How do I clean up old snapshots?
When vSphere client does not show any snapshots and the Snapshot space is a simple 45.00 B or less in the Storage Views tab, How do I clean up these snapshots?
I have a few machines that are pointed to a snapshot disk (as seen from scsi0:0.fileName = "servername-000001.vmdk" (The series of 0's and the 1 is the snapshot number). Also there are ctk and delta files in the directory for these machines.
I tried this VMWare KB:
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cm…
The issue is that after creating a snapshot, then removing them, it still does not make the 000001.vmdk files go away. The vmx file for the particular vm still shows that it's pointed to the "000001" disk. The vmsd file just shows a number, for example snapshot.lastUID = "147".
A few questions:
1. Is there a setting, patch or upgrade to Acronis vmProtect that would allow it to automatically clean up snapshots when it is done so that I don't have to do this daily maintenance?
2. How can I prevent this from happening?
3. How can I fix the current extraneous snapshot situation?
I checked and noticed these files being left behind as well. Glad I read it here so I can make sure my disks don't fill up.
Hi all
I was the user that post this problem in VMware forum http://communities.vmware.com/message/2054181#2054181.
Finally I can clean the extra snapshots that Acronis create, but the process is easy but depends of shutdown all the virtuals in the HOST because the server need's to shut down. You can follow all the instructions but the main think that works for me is the follow procedure
Shutdown the Acronis Appliance (From Host) then make sure the AcronisApp not start with the ESXi host.
Restart the complete HOST
Start your Server (The server that acronis create the snapshots and not deleted)
Make a manual Snapshot ( Snapshot > Take Snapshot ), when the snapshot was create please check into the Datastore Browser, the new snapshot file must be there.
Then you need to go DELETE ALL Snapshots from the (Snapshot Manager). If you have a lot snapshost created this will take a few minutes.. please check into the "Events" in your Problematic Virtual Machine, must have the Virtual machine consolidation succeeded. and then check your datastore browser if the files there were deleted.
This procedure works for me to delete the snapshost from my VM.
But the issue continue with the Acronis VM Protect. because i make another full backup on that VM to test the app again and the problem i think its from acronis, because for some reason the application lock out the process of delete the snapshot in the VM.
I have a warning message in the logs of my backup job, and i think this could be the reason of the problem
There is the warning message that i have in the backup job that i think is part of the problem with Acronis.
Failed to execute IO operation 'Read'.
Additional info:
--------------------
Error code: 246
Module: 83
LineInfo: c61573f663f5d800
Fields:
Message: Failed to execute IO operation 'Read'.
--------------------
Error code: 208
Module: 83
LineInfo: c61573f663f5d776
Fields: code : 14009
Message: VMware_VDDK: The server refused connection
--------------------
Hope someone from ACRONIS could help to solve this problem..
Thanks for your attention !!
Regards
Juan Pablo
I sent as requested a zip of the /var/lib/Acronis folder and also the core file under the /tmp directory as requested from Acronis support (ticket 01576909).
They also requested downloading the logs but when I do that it only ever gives me a 1KB zip file with a 0KB xml file in it. Not sure what good that is going to do them. I hope the other files I sent will peek into the problem.
Seems like a major issue. Glad we were able to avoid a catastrophic failure by managing snapshots manually before disk space fills up.
A command you can run if you SSH into your VMWare host is:
find /vmfs/volumes/ -name "*delta*" -type f -print0 | xargs -0 du --human-readable --total
It will then list all the snapshot delta files and where they are throughout any datastore you have linked to this host your running it on. We are thinking of making a script that emails this to us daily.
So for now we have to micromanage this product and spend time daily to catch problems before they spiral out of control. I hope that the development team can figure this out and provide an update that resolves this issue.
Feel free to open a case and refrence my case number as well. THe more information we can get to them, the better we can assist with the problem.
Case Subject: [01576909] Snapshots not cleaning up [ ref:_00D30Zcb._50050Gd1qs:ref ]
Did you able to delete your snapshot files ?? I need a better solution to delete the acronis snapshots when they create them. Must be any command or some process to unlock the snapshot without a host reboot.
This command you mention is just for list the snapshots right ?? not to delete.
Now my question for you is how can I enter to a command enviroment ? with which application?
That is the command to list where the snapshot file deltas are.
I use Putty and enter the IP address of any of my vmware ESX 4.1 host servers (in my case they all have access to the same datastores so it doesn't matter which one).
You can use any SSH client but Putty is free. If you have ESXi, then you have to enable SSH access on the console. There is a VMWare KB article on it.
You can also list, create and remove snapshots via the command line.
Here is a very good article on troubleshooting VMWare snapshots. Not only a good read for yourself, but also maybe someone at Acronis will find some value out of this information and it could be used to help better the product.
http://geosub.es/vmutils/Troubleshooting.Virtual.Machine.snapshot.probl…
The Acronis Appliance folder on our shared storage where the virtual machine runs had a bunch of copies of other machines vmdk files beginning with an Underscore ie _storagepoolname_virtualmachinename.vmdk.
Deleted those and then backups would attempt to run again. But guess what! Some backups go into a "cancelled" state and new underscore disks remain attached to the virtual appliance and snapshots remain out there. So I have to clean them up after hours because when you merge snapshots the machine is unreachable for a few seconds.
I wonder if we can get our money back? That's the route we will have to explore if support cannot fix this issue. The product we purchased does not do what it is supposed to do. I'd rather get the problem resolved than spend months with our lawyers talking to acronis lawyers. Hopefully we do not ever experience data loss, or else that will be hard to put a price on in a lawsuit.
It would be nice if there was a utility that could do this on a single click. just to be on the safe side that it will get the job done. 