Dell PowerPath - Veeam Agent for Linux Limitations
Challenge
If a Linux server has Dell PowerPath devices attached, all the underlying block devices representing the network paths to the server are skipped from processing. This will result in the error "No objects to backup" or PowerPath devices missing from the backup. If non-PowerPath devices are part of the backup scope (i.e., the Entire Computer scope is selected), the backup will technically be green, but the PowerPath devices will be silently skipped.
Cause
Veeam Agent for Linux detects only the DM-Multipath-based devices as aggregated. Additionally, block devices with the same MBR/GPT ID cannot be backed up. Because of this, both individual paths and aggregated devices are considered different block devices and are skipped from processing.
Solution
All individual IO paths must be excluded using the ignoreDevices parameter within the /etc/veeam/veeam.ini configuration file.
The ignoreDevices parameter must be manually created under the [backup] section of the veeam.ini file.
Example
- Use the following command to list the Dell PowerPath aggregated device name and underlying devices:
For more information about powermt and PowerPath CLI, please review: CLI and System Messages Reference
powermt display dev=all Example output
[root@localhost ~]# powermt display dev=all Pseudo name=emcpowerea Symmetrix ID=000343607604 Logical device ID=07BA Device WWN=60000980000262604497023030364553 state=alive; policy=SymmOpt; queued-IOs=0 ============================================================================== --------------- Host --------------- - Stor - -- I/O Path -- -- Stats --- ### HW Path I/O Paths Interf. Mode State Q-IOs Errors ============================================================================== 6 lpfc sdef FA 10f:00 active alive 0 0 5 lpfc sdcm FA 6f:00 active alive 0 0 4 lpfc sdau FA 7f:00 active alive 0 0 3 lpfc sdb FA 11f:00 active alive 0 0
In this example, there are the following devices:
- /dev/emcpowerea — aggregated EMC PowerPath device
- /dev/sdef, /dev/sdcm, /dev/sdau, /dev/sdb — underlying block devices representing the network paths
Accordingly, the mount table lists /dev/emcpowerea device mounted under /data folder:
root@localhost:~# mount | grep emcpowerea /dev/emcpowereap1 on /data type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,stripe=256,data=ordered)
- From the example above, the following is a formatted list of individual IO paths for the /dev/emcpowerea block device:
/dev/sdef;/dev/sdcm;/dev/sdau;/dev/sdb
- Specify those paths with the ignoreDevices parameter created under the [backup] section of the veeam.ini file. Use a semicolon without whitespace as a separator.
Example:[backup] # Backup cluster alignment logarithm # clusteralign= 3 # Ignore inactive LVM logical volumes during backup # ignoreinactivelvm= false # IO rate limit, from 0.01 to 1.0 # ioratelimit= 0.9 # CPU priority for veeamagents, from 0 to 19 # priority= 10 # Verbose logging of device enumeration # verbosedevenumlogging= false ignoreDevices= /dev/sdef;/dev/sdcm;/dev/sdau;/dev/sdb
- Save the veeam.ini file and ensure no backup or restore sessions are running on the Veeam Agent machine. If no backup or restore sessions are running, restart the veeamservice daemon to pick up the new values from the configuration file.
systemctl restart veeamservice
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