Backup VM

Use the backup vm command to start a full backup of a virtual machine.

The backup vm command can be used to back up both Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines and VMware virtual machines. The information for each hypervisor is presented in its own heading. If you are backing up a virtual machine that is part of a Hyper-V setup, you do not need to read the Backing up VMware virtual machines text. If you are backing up a VMware virtual machine, you do not need to read the Backing up Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines text.

This feature is available only if the client operates as a data mover for IBM Spectrum Protect™ for Virtual Environments.

Backing up VMware virtual machines

Use the backup vm command to back up VMware virtual machines.

One or more virtual machines are backed up by the IBM Spectrum Protect data mover node. Data mover node is the name that is given to a configuration where the backup-archive client runs on a vStorage backup server and is configured to protect the virtual machines in a Virtual Center or ESX/ESXi server. You must configure the VMware virtual machine before you use this command. For information about configuring the VMware virtual machine, see Preparing the environment for full backups of VMware virtual machines.

A full VM backup stores a backup copy of all virtual disk images and configuration information for a virtual machine. Full VM backups enable a complete restore of a virtual machine, but they take more time and more server space than an incremental backup.

If you set vmenabletemplatebackups option to yes, a backup vm operation includes the template VMs, but only if the vStorage backup server is connected to a vCenter Server, and not to an ESX or ESXi host.

If a snapshot fails during backup processing, the client attempts to back up the VMware virtual machine one more time. To control the number of total snapshot attempts, set the INCLUDE.VMSNAPSHOTATTEMPTS option in the client options file.

Data protection tags are used to configure the backup policy of virtual machines in VMware objects. The tags and categories are created when you use one of the following methods:

Enable tagging support on the data mover node with the vmtagdatamover option and run the backup vm command.
Use the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in to manage IBM Spectrum Protect backups.
Run the set vmtags command on any data mover node.

When the vmtagdatamover option is set to yes, all tags that are assigned to a virtual machine are backed up during backup vm operations. The tags are restored when the restore vm command is run. Tags that are assigned to other inventory objects are not backed up and cannot be restored.

For more information about data protection tags, see Data protection tagging overview.

A Full VM backup uses VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT) to create content-aware (used-block only) backups. The client enables changed block tracking (CBT) on an ESX or ESXi server when a backup begins. VMware CBT requires an ESX 4.1 (or later) host, with virtual hardware 7 (or later). You cannot perform incremental or full VM content-aware backups on virtual machines that do not support CBT.

When CBT is enabled, it tracks disk changes when I/O operations are processed by the ESX or ESXi server storage stack on the following disks:

A virtual disk that is stored on VMFS; the disk can be an iSCSI disk, a local disk, or a disk that is on a SAN.
A virtual disk that is stored on NFS.
An RDM that is in virtual compatibility mode.

When I/O operations are not processed by the ESX or ESXi storage stack, changed block tracking cannot be used to track disk changes. The following disks cannot use CBT:

An RDM that is in physical compatibility mode.
A disk that is accessed directly from inside a VM. For example, vSphere cannot track changes that are made to an iSCSI LUN that is accessed by an iSCSI initiator in the virtual machine.

Complete information about changed block tracking requirements is described in the VMware Virtual Disk API Programming Guide in the VMware product documentation. In the guide, search for "Low Level Backup Procedures" and read the "Changed Block Tracking on Virtual Disks" section.

For VMware servers that do not support CBT, both the used and the unused areas of the disk are backed up and an informational message is logged in the dsmerror.log file. Use the -preview option on the backup vm command to view the current CBT status. CBT status has three values:

Off: Indicates the CBT configuration parameter (ctkEnabled) is not enabled in the virtual machine's configuration parameters. Off is the default state.
Not Supported: Indicates that the virtual machine does not support CBT. Changed-block only backups are not possible.
On: Indicates the virtual machine supports CBT and that CBT is enabled in the virtual machine's configuration parameters (ctkEnabled=true).; The client turns on CBT (it sets ctkEnable=true) with each backup attempt. After the client turns on CBT, it remains on, even if the virtual machine is deleted from the IBM Spectrum Protect server. With CBT enabled, after the first full VM backup is performed, only the changed blocks on the disk are backed up or restored.; If you are no longer performing IBM Spectrum Protect backups of a virtual machine, you can turn off CBT. To turn off CBT, right-click the virtual machine that you want to turn off CBT for in the vSphere client. Click Edit Settings > Options > General > Configuration Parameters. Then, set the ctkEnabled configuration parameter to false.

Tip: You can use the compression option with backups only if the backup is being saved to a storage pool that was enabled for client-side deduplication.

Windows operating systems For more information about compression, see Compression and encryption processing.

You specify the -vmbackuptype and -mode options to indicate how the backups are to be performed. For full VM backups, use -vmbackuptype=fullvm, and specify any of the following mode options:

IFFull: Incremental-forever-full mode. In this mode, a snapshot of all used blocks on a virtual machine’s disks are backed up to the server. You must be licensed to use IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for VMware, or IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V to use this option.
IFIncremental: Incremental-forever-incremental. In this mode, a snapshot is created of the blocks that changed since the last backup. You must be licensed to use IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for VMware, or IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V to use this option.

For information about the incremental-forever backup strategy, see IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments, Data Protection for VMware: Backup and restore types .

Supported Clients

Windows operating systems This command is valid on supported Windows clients that are installed on a vStorage backup server that protects VMware virtual machines.

Linux operating systems This command is valid only on supported Linux clients that are installed on a vStorage backup server that protects VMware virtual machines.

Syntax


                .-,------.     
                V        |     
              .---vmname-+-.   
>>-Backup VM--+------------+------------------------------------>

>--+--------------------------------+--------------------------->
   | .-,--------------------------. |   
   | V                            | |   
   '---vmname--:vmdk=--disk_label-+-'   

>--+----------------------+--+-----------------------+---------><
   '- -VMBACKUPUPDATEGUID-'  '- -PREView-- --options-'

Parameters

vmname

Specify the name of one or more virtual machines that you want to back up. The name is the virtual machine display name. Separate multiple virtual machine names with commas. If you set the vmenabletemplatebackups option to yes, vmname can specify the name of a template VM to back up.

VMware vCenter allows for two or more virtual machines to have the same display name. However, the backup-archive client requires that all virtual machine names in a vCenter server configuration be unique. To prevent errors during processing, ensure that all virtual machines have a unique display name.

Wildcard characters can be used in virtual machine names that are specified as this parameter. However, wildcard processing differs, depending on which backup mode is used.

For backups that use mode=iffull or mode=ifincremental, wildcards can be used to match VM name patterns. For example:
- backup vm VM_TEST* includes all virtual machines that have names that begin with VM_TEST
- backup vm VM?? includes any virtual machine that has a name that begins with the letters "VM", followed by 2 characters

If you do not specify vmname, you can identify the virtual machine with the domain.vmfull option.

:vmdk=disk_label

This keyword is an extension to the vmname. It specifies the label (name) of the virtual machine disk to include in the backup operation. You can exclude a disk by preceding the keyword with the exclusion operator (-). For more ways to include or exclude disks from processing, see Domain.vmfull, Exclude.vmdisk, Include.vmdisk.

-VMBACKUPUPDATEGUID

To use this option, you must have a license agreement to use IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for VMware.

This option updates the globally unique identifier (GUID) for the virtual machine that you are backing up. This parameter is intended for use only in the following scenario:

You want to restore a previously backed up virtual machine named ORION. But, before you shut down and replace the copy of ORION that is running in your production environment, you want to verify the configuration of the restored virtual machine before you use it to replace the existing ORION.

You restore the ORION virtual machine and give it a new name: dsmc restore vm Orion -vmname=Orion2
You update and verify the ORION2 virtual machine and determine that it is ready to replace the existing virtual machine that is named ORION.
You power down and delete ORION.
You rename ORION2 so that it is now named ORION.
The next time that you backup ORION, by using either an incremental-forever full, or incremental-forever-incremental backup, you add the -VMBACKUPUPDATEGUID parameter to the backup vm command. This option updates the GUID, on the IBM Spectrum Protect server, so the new GUID is associated with the stored backups for the ORION virtual machine. The chain of incremental backups is preserved; there is no need to delete existing backups and replace them with new backups.

-PREView

This option displays information about a virtual machine, including the labels of the hard disks in the virtual machine, and the management class information for a virtual machine.

You can use the disk labels with the :vmdk= or :-vmdk= keywords to include or exclude disks from a backup operation. The following text is sample output from the -preview parameter:

backup vm vm1 -preview
Full BACKUP VM of virtual machines 'VM1'

vmName:vm1
VMDK[1]Label: Hard disk 1
VMDK[1]Name: [ds5k_svt_1] tsmcetlnx14/tsmcetlnx14.vmdk
VMDK[1]Status: Included
VMDK[2]Label: Hard disk 2
VMDK[2]Name: [ds5k_svt_1] tsmcetlnx14/tsmcetlnx14_1.vmdk
VMDK[2]Status: Excluded - user,Independent,pRDM

This example output from -preview shows that VMDK 2 was excluded by the previous backup. Disks that were included in a backup have a status of Included. Disks that were excluded from the backup have a status of Excluded, followed by a reason code. The reason codes can be any of the following:

user: Indicates that the disk was skipped because it was excluded on a domain.vmfull statement, on the command line, or in the client options file.
Independent: Indicates that the disk is an independent disk. Independent disks cannot be part of a snapshot, so they are excluded from backup vm operations. Ensure that the vmprocessvmwithindependent option is set to yes or the entire virtual machine is bypassed by a backup operation if it contains one or more independent disks.
pRDM: Indicates that the disk is a physical Raw Device Mapped (pRDM) disk. pRDM disks cannot be part of a snapshot, so they are excluded from backup vm operations. Ensure that the vmprocessvmwithprdm option is set to yes or the entire virtual machine is bypassed by a backup operation if it contains one or more raw device mapping (RDM) volumes that are provisioned in physical-compatibility mode (pRDM).

The output from the -preview parameter also shows the management class name that is associated with the virtual machine, along with information about where the management class was set. This information can help you verify whether the domain and tag values are set correctly for the management class. For example:

backup vm -preview
Full BACKUP VM of virtual machines specified in DOMAIN.VMFULL option.

  1. vmName: tag_vm_2
       DomainKeyword:  all-vm
       toolsRunningStatus: guestToolsNotRunning
       toolsVersionStatus: guestToolsNotInstalled
       consolidationNeeded: No
       Change Block Tracking: On
       managementClassName: STANDARD
       managementClassLocation: Node Default

       VMDK[1]Label:   'Hard disk 1' (Hard Disk 1)
       VMDK[1]Name:    '[Raid1-lannds2] tag_vm_2/tag_vm_2.vmdk'
       VMDK[1]Status:  Included
...

12. vmName: vm-jean
       DomainKeyword:  all-vm
       toolsRunningStatus: guestToolsNotRunning
       toolsVersionStatus: guestToolsNotInstalled
       consolidationNeeded: No
       Change Block Tracking: On
       managementClassName: MGMTCLASS1 (invalid)
       managementClassLocation: VM Tag Management Class (IBM Spectrum Protect)

       VMDK[1]Label:   'Hard disk 1' (Hard Disk 1)
       VMDK[1]Name:    '[Raid1-lannds2] vm-jean/vm-jean.vmdk'
       VMDK[1]Status:  Included

where:

managementClassName

Displays the name of the management class that the virtual machine is bound to.

If the "(invalid)" label is shown next to the management class name, either the name was incorrectly specified, the management class was removed on the IBM Spectrum Protect server, or no backup copy group was found in the management class on the server. When the management class name is invalid, the virtual machine backup operation fails.

managementClassLocation

Displays where the management class was set. The following locations are possible:

Node Default: The management class is set on the default domain of the VMware datacenter node.
VMMC option: The management class is set with the vmmc option.
VMCTLMC option: The management class is set with the vmctlmc option.
INCLUDE.VM option: The management class is set with the include.vm option.
VM Tag Management Class (IBM Spectrum Protect): The management class is set as a tag value of the Management Class (IBM Spectrum Protect) tag category. Tag values can be set with data protection settings in the IBM Spectrum Protect vSphere Client plug-in in the vSphere Web Client, or by using tools such as VMware vSphere PowerCLI version 5.5 R2 or later.

Important: In order to display the management class information that is set by tags, you must set the vmtagdatamover yes option in the client options file, or you must include the -vmtagdatamover=yes parameter when you run the dsmc backup vm command. If you did not set the vmtagdatamover option or if it is set to no, the client ignores any management class tag values, and displays the management class definition that is set in the default domain of the datacenter node, the vmmc option, or the include.vm option.

Return codes for virtual machine backup operations

Backup operations for virtual machines can complete with the return codes that are shown in the following table.

Return code	Description
0	A command to back up one or more virtual machines completed successfully.
8	A command to back up multiple virtual machines succeeded for only some of the virtual machines that were targeted by the command. Examine the log file to determine the processing status for each of the targeted virtual machines.
12	Indicates that either of the following error conditions occurred: The backup command could not back up any of the virtual machines that were targets of the backup operation. The backup command failed and it stopped before all virtual machines that were specified were inspected. Examine the log file to determine the reason for the failure.

vStorage API for data protection example commands

Perform an IFIncremental backup of two VMs named vm3 and vm4.

dsmc backup vm vm3,vm4 -vmbackuptype=fullvm -mode=ifincremental

Perform an IFFull backup of a VM named vm1.

dsmc backup vm vm1 -vmbackuptype=fullvm -mode=iffull

Perform an IFFull VM backup of a VM named vm1, but include only Hard Disk 1 in the backup operation.

dsmc backup vm "vm1:vmdk=Hard Disk 1" -vmbackuptype=fullvm -mode=iffull

Perform an incremental-forever backup of a virtual machine that is named vm1, but exclude Hard Disk 1 and Hard Disk 4 from the backup operation.

dcmc backup vm "vm1:-vmdk=Hard Disk 1:-vmdk=Hard Disk 4" 
  -vmbackuptype=fullvm -mode=iffull

Perform an incremental-forever-full backup of two virtual machines that are named vm1 and vm2. On vm1, back up only Hard Disk 2 and Hard Disk 3. On vm2, back up all virtual disks.

dsmc backup vm "vm1:vmdk=Hard Disk 2:vmdk=Hard Disk 3",
  vm2 -vmbackuptype=fullvm -mode=iffull

Perform parallel incremental-forever-full backups of the VMware virtual machines that are selected for backup by using the selection criteria (domain parameters) on the domain.vmfull statement. Set the maximum number of parallel backups to 5 virtual machines and 10 sessions and limit the backups to 5 VMs per host and 5 VMs per datastore.

dsmc backup vm –vmbackuptype=fullvm –mode=iffull –vmmaxparallel=5 
  –vmmaxbackupsessions=10 –vmlimitperhost=5 –vmlimitperdatastore=5

Related links for backing up VMware virtual machines

Backing up Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines

Use the backup vm command to back up Hyper-V virtual machines. You can back up Hyper-V guests that exist on a local disk, a SAN-attached disk, a Cluster Shared Volume (CSV), or guests that exist on a remote file server share. Remote file server shares must be on a Windows Server 2012 or later system.

You specify the backup mode to use when you want to back up a virtual machine by adding the -mode parameter on the command line, or you can set the mode option in the client options file. Any of the following modes can be specified:

IFFull: Incremental-forever-full mode. In this mode, a snapshot of all used blocks on a virtual machine’s disks are backed up to the server. The backup includes configuration information, and all of the disks. You must have a license for IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V to use this mode. This mode can be used only on Windows clients on Hyper-V hosts that are running in Windows Server 2012 or later environments.
IFIncremental: Incremental-forever-incremental. In this mode, a snapshot is created of the blocks that were changed since the last backup. The backup includes configuration information, and all of the disks. You must have a license for IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V to use this mode. This mode can be used only on Windows clients on Hyper-V hosts that are running in a Windows Server 2012 or later environments.

For information about the incremental-forever backup strategy, see Incremental-forever backup strategy.

Supported Clients

This command is valid on supported Windows clients that are installed on a Microsoft Hyper-V host server.

Syntax


                .-,------.                                            
                V        |                                            
              .---vmname-+-.                                          
>>-Backup VM--+------------+--+-----------------------------------+-->
                              | .-,-----------------------------. |   
                              | V                               | |   
                              '---vmname--:vhdx=--disk_location-+-'   

             .-IFIncremental-.   
>-- -MODE = -+---------------+---------------------------------->
             '-IFFull--------'   

>--+----------------------+--+-----------+--+----------------------+-><
   '- -VMBACKUPUPDATEGUID-'  '- -PREview-'  '- -DETail-- --options-'

Parameters

vmname

Specify the name of the virtual machine that you want to back up; the name is case sensitive. If you specify multiple virtual machine names, separate the names with commas.

Wildcard characters can be used in virtual machine names that are specified as this parameter. However, wildcard processing differs, depending on which backup mode is used.

For backups that use mode=iffull or mode=ifincremental, wildcards can be used to match VM name patterns. For example:
- backup vm VM_TEST* includes all virtual machines that have names that begin with VM_TEST
- backup vm VM?? includes any virtual machine that has a name that begins with the letters "VM", followed by 2 characters
If you do not specify a virtual machine name, and if you specify -mode=ifincremental or -mode=iffull, the domain.vmfull option is used to determine which virtual machines to include in the backup operation.

vmname:vhdx=disk_location

This parameter specifies the virtual machine hard disk (VHDX) to include in Hyper-V RCT VM backup operations on Windows Server 2016.

The vmname variable specifies the name of the VM to back up. Wildcard characters can be used to select VM names that match a pattern. An asterisk (*) matches any sequence of characters. A question mark (?) matches any single character.

The :vhdx=disk_location keyword specifies the location of the VM disk to include in the backup operation. The disk location is specified in the format "controller_type controller_number disk_location_number_inside_controller". The controller type must be "SCSI" or "IDE". For example:

dsmc backup vm "vm1:VHDX=IDE 1 0"

You can obtain the disk location information in the Hyper-V Manager. In the Virtual Machines view, right-click a VM and click Settings. In the Hardware section of the Settings window, locate the IDE Controller or SCI Controller, and click Hard Drive to view the hard disk settings. The controller number and disk location are displayed in the Controller and Location fields. You can also obtain the disk location information by running the Windows PowerShell cmdlet Get-VMHardDiskDrive.

You can exclude a VM disk from backup operations by specifying the exclude operator (-) before the vhdx= keyword. For example, use -vhdx= to exclude a VM disk from the backup operation of a VM:

dsmc backup vm "vm1:-VHDX=IDE 1 0:-VHDX=SCSI 0 1"

If you specify multiple VM disks to include or exclude, the vhdx= or -vhdx= keyword and associated values must be separated by colons, with no intervening space characters. For example:

dsmc backup vm "*:-VHDX=IDE 1 0:-VHDX=SCSI 0 1"

If you specify multiple VM names and VM disks, the VM name and associated values must be separated by semicolons, with no intervening space characters. For example:

dsmc backup vm "vm1:-VHDX=IDE 1 0:-VHDX=SCSI 0 1;vm2:-VHDX=IDE 1 0:-VHDX=SCSI 0 1"

-VMBACKUPUPDATEGUID

You must be licensed to use IBM Spectrum Protect for Virtual Environments: Data Protection for Microsoft Hyper-V to use this option.

This option updates the globally unique identifier (GUID) for the virtual machine that you are backing up. This parameter is intended for use only in the following scenario:

You restore the ORION virtual machine and give it a new name: dsmc restore vm Orion -vmname=Orion2
You update and verify the ORION2 virtual machine and determine that it is ready to replace the existing virtual machine that is named ORION.
You power down and delete ORION.
You rename ORION2 so that it is now named ORION.
The next time that you backup ORION, by using either an incremental-forever full, or incremental-forever-incremental backup, you add the -VMBACKUPUPDATEGUID parameter to the backup vm command. This option updates the GUID, on the IBM Spectrum Protect server, so the new GUID is associated with the stored backups for the ORION virtual machine. The chain of incremental backups is preserved; there is no need to delete existing backups and replace them with new backups.

-PREView

This parameter displays additional information about a virtual machine, including the labels of the virtual hard disks that are in the virtual machine.

When you issue the -preview option, the backup operation does not start. You must issue the backup command without the -preview option to start the backup operation.

You can use both the -preview option and the -detail option on the command to display information about subdisks that are included when the backup is run. A subdisk is the AVHDX file that is created when a snapshot is taken of a VHDX file.

Return codes for virtual machine backup operations

Backup operations for virtual machines can complete with the return codes that are shown in the following table.

Return code	Description
0	A command to back up one or more virtual machines completed successfully.
8	A command to back up multiple virtual machines succeeded for only some of the virtual machines that were targeted by the command. Examine the log file to determine the processing status for each of the targeted virtual machines.
12	Indicates that either of the following error conditions occurred: The backup command could not back up any of the virtual machines that were targets of the backup operation. The backup command failed and it stopped before all virtual machines that were specified were inspected. Examine the log file to determine the reason for the failure.

Microsoft Hyper-V backup examples

Start an incremental-forever incremental backup of a Hyper-V virtual machine that is named "VM1".

dsmc backup vm VM1 -mode=ifincremental

Start an incremental-forever-incremental backup of all Hyper-V virtual machines that are specified on the domain.vmfull option.

dsmc backup vm -mode=ifincremental

For Windows Server 2016 or later operating systems: The following command excludes an IDE disk (with controller number 1 and disk location 0) and a SCSI disk (with controller number 0 and disk location 1) from an incremental-forever incremental Hyper-V RCT backup of a virtual machine, "vm2":

dsmc backup vm "vm2:-VHDX=IDE 1 0:-VHDX=SCSI 0 1" -mode=ifincremental

For Windows Server 2016 or later operating systems: The following command shows the preview of a Hyper-V RCT backup of a virtual machine, "VM05":

dsmc backup vm VM05 -mode=ifincremental -preview

In the command output, the -preview parameter displays the VHDX labels in the virtual machine. When the -detail parameter is specified with the -preview parameter, no additional information is shown for Hyper-V RCT backups.

Backup VM command started.  Total number of virtual machines to process: 1

  1. VM Name: VM05

        Domain Keyword:       VM05
        Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Incremental
        Target Node Name:     NODE14
        Data Mover Node Name: NODE14
        Cluster Resource:     No

        Disk[1]
        Name: \\node14\d$\Hyper_V_Virtual_Machine\VM05\Virtual Hard Disks\VM05.vhdx
        Capacity:             15.00 GB
        Size:                 10.91 GB
        Status:               included
        Disk Type:            VHDX
        Number of Subdisk:    0
        Controller Location:  IDE 0 0

        Disk[2]
        Name: \\node14\d$\Hyper_V_Virtual_Machine\VM05\Virtual Hard Disks\VM05_Disk2.vhdx
        Capacity:             2.00 GB
        Size:                 132.00 MB
        Status:               included
        Disk Type:            VHDX
        Number of Subdisk:    0
        Controller Location:  SCSI 0 1

Total number of virtual machines processed: 1

For Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2: The following command starts an incremental forever-incremental backup of a Hyper-V virtual machine, "VM3":

dsmc backup vm VM3 -mode=ifincremental -preview

In the command output, the -preview parameter displays the VHDX labels in the virtual machine:

VM Name: VM3

	Domain Keyword:       all-vm
	Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Incremental
	Target Node Name:     NODE1
	Data Mover Node Name: NODE1
	Cluster Resource:     Yes

	Disk[1]
	Name: c:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Hyper-V\VM3\VM3.VHDX
	Capacity:             40.00 GB
	Size:                 9.09 GB
	Full Backup:          included
	Incremental Backup:   excluded
	Disk Type:            VHDX
	Number of Subdisk:    1

	Disk[2]
	Name: c:\ClusterStorage\Volume3\Hyper-V\VM3\VM3-DISK2.VHDX
	Capacity:             127.00 GB
	Size:                 4.00 MB
	Full Backup:          included
	Incremental Backup:   excluded
	Disk Type:            VHDX
	Number of Subdisk:    1

When the -detail parameter is specified with the -preview parameter, the VHDX labels and their subdisks are shown. The following example output is abbreviated to show only information about one virtual machine and one disk:

VM Name: VM3

	Domain Keyword:       all-vm
	Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Incremental
	Target Node Name:     NODE1
	Data Mover Node Name: NODE1
	Cluster Resource:     Yes

	Disk[1]
	Name: c:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Hyper-V\VM3\VM3.VHDX
	Capacity:             40.00 GB
	Size:                 9.09 GB
	Full Backup:          included
	Incremental Backup:   excluded
	Disk Type:            VHDX
	Number of Subdisk:    1

	Subdisk[1] 
	Name: c:\ClusterStorage\Volume1\Hyper-V\VM3\VM3_9B26166-9C3E.avhdx
	Capacity:             40.00 GB
	Size:                 1.25 GB
	Full Backup:          included
	Incremental Backup:   included
	Disk Type:            AVHDX

Hyper-V options file examples

The following example specifies individual virtual machines in the client options file, and shows the domain.vmvull option.

domain.vmfull vm1,vm2,vm5

In the following examples, the domain.vmfull option is used to process specific virtual machine.

For Windows Server 2016 or later operating systems: In the following example, the domain.vmfull option is specified as follows:

domain.vmfull VM04,VM05

The following command shows a preview of a Hyper-V RCT backup of all virtual machine specified in the domain.vmfull option. The command displays preview information about each virtual machine:

dsmc backup vm -mode=iffull -preview

The following output is shown:

Backup VM command started.  Total number of virtual machines to process: 2

  1. VM Name: VM04

        Domain Keyword:       VM04
        Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Full
        Target Node Name:     NODE14
        Data Mover Node Name: NODE14
        Cluster Resource:     No

        Disk[1]
        Name: \\node14\d$\Hyper_V_Virtual_Machine\VM04\Virtual Hard Disks\VM04.vhdx
        Capacity:             36.00 GB
        Size:                 9.16 GB
        Status:               included
        Disk Type:            VHDX
        Number of Subdisk:    0
        Controller Location:  IDE 0 0

  2. VM Name: VM05

        Domain Keyword:       VM05
        Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Full
        Target Node Name:     NODE14
        Data Mover Node Name: NODE14
        Cluster Resource:     No

        Disk[1]
        Name: \\node14\d$\Hyper_V_Virtual_Machine\VM05\Virtual Hard Disks\VM05.vhdx
        Capacity:             15.00 GB
        Size:                 10.91 GB
        Status:               included
        Disk Type:            VHDX
        Number of Subdisk:    0
        Controller Location:  IDE 0 0

        Disk[2]
        Name: \\node14\d$\Hyper_V_Virtual_Machine\VM05\Virtual Hard Disks\VM05_Disk2.vhdx
        Capacity:             2.00 GB
        Size:                 132.00 MB
        Status:               included
        Disk Type:            VHDX
        Number of Subdisk:    0
        Controller Location:  SCSI 0 1

Total number of virtual machines processed: 2

For Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2: In the following example, the domain.vmfull option specifies these virtual machines:

domain.vmfull BigVM,myGentoox64,HPV2VM3-OLD,Local10

The following command shows a preview of an incremental forever-incremental backup operation of all Hyper-V virtual machines: specified in the domain.vmfull option. The command displays preview information about each virtual machine:

dsmc backup vm -mode=iffull -preview

The following output is shown:

1. VM Name: BigVM

	Domain Keyword:       all-vm
	Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Full
	Target Node Name:     MSF
	Data Mover Node Name: MSF
	Cluster Resource:     No

	Disk[1]
	Name: \\lingonberry\c$\Users\michael\Documents\Storage\BigVM.vhdx
	Capacity:             5.85 TB
	Size:                 5.00 MB
	Full Backup:          included
	Incremental Backup:   excluded
	Disk Type:            VHDX
	Number of Subdisk:    0

2. VM Name: Gentoox64

	Domain Keyword:       all-vm
	Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Full
	Target Node Name:     MSF
	Data Mover Node Name: MSF
	Cluster Resource:     No

3. VM Name: HPV2VM3-OLD

	Domain Keyword:       all-vm
	Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Full
	Target Node Name:     MSF
	Data Mover Node Name: MSF
	Cluster Resource:     No

4. VM Name: Local10

	Domain Keyword:       all-vm
	Mode:                 Incremental Forever - Full
	Target Node Name:     MSF
	Data Mover Node Name: MSF
	Cluster Resource:     No

	Disk[1]
	Name: \\lingonberry\c$\Users\michael\Documents\Storage\Local10.vhdx
	Capacity:             127.00 GB
	Size:                 4.00 MB
	Full Backup:          included
	Incremental Backup:   excluded
	Disk Type:            VHDX
	Number of Subdisk:    0

Total number of virtual machines processed: 4
ANS1900I Return code is 0.
ANS1901I Highest return code was 0.

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