Category: Server

Veeam Backups Failing – Network path not found

Recently a backup job was created to backup and VM from an ESXi host to a backup repository on a QNAP. Everything appeared to be configured correctly and all usernames and passwords were correct but it would still fail every time it was tested.

This is the error message I would see each time.

The network path was not found. Agent failed to process method {Stg.OpenReadWrite}.

After testing and removing and adding almost every part of the configuration again I finally figured out what the issue was. The credentials for the QNAP shared were correct but for some reason when I removed them from the credential manager and added them again the backup worked.

I have no idea why this worked because when I would choose the backup repository to use it could see used and free space details along with existing backups. The backup is now running without issue so it’s worth a try if you are having a similar issue.

Veeam Instant Recovery VM won’t boot after host failure

We were in the process of migrating VMs from one datacentre to another using Veeam Backup & Replication when our main host crashed with a CPU error. The production VMs had been running on the server for a few hours and hadn’t yet been fully replicated to the replication partner. One of the VMs is Server 2003 so was running in Instant Recovery mode as is couldn’t be migrated using replication like the other VMs.

Thankfully the server rebooted and all the VMs started without issue except the Server 2003 VM. When viewing the console it only displayed a black screen which was worrying as there was no backup of the last 6 hours of changes.

After submitting a case on the Veeam site a member of the support team called within 20 minutes and quickly got the VM up and running again. The issue in our case was that the Veeam B&R software is installed on a VM running on the host that crashed. When the VM restarted the Veeam services didn’t start in the required order. The Veeam vPower NFS service needs to start after the Veeam Backup service.

To fix the issue the only steps required were to restart the Veeam vPower NFS service on the system running Veeam B&R then start the VM.

Remove HP iLO License

In order to use the full features of HP’s Integerated Lights-Out system a license key needs to be added. The process of adding a license is as simple as connecting to the iLO web interface and following the steps in the license section. If for some reason you want to remove the license it’s not quite as simple as clicking a button.

Thankfully it’s not actually that difficult to remove the license, just a pain having to use an extra tool. The steps below show you how to complete the removal in a few minutes.

  1. Download Putty if you don’t already have it.
  2. Open putty and enter the IP of the iLO server, select SSH and open the connection.
  3. Login using the same credentials used for the iLO web interface (username is case sensitive).
  4. type the following command and hit enter. delete /map1 license
  5. The command may take 5-10 seconds to complete so wait until confirmation is shown.

Remove iLO License