If the VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP) appliance has a problem, the GUI might not give enough information to resolve the issue. The command-line also gives you useful information that are not visible in the vSphere Web Client.

This post describes commands I use frequently to troubleshoot VDP appliances or gather additional information like capacity reports.

You have to connect to the VDP appliance with SSH as root (password was set during initial configuration)

status.dpn

Display VDP status information

root@vdp01:~/#: status.dpn Mon Feb 2 12:30:03 CET 2015 [vdp01.virten.local] Mon Feb 2 11:30:03 2015 UTC (Initialized Wed May 21 14:11:24 2014 UTC) Node IP Address Version State Runlevel Srvr+Root+User Dis Suspend Load UsedMB Errlen %Full Percent Full and Stripe Status by Disk 0.0 192.168.222.7 7.0.82-99 ONLINE fullaccess mhpu+0hpu+0hpu 2 false 2.51 7497 46413720 53.6% 53%(onl:2596) 53%(onl:2597) 53%(onl:2592) Srvr+Root+User Modes = migrate + hfswriteable + persistwriteable + useraccntwriteable All reported states=(ONLINE), runlevels=(fullaccess), modes=(mhpu+0hpu+0hpu) System-Status: ok Access-Status: full Last checkpoint: cp.20150202100327 finished Mon Feb 2 11:04:54 2015 after 01m 27s (OK) Last GC: finished Mon Feb 2 10:03:27 2015 after 02h 01m >> recovered 8.86 GB (OK) Hfscheck in progress: started Mon Feb 2 11:04:55 2015 >> checked 4025 of 6872 stripes (hfscheck) Maintenance windows scheduler capacity profile is active. The maintenance window is currently running. Currently running task(s): hfscheck Next backup window start time: Tue Feb 3 01:00:00 2015 CET Next maintenance window start time: Tue Feb 3 08:00:00 2015 CET root@vdp01:~/#:

dpnctl status

Display service status information

root@vdp01:~/#: dpnctl status Identity added: /home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid (/home/dpn/.ssh/dpnid) dpnctl: INFO: gsan status: up dpnctl: INFO: MCS status: up. dpnctl: INFO: Backup scheduler status: up. dpnctl: INFO: axionfs status: up. dpnctl: INFO: Maintenance windows scheduler status: enabled. dpnctl: INFO: Unattended startup status: enabled.

capacity.sh

Analyse space consumption from the last 30 backup jobs. Displays the amount of new data and how much space the garbage collection has recovered.

root@vdp01:~/#: capacity.sh Date New Data #BU Removed #GC Net Change ---------- ---------- ----- ---------- ----- ---------- 2015-01-03 9815 mb 19 -2502 mb 1 7313 mb [...] 2015-01-30 8730 mb 19 -5924 mb 1 2806 mb 2015-01-31 3403 mb 19 -980 mb 1 2423 mb 2015-02-01 7426 mb 19 -4111 mb 1 -6684 mb 2015-02-02 7982 mb 19 -1012 mb 1 -3029 mb ---------- ---------- ----- ---------- ----- ---------- Average 49650 mb -50386 mb -735 mb Top 3 High Change Clients: -------------------------- Total for all clients 489530 mb 100.0% vcsa.virten.local_UBeWvXdhIMvDS5GCDS44A 30317 mb 20.4% vma.virten.local_UBeWgasvD9bcKVsfas3gfg 24213 mb 16.3% db01.virten.local_UBf7fhPBspcCvAZy0FH5pg 14829 mb 10.0%

df -h

Display free partition space. This is not an equivalent to the free space displayed in the GUI but can reveal issues if partitions are full.

root@vdp01:~/#: df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda2 7.9G 4.8G 2.8G 64% / devtmpfs 3.9G 160K 3.9G 1% /dev tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /dev/shm /dev/sda1 130M 38M 86M 31% /boot /dev/sda7 1.5G 385M 1011M 28% /var /dev/sda9 77G 6.1G 67G 9% /space /dev/sdb1 256G 146G 111G 57% /data01 /dev/sdc1 256G 141G 116G 55% /data02 /dev/sdd1 256G 141G 116G 56% /data03

cplist

Display Checkpoint status

root@vdp01:~/#: cplist cp.20150201101307 Sun Feb 1 11:13:07 2015 valid rol --- nodes 1/1 stripes 7785 cp.20150201120607 Sun Feb 1 13:06:07 2015 valid --- --- nodes 1/1 stripes 7785 cp.20150202100327 Mon Feb 2 11:03:27 2015 valid --- --- nodes 1/1 stripes 7785

mccli server show-prop

Display VDP appliance properties. This is an equivalent to the information shown in the vSphere Web Client.

root@vdp01:~/#: mccli server show-prop 0,23000,CLI command completed successfully. Attribute Value -------------------------------- ---------------------------- State Full Access Active sessions 0 Total capacity 1.2 TB Capacity used 551.3 GB Server utilization 41.2% Bytes protected 1.8 TB Bytes protected quota Not configured License expiration Never Time since Server initialization 192 days 01h:46m Last checkpoint 2015-02-02 10:09:06 CET Last validated checkpoint 2015-02-02 10:00:56 CET System Name vdp01.virten.local System ID 154432225@00:50:56:43:44:AB HFSAddr vdp01.virten.local HFSPort 27000 IP address 192.168.222.7:26000 Number of nodes 1 Nodes Online 1 Nodes Offline 0 Nodes Read-only 0 Nodes Timed-out 0

mccli activity show

Display backup jobs information. Each activity is a backup job from a single virtual machine. If you have one daily backup job with 10 VMs configured in VDP, you will see 10 activities per day.

root@vdp01:~/#: mccli activity show 0,23000,CLI command completed successfully. ID Status Error Code Start Time Elapsed End Time Type Progress Bytes New Bytes ---------------- --------- ---------- -------------------- ----------- -------------------- ---------------- --------------- --------- 9142283520009409 Completed 0 2015-02-02 01:00 CET 00h:28m:45s 2015-02-02 01:48 CET Scheduled Backup 103,371,665,938 0.5% 9142266240012709 Completed 0 2015-01-31 03:33 CET 00h:12m:17s 2015-01-31 03:35 CET Scheduled Backup 57,244,772,623 0.2% 9142274880012709 Completed 0 2015-02-01 01:03 CET 01h:12m:55s 2015-02-01 02:58 CET Scheduled Backup 124,014,703,210 1.8% [...]

mccli activity get-log --id=<ID>

Get the activity log from a backup job. If a backup job failed, you might find useful information here. Produces lots of information, so it's better to pipe it to a file:

root@vdp01:~/#: mccli activity get-log --id=9142274880012209 > 9142274880012209.txt root@vdp01:~/#: less 9142274880012209.txt

mccli activity show --name=/<VCENTER>/VirtualMachines/<VM>

Display backup jobs information from a single Virtual Machine

root@vdp01:~/#: mccli activity show --name=/vcsa.virten.local/VirtualMachines/vma