vCenter vCSA Archives

vCSA Update – Backup and Restore Tips and Tricks

Backup, vCenter vCSA, Video Posts, VMware 1 Response »

Oct 102021

In this post, I wanted to go over some Backup and Restore tips and tricks when it comes to VMware vCSA Updates and Upgrades.

We’ve almost all been there, performing an update or upgrade of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance when it fails, and we must restore from a backup. There’s also times where the update or upgrade has been successful, however numerous issues occur afterwards prompting for the requirement of a restore from backup.

In this post, I wanted to briefly go over the methods of backups (and restores) for the vCSA, as well as some Tips and Tricks which might help you out for avoiding failed updates or upgrades in the future!

We all want to avoid a failed update or upgrade! 🙂

VMware vCSA Update Tips and Tricks for Backup and Restore

Please enjoy this video version of the blog post:

vCSA Update and Upgrade – Tips and Tricks for Backup and Restore

vCSA Backup methods

There are essentially two backup methods for backing up the vCenter Server Appliance:

vCSA Management Interface Backup
vSphere/ESXi Virtual Machine Snapshot

vCSA Management Interface Backup

If you log in to the vCSA Management Interface, you can configure a scheduled backup that will perform a full backup of your vCSA (and vCenter Server) instance.

This backup can be automatically ran and saved to an HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SFTP, NFS, or SMB destination. It’s a no-brainer if you have a Windows File Server or an NFS datastore.

In the event of a failed update/upgrade or a disaster, this backup can be restored to a new vCSA instance to recover from the failure.

For more information on backups from the vCSA Management Interface, please see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.install.doc/GUID-8C9D5260-291C-44EB-A79C-BFFF506F2216.html.

For information on restoring a vCSA file based backup, please see https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.install.doc/GUID-F02AF073-7CFD-45B2-ACC8-DE3B6ED28022.html.

vSphere/ESXi Virtual Machine Snapshot

In addition to the scheduled automatic backups configured above, you should snapshot your vCSA appliance VM prior to initiating an update or upgrade. In the event of a failure, you can easily restore the vCSA VM snapshot to get back to a running state.

vCSA Snapshot Screenshot — vCSA Snapshot

Only after you test and confirm the upgrade or update was successful should you delete the snapshot.

You should also have your Backup application or suite performing regularly snapshot based backups of your vCSA.

Additional Tips and Tricks

I have a few very important tips and tricks to share which may help you either avoid a failed update or upgrade, or increase the chances of a successful restore from backup.

Gracefully Shutdown and Restart the vCSA Appliance before Upgrading
Application Consistent Snapshot – Snapshot after graceful shutdown

Let’s dive in to these below.

Gracefully Shutdown and Restart the vCSA Appliance before Upgrading

I noticed that I significantly reduced the amount of failed upgrades by simply gracefully shutting down and restarting the vCenter Server Appliance prior to an upgrade.

This allows you to clear out the memory, virtual memory, and restart all vCenter services prior to starting the upgrade.

Please Note: Make sure that you give the vCSA appliance enough time to boot, start services, and let some of the maintenance tasks run before initiating an upgrade.

Application Consistent Snapshot – Snapshot after graceful shutdown

Most VMware System Administrators I have talked to, usually snapshot the running vCSA appliance and do not snapshot the memory. This creates a crash consistent snapshot.

If you follow my advice above and gracefully shutdown and restart the vCSA appliance, you can use this time to perform a VM snapshot after a graceful shutdown. This will provide you with an application consistent snapshot instead of a crash consistent snapshot.

If you perform an application consistent snapshot by gracefully shutting down the VM prior to creating the snapshot, the virtual machine and database inside of it will be in a cleaner state.

Conclusion

Some of the Tips and Tricks in this post definitely aren’t necessary, however they can help you increase the chance of a successful upgrade, and a successful restore in the event of a failed upgrade.

For more information on upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance, please visit https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/com.vmware.vcenter.upgrade.doc/GUID-30485437-B107-42EC-A0A8-A03334CFC825.html.

vCSA 7.0.1 (7.0 U1 Build 16858589) update failed

vCenter vCSA, VMware, vSphere No Responses »

Oct 232020

When updating VMware vCenter vCSA 7.0 U1 (Build 16858589) to vCSA 7.0 U1 (Build 17004997/17005016, Version 7.0.1.00100), you may notice that the update fails and reports issues with pre-update checks.

Pre-update checks done prior to the update will pass and allow you to proceed, however it’s the installation that will fail and crash reporting this error.

After the installation fails, you will no longer be able to log in to the vCSA VAMI reporting the error “Unable to Login” using the root account.

You are able to login via SSH. Resetting the root password via SSH will not resolve this issue.

The Problem

In the past, issues with the root password expiring have caused similar behavior on the vCSA VAMI. Changing the root password does not resolve this specific issue.

Further troubleshooting, it appears that special characters in the root password such as “!”, “.”, and “@” caused this issue to occur in my environment.

I was not able to fix the broken vCSA after the failed update. Access to the vCSA was not possible, however vCenter functions were still operating.

The Solution

To resolve this situation in my environment, I restored a snapshot of the vCSA taken prior to updating.

After restoring the snapshot, I changed the root password for VAMI and restarted the vCSA.

Another snapshot was taken prior to attempting the upgrade, which was now succesfull after removing special characters out of the root password.

vCSA vCenter Upgrade (6.5 or 6.7) to 7.0 – Enter a new export directory on the source machine below

vCenter vCSA, VMware 18 Responses »

Jul 222020

When upgrading from any version of VMware vCSA to version 7.0, you may encounter a problem during the migration phase and be asked to specifiy a new “Export Directory”.

I’ve seen this occur on numerous upgrades and often find the same culprit causing the issue. I’ve found a very simple fix compared to other solutions online.

The full prompt for this issue is: “Enter a new export directory on the source machine below”

The Problem

When you upgrade the vCenter vCSA, the process migrates all data over from the source appliance, to the new vCSA 7 appliance.

This data can include the following (depending on your selection):

Configuration
Configuration and historical data (events and tasks)
Configuration and historical data (events, tasks, and performance metric)
vSphere Update Manager (updates, configuration, etc.)

This data can accumulate, especially the VMware vSphere Update Manager.

In the most recent upgrade I performed, I noticed that the smallest option (configuration only) was around 8GB, which is way over the 4.7GB default limit.

Could it be vSphere Update Manager?

I’ve seen VMware VUM cause numerous issues over the years with upgrades. VUM has caused issues upgrading from earlier versions to 6.x, and in this case it caused this issue upgrading to vCSA 7.x as well.

In my diagnosis, I logged in to the SSH console of the source appliance, and noticed that the partitions containing the VUM data (which includes update files) was around 7.4GB. This is the “/storage/updatemgr/” partition.

I wasn’t sure if this was included, but the 8GB of configuration, minus the 7.4GB of VUM data, could technically get me to around 0.6GB for migration if this was in fact included.

In my environment, I have the default (and simple) implementation of VUM with the only customization being the HPE VIBs depot. I figured maybe I should blast away the VUM and start from scratch on VMware vCSA 7.0 to see if this fixes the issue.

The Fix

To fix this issue, I simply completely reset the VMware Update Manager Database.

For details on this process and before performing these steps, please see VMware KB 2147284.

Let’s get to it:

Close the migration window (you can reopen this later)
Log in to your vCSA source appliance via SSH or console
Run the applicable steps as defined in the VMware KB 2147284 to reset VUM (WARNING: commands are version specific). In my case on vCSA 6.5 I ran the following commands:
1. shell
2. service-control --stop vmware-updatemgr
3. /usr/lib/vmware-updatemgr/bin/updatemgr-util reset-db
4. rm -rf /storage/updatemgr/patch-store/*
5. service-control --start vmware-updatemgr
Open your web broswer and navigate to https://new-vcsa-IP:5480 and resume the migration. You will now notice a significant space reduction and won’t need to specify a new mount point.

That’s it! You have a shiny new clean VUM instance, and can successfully upgrade to vCSA 7.0 without having to specify a new mount point.

To reconfigure and restore any old configuration to VUM, you’ll do so in the “VMware Lifecycle Management” section of the VMware vCenter Server Appliance interface.

Alternatively, in the rare event it’s not related to the VUM data, you can set the export directory to somewhere in “/tmp/” which is another workaround this issue which may allow you to continue.

Newer Entries