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Backup Centos from vmware Restore to Hyper-V

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  • Johnfli
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I have found pervious items saying that (with Veeam) I should be able to backup a centos machine from vmware, and do an ‘instant recovery’ to hyper V.   I have tried a few times, and i must be missing something.

First….Veeam 12 Backup and Replication Community Edition

With my testing, I have backed up a couple of Windows SQL machines and Centos machines (not many due to Community Edition)

So as part of my last test, I am trying To backup from esxi and restore to Hyper-v.    The centos version is 7, and has 2 hard drives.

Backs up just fine….I try teh instant restore to Hyper-v…..   at first it works great.  With the counsol on hyper v, I can log into the machine, and all looks good…...but when the restore finishes, i get either garbage on teh display, or it boots into emergency mode and I can’ do anything other than power cycle it.   

 

Any idea?

Best answer by Johnfli

found the solution on Commvaults site

on the linux based machine

​
Run the following command to modify the boot image:

sudo dracut -f -v -N

Run the following command to verify that Hyper-V drivers are present in the boot image:

​lsinitrd | grep hv


Verify that no dracut conf files (for example, /usr/lib/dracut/dracut.conf.d/01-dist.conf) contain the following line:

hostonly="yes"

 

After doing those commands, I shut down teh linux box, and did a full backup with Veeam

Once completed, did an ‘instant restore’ and pointed to hyper-v..

Once that was done, I turned it on, and (to be honest) i was surprised to see it work as expeted

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    16 comments

    dips
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    • dips
    • Veeam Legend
    • 808 comments
    • August 30, 2024

    Hey @Johnfli 

    Welcome to the Community forums.

    Is it only happening with Instant Restore? Are you finalising the restore once it is up and running?

    What happens with a standard restore?

    Dipen N. K. | IT Security Specialist | Veeam Legend 2022 - 2025 | Cyber Security Space VUG Leader
    Chris.Childerhose
    Iams3le
    Dynamic
    3 people like this
    • Chris.Childerhose
      Chris.Childerhose
    • Iams3le
      Iams3le
    • Dynamic
      Dynamic
    dips
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    • dips
    • Veeam Legend
    • 808 comments
    • August 30, 2024

    One thing to be aware of:

    “When you perform Instant Recovery, Veeam Backup & Replication creates dummy VMs and mounts to VMs workload disks directly from backups stored on backup repositories. These dummy VMs have limited I/O performance. To provide full I/O performance, you must migrate the VMs to the production site.”

    https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/instant_recovery_to_hv.html?ver=120

    Dipen N. K. | IT Security Specialist | Veeam Legend 2022 - 2025 | Cyber Security Space VUG Leader
    Chris.Childerhose
    Iams3le
    Dynamic
    3 people like this
    • Chris.Childerhose
      Chris.Childerhose
    • Iams3le
      Iams3le
    • Dynamic
      Dynamic
    J
    • Johnfli
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    • 6 comments
    • August 30, 2024

    Dips, is response to your questions:

    I have only tried ‘instant restore’ as that is what I read said to use.   as for ‘finalising’  do you mean selecting ‘production’ when done?  if so, then that is ‘yes’

     

    I will try a regular restore, and see if that helps.  (edit)...tried a regular restore, but that does not give me the option to restore to hyper-v  which is what I am mainly looking for here.

     

     

     

    Chris.Childerhose
    Dynamic
    2 people like this
    • Chris.Childerhose
      Chris.Childerhose
    • Dynamic
      Dynamic
    Iams3le
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    • Iams3le
    • Veeam Legend
    • 1393 comments
    • September 1, 2024
    Johnfli wrote:

    Dips, is response to your questions:

    I have only tried ‘instant restore’ as that is what I read said to use.   as for ‘finalising’  do you mean selecting ‘production’ when done?  if so, then that is ‘yes’

     

    I will try a regular restore, and see if that helps.  (edit)...tried a regular restore, but that does not give me the option to restore to hyper-v  which is what I am mainly looking for here

     

    Hi @Johnfli, you will find the steps discussed here: https://techdirectarchive.com/2024/07/03/how-to-integrate-objectfirst-ootbi-appliance-with-vbr/

    [Microsoft MVP | Veeam Legend (2021 -2025) | VMware vExpert 5x | Cisco Champion 3x | Object First Ace 2x]
    dips
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    • dips
    • Veeam Legend
    • 808 comments
    • September 2, 2024
    Johnfli wrote:

    Dips, is response to your questions:

    I have only tried ‘instant restore’ as that is what I read said to use.   as for ‘finalising’  do you mean selecting ‘production’ when done?  if so, then that is ‘yes’

     

    I will try a regular restore, and see if that helps.  (edit)...tried a regular restore, but that does not give me the option to restore to hyper-v  which is what I am mainly looking for here.

     

     

     

    How are you getting on @Johnfli 

    Dipen N. K. | IT Security Specialist | Veeam Legend 2022 - 2025 | Cyber Security Space VUG Leader
    Iams3le
    1 person likes this
    • Iams3le
      Iams3le
    J
    • Johnfli
    • Author
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    • 6 comments
    • September 3, 2024

    @dips 

    No change.   nothing different to do.   I do not see how creating an appliance that is for security is going to change the outcome.

     

    Cragdoo
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    • Cragdoo
    • Veeam Vanguard
    • 130 comments
    • September 3, 2024

    @Johnfli Finalising is the process of moving (Live migrate/vmotion) the VM to your production storage away from your backup repository.  

    https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/ir_finalize_hv.html?ver=120

     

     

    As detailed by @dips your instant restore VM is running from your backup repo. The other consideration could be UEFI or disk drivers (good suggestion @Ian Sanderson) as may need to install Hyper-V Integration Services, where you had VMware tools before.

    Veeam Vanguard | www.cragdoo.co.uk
    Ian Sanderson
    1 person likes this
    • Ian Sanderson
      Ian Sanderson
    saintdle
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    • saintdle
    • Veeam Vanguard
    • 17 comments
    • September 3, 2024
    Iams3le wrote:
    Johnfli wrote:

    Dips, is response to your questions:

    I have only tried ‘instant restore’ as that is what I read said to use.   as for ‘finalising’  do you mean selecting ‘production’ when done?  if so, then that is ‘yes’

     

    I will try a regular restore, and see if that helps.  (edit)...tried a regular restore, but that does not give me the option to restore to hyper-v  which is what I am mainly looking for here

     

    Hi @Johnfli, you will find the steps discussed here: https://techdirectarchive.com/2024/07/03/how-to-integrate-objectfirst-ootbi-appliance-with-vbr/

    I read though this but I’ve no idea how this blog post answers the users query. So confused, maybe you meant to post a different link, like the one from Craig?

    Find me blogging @ vEducate.co.uk | Twitter: @saintdle
    Ian Sanderson
    J
    2 people like this
    • Ian Sanderson
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      Johnfli
    J
    • Johnfli
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    • 6 comments
    • September 3, 2024

    @Cragdoo

    With it being a centos OS, it never had vmware Tools installed.   
    due to it not really booting to its OS, and only into ‘emergency mode’ I would not be able to install Hyper-V intergration services even if I was able to find some for Centos7

    k00laidIT
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    • k00laidIT
    • Veeam Vanguard
    • 73 comments
    • September 3, 2024

    Hey @Johnfli to @dips point I think it’s worth trying to do a non-Instant restore. IR brings good bit of complexity, might be worth trying to do a “thick” restore instead and see what you get.

    If you still get the same outcome or want to keep digging I’d probably look at the disk mount that is being made or for UEFI type issues.

    Jim Jones, @k00laidIT, AWS Community Builder, Cisco Champion, vExpert, Veeam Vanguard
    J
    • Johnfli
    • Author
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    • 6 comments
    • September 3, 2024

    @k00laidIT the only way I’ve been able to get the system to restore to HYPER-V was with the Instant Restore.   Doing a regular Restore, the Hyper-V host isn’t an option for me to select….Only the VMWARE system it came from

    k00laidIT
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    • k00laidIT
    • Veeam Vanguard
    • 73 comments
    • September 3, 2024

    Interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve touched H-V, I may be missing a step in the workflow. To @Cragdoo ‘s point above, try installing the Hyper-V Integration Services on the VM, back it up, then restore that backup and see if it goes. That would cover off the drivers question.

    Jim Jones, @k00laidIT, AWS Community Builder, Cisco Champion, vExpert, Veeam Vanguard
    Cragdoo
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    • Cragdoo
    • Veeam Vanguard
    • 130 comments
    • September 3, 2024
    Johnfli wrote:

    @Cragdoo

    With it being a centos OS, it never had vmware Tools installed.   
    due to it not really booting to its OS, and only into ‘emergency mode’ I would not be able to install Hyper-V intergration services even if I was able to find some for Centos7

    “it never had vmware Tools installed.” ...I’m confused, surely you installed open-vm tools to allow it to boot on the VMware platform???

    Veeam Vanguard | www.cragdoo.co.uk
    J
    • Johnfli
    • Author
    • Not a newbie anymore
    • 6 comments
    • September 4, 2024
    Cragdoo wrote:
    Johnfli wrote:

    @Cragdoo

    With it being a centos OS, it never had vmware Tools installed.   
    due to it not really booting to its OS, and only into ‘emergency mode’ I would not be able to install Hyper-V intergration services even if I was able to find some for Centos7

    “it never had vmware Tools installed.” ...I’m confused, surely you installed open-vm tools to allow it to boot on the VMware platform???

    Nope, never installed anything like that for any of the linux based machines.   only extra items was for Windows (vmtools)

    J
    • Johnfli
    • Author
    • Not a newbie anymore
    • 6 comments
    • Answer
    • September 6, 2024

    found the solution on Commvaults site

    on the linux based machine

    ​
    Run the following command to modify the boot image:

    sudo dracut -f -v -N

    Run the following command to verify that Hyper-V drivers are present in the boot image:

    ​lsinitrd | grep hv


    Verify that no dracut conf files (for example, /usr/lib/dracut/dracut.conf.d/01-dist.conf) contain the following line:

    hostonly="yes"

     

    After doing those commands, I shut down teh linux box, and did a full backup with Veeam

    Once completed, did an ‘instant restore’ and pointed to hyper-v..

    Once that was done, I turned it on, and (to be honest) i was surprised to see it work as expeted

    dips
    1 person likes this
    • dips
      dips
    dips
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    • dips
    • Veeam Legend
    • 808 comments
    • September 7, 2024

    Thanks for the update @Johnfli I suspect this will help quite a few people out 

    Dipen N. K. | IT Security Specialist | Veeam Legend 2022 - 2025 | Cyber Security Space VUG Leader
    Iams3le
    1 person likes this
    • Iams3le
      Iams3le

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