Last update: Thu, 2020-09-03 06:01
Symptoms
Backup works and backup activities appear in the activities list. Archives were created in the target location (you can check them using Backups page in Management console or by browsing the target folder using any file browser).
But you receive alerts “Backup did not start” or you see that date and time of backup creation does not match the backup plan settings.
Different time on Exchange server that you plan to backup and Management Server can cause the following error: Connecting to remote server <…> failed with the following error message : WinRM cannot process the request because the input XML contains a syntax error. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic
Troubleshooting
Let’s briefly review the process from the task creation/task being applied moment until the backup start.
Main points:
- The backup plan contains information about the time when the backup should start (in case the backup plan doesn’t contain any scheduled events it can be started manually).
- The backup plan is forwarded to AwesomeCloud Backup Agent / AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance from AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server and works independently (even if the Agent/Appliance loses connection to AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server). The backup plans are stored in the scheduler database.
- The scheduler component on Agent/Appliance executes the tasks according the system time on the machine where it is installed
- AwesomeCloud Backup shows an alert in case the backup plan stored on the server side has a pre-scheduled time for the task start, but if AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server didn’t recieve any messages related to that event from the AwesomeCloud Backup Agent side.
As such, there are two main possible root causes for Backup did not start alerts:
- a communication issue between components
- time settings on Server and/or Agent sides are incorrect
In case the Agent/Appliance is online and no communication issues were detected, then we have to check all the time settings: on AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server, on machine with AwesomeCloud Backup Agent and/or on AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance and VM-HOST.
Windows
- In case any AwesomeCloud Backup Agent installed on Windows system (Agent for Windows, Agent for VMware for Windows) the scheduler uses Windows system time
- AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server uses Windows system time as well
Windows system time can be changed using Windows Date and Time settings in Control Panel
Linux
- AwesomeCloud Backup Agent for Linux uses Linux system time
- AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server for Linux uses Linux system time
Linux system time can be checked using date command in the Linux terminal.
Please check how to set the system time settings according to the system you use.
AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance
System time for AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance depends on several settings:
1. System time on ESX/ESXi host
ESX/ESXi host uses UTC time. AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance, as a guest system, receives the time settings from the ESX/ESXi host .
The time on ESX/ESXi host can be checked using the date command run from ESX/ESXi host command line.
For more information please check the following articles in VMware knowledge base:
- Verifying time synchronization across an ESX/ESXi host environment
- Troubleshooting NTP on ESX and ESXi 4.x / 5.x / 6.x
*If you see in the ESX/ESXi host settings your local time via vSphere Client it means that the time from ESX/ESXi host was converted in vSphere Client according the time zone on the machine where the vSphere Client is running at the moment.
**If the ESX/ESXi host time doesn’t match the local time on the vSphere Client’s machine (after all internal time zone calculations) then the Date & Time setting on host will be marked red.
When changing time settings on AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance those are not immediately passed to the scheduler. As a result you may still experience the issue. The easiest way to ensure this doesn’t happen is to reboot the appliance.
2. Time zone settings on the Appliance
By default, AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance uses internal time of ESX/ESXi host (UTC time zone), but Appliance time zone can be corrected in the AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance graphical interface.
Information about the time zone and the time can be received from Appliance shell using the date command (press Ctrl + Shift + F2 to reach the shell in Appliance graphical interface).
Thus, AwesomeCloud Backup Appliance gets the time from the ESX/ESXi host and corrects it using the time zone from own settings.
All-In-One Appliance (AwesomeCloud Backup appliance in AwesomeCloud Backup 12.5)
Basically All-In-One Appliance is a CentOS-based virtual machine with pre-installed AwesomeCloud Backup Server, AwesomeCloud Backup Agent for Linux and AwesomeCloud Backup for VMware for Linux.
System time can be set using the System time feature on the Cockpit page of All-In-One System (Cockpit is available on http://AIO_IP_ADDRESS:9090).
All components (AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server, AwesomeCloud Backup Agent for Linux and AwesomeCloud Backup for VMware for Linux) use the mentioned system time.
For more information about All-In-One Appliance please check product documentation.
In case all the above settings were checked, but the issue persists, please collect the following information and contact Applied Innovations Support with a reference to this article:
- System information from AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server and from the Agent or Appliance that generates the alert
- Screenshots of time and date settings on AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server and from the Agent that generates the alert (or output of date command on Appliance)
Additional information
1) Last backup and Next backup columns on the Devices page of Management Console shows the time of the backups according the time zone of the browser you use to connect to AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server.
For example:
- you have UTC+2 time zone on AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server and a backup plan with scheduled start on 1 PM
- in case you connect to AwesomeCloud Backup Management Server using the browser/machine with UTC+4 time zone, you will see 3 PM in the column Next backup
2) If Next backup time is different from the schedule in the protection plan, verify the time zones difference between components. If Next backup time is set in the past, it is an issue that requires investigation.
3) If a .tib or .tibx file stored on a NAS has an unusual created date, e.g. in future or long ago in the past, check the system time settings of the NAS