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vmProtect 7.0 installation messes up my ESXi 5.0 Install

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When I ran the install for vmProtect 7.0, it asked me if I wanted to create a virtual instance, which made sense to me given that this is a tool to backup/restore virtual images. I specified the local IP address for my ESXi installation. The install went fine, however that is when things went sideways.

I am no longer able to access my ESXi installation via the same IP Address! I cannot access it via vSphere or even a web browser. It appears that vmProtect 7.0 is now using that same IP address!

No problem I think.. So I went to my ESXi console (on physical server) and changed the IP address to something different. I restarted the computer and then even tried restarting the management network again, no avail.

So now nothing is available, either the ESXi or even the quite useless vmProtect virtual instance. How do I get this thing off of my ESXi server and get things back to normal? Clearly someone doing the install program didn't think that one out very well...

TIA,

Miles

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Hello Miles Gibson,

Thank you for using Acronis software. I am happy to assist you.

When installing the Virtual Appliance from vmProtect, it runs like every other virtual machine. So it could not use the IP address of your ESX(i) host. At the end of the installation, you get a desktop link or the printed information, which IP address the Virtual Appliance is using.

I think you run into this problem while entering your IP address from your host during installation into the field for the network settings of your new Virtual Appliance. If you have done this, the result is an IP address conflict.

Under these circumstances, I suggest to contact VMware support. The strategy is to shut down the Virtual Appliance from vmProtect in order to get your connection to ESX(i) host back again.

What you can do now:

  1. Connect to every other virtual guest of this ESX(i) host and shut them manually down.
  2. Power off the ESX(i) host.
  3. Power on the ESX(i) host, connect via vSphere and delete the Virtual Appliance from vmProtect from host.
  4. Now you can power on the remaining virtual guest systems.

For the next steps, I suggest using the already registered Acronis vmProtect 8 instead of Acronis vmProtect 7. I want to show you, where you have to be carefully during installation.

Start the installation of Acronis vmProtect 8 and choose the Virtual Appliance method again.

This picture shows, where to enter the first connection to your ESX(i) host:

Follow the steps until this point where you can enter the network connection for your Virtual Appliance. (At this picture, you entered the IP address of your host.)

(!) However, do not enter your host address here:

You can left it on DHCP mode or specify a free, unused IP address at this window in order to access the Acronis Virtual Appliance after installation.

I hope, I could help you to solve your issue.

Let me know if you need additional help please.

Thank you.

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Thanks for your help. I re-assigned my ESXi with the old IP address and rebooted it. Now at least it seems that I can access my ESXi server again, yes! However, it looks like I need to upgrade my free ESXi 5.0 to ESXi 5.1 in order to use vmProtect 8.0 -- at the moment I am getting a message from the vmProtect install that it is not supported. I will figure how to do that and get back to you when I am ready to try the install again.

Cheers,

Miles

Hello Miles Gibson,

Thank you for your reply.

You are right, vmProtect 8 only supports the paid versions of ESX(i). See more information in this part of online help or in this article from our knowledge base.

If there is anything else, we can do for you, please let me know.

Thank you.

Hi Miles, I'm just checking here. Did you upgrade to ESXi 5.1 yet? Were there any issues here for you or is it just smooth?

Essentially abandoned it. Just couldn't get it to work. vmProtect wants the entire VM volume, which seems entirely wrong to me. Unless I am missing something.

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Posts: 22
Comments: 3800

Hi Miles,

By default Acronis vmProtect (now it's called Acronis Backup for VMware) backs up entire VM, however you can exclude the contents of any logical volume inside the VM using files/folders exclusion settings. For example you can specify D:\* to exclude all contents from the D: drive, so the volume will be inside the backup (so you can restore it as a VM), but the data on it will be missing.

Thank you.
--
Best regards,
Vasily
Acronis Virtualization Program Manager