist, all I need to do is recover the Hyper-V host OS [Core] including guests or simply recover a guest vhd.

Sorry if I am missing something, I did try and recover the guest using command line but its very confusing. So far I have created full backup to network share with BackupAssist. Using wbadmin I( have got to here:

c:\>wbadmin get items -version:08/02/2010-19:01
wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

Volume ID = {1407841e-8da6-11df-8be4-806e6f6e6963}
Volume '<Unlabeled Volume>', mounted at C:
Volume size = 465.15 GB
Can recover = Full volume

Application = Registry
Component = Registry (\Registry)

Application = Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer
Component = 4189DEEB-2550-4A67-BA62-0F4A74BA769E (\4189DEEB-2550-4A67-BA62-0F4A7
4BA769E)

Component = 6475C902-14DC-4B64-809C-0203D4B318D3 (\6475C902-14DC-4B64-809C-0203D
4B318D3)

Component = Initial Store (\Initial Store)


c:\>

To recover a single VHD, what do I do next?

regards

[michael.jones]

c:\>wbadmin get items -version:08/02/2010-19:01 wbadmin 1.0 - Backup command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2004 Microsoft Corp.

Volume ID = {1407841e-8da6-11df-8be4-806e6f6e6963}
Volume '<Unlabeled Volume>', mounted at C:
Volume size = 465.15 GB
Can recover = Full volume

Application = Registry
Component = Registry (\Registry)

Application = Microsoft Hyper-V VSS Writer Component = 4189DEEB-2550-4A67-BA62-0F4A74BA769E (\4189DEEB-2550-4A67-BA62-0F4A7
4BA769E)

Component = 6475C902-14DC-4B64-809C-0203D4B318D3 (\6475C902-14DC-4B64-809C-0203D
4B318D3)

Component = Initial Store (\Initial Store)

c:\>

To recover a single VHD, what do I do next?

Response
You can use the follow command line to recover files from any:

wbadmin start recovery –version: 08/02/2010-19:01 -itemtype:File –items:[full path to file i.e c:\temp.txt] -recoverytarget: [path to recover to i.e c:\temp]

Just fill in the bits that are underlined as required. RecoveryTarget isn’t required if you want to overwrite the existing file.

This will work with Core and Hyper-V Server Core r2 and Hyper-V r2.

[garyb]

Hi Michael,

wbadmin start recovery –version: 08/02/2010-19:01 -itemtype:File –items:[full path to file i.e c:\temp.txt] -recoverytarget: [path to recover to i.e c:\temp

That's where I am confused "-itemtype:File –items:[full path to file i.e c:\temp.txt]" I dont actaully know the full path to the backup file as its inside a VHD created on full backup.

I am guessing "Component = 6475C902-14DC-4B64-809C-0203D4B318D3 (\6475C902-14DC-4B64-809C-0203D
4B318D3)" is the guest vm I need to restore but cant figure out where to input that value?

regards

Gary

[michael.jones]

Hello Gary,



You will need to restore the VHD file for the machine. This will be in whatever path you specified for the machine creation. You should be able to look at the VHD file location for your other machines and figure it out from that. This is found in the IDE settings in the Virtual Machine settings page.



Should you have additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me - I'll be more than happy to help.

[garyb]

Hello Gary,



You will need to restore the VHD file for the machine. This will be in whatever path you specified for the machine creation. You should be able to look at the VHD file location for your other machines and figure it out from that. This is found in the IDE settings in the Virtual Machine settings page.



Should you have additional questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me - I'll be more than happy to help.

Michael,
Some of your colleagues tell me they have never done this with Hyper-V core os, only the full server version, I and many others I presume would need fast support on a product that had been fully tested with the core os which at present backupAssist doesnt offer.

I do know where the guests reside on the server but simply adding that path doesnt restore a single guest vm, I think I need to use a gui as quoted in previous post. I guess I was hoping for an example piece of wbadmin code you were familar with.

Its now over 2 weeks and I still haven't had much assistance from support during my trial, I appreciate your time but such a simple process should have been dealt with I imagine.

[michael.jones]

Gary,

I'm sorry for the lag in support, in this case, you are correct, I am still learning about server core and wbadmin command line configuration. I have been getting assistance from some of the Sr. techs in Melbourne. I would like to set up a dialog directly between you and them, with your permission of course, so that we can get this resolved for you. Please email me at support@backupassist.com, so that I can do this for you.

[garyb]

Gary,

I'm sorry for the lag in support, in this case, you are correct, I am still learning about server core and wbadmin command line configuration. I have been getting assistance from some of the Sr. techs in Melbourne. I would like to set up a dialog directly between you and them, with your permission of course, so that we can get this resolved for you. Please email me at support@backupassist.com, so that I can do this for you.

Will do this in morning Michael, appreciate your help. Are the tech team suggesting I actually refer to the full path of the guest vhd rather than the guid which appears when I run WBADMIN GET ITEMS as my earlier post?

If so would it appear like this?

wbadmin start recovery –version: 08/02/2010-19:01 -itemtype:File –items:c:\c$\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual hard disks\myguestserver.vhd -recoverytarget: c:\tempguest\

regards

Gary

[garyb]

Sorry, mistype there I meant -

wbadmin start recovery –version: 08/02/2010-19:01 -itemtype:File –items:"c:\Users\Public\Documents\Hyper-V\Virtual hard disks\myguestserver.vhd" -recoverytarget: c:\tempguest\

regards

Gary

[michael.jones]

Gary,

That is correct, you will want to put in the entire path or directory that you want to restore.