I am getting the "Error while creating 'virtualmachine' file." error when attempting to backup virtual machines. To give you a better idea of what is going on, I'll explain what I've done so far.
I have two servers with identical hardware, each running ESXi 5.1.0-799733-standard. One is our production server and the other is our testing server.
To test vBackup, I erased everything on the testing server and did a reinstall of ESXi. I created two virtual machines on the testing server - one FreeBSD without VMWare tools installed and one Linux with VMWare tools installed. I installed vBackup on a Windows 7 virtual machine running on my desktop and after following the instructions in the vBackup Administrator's Guide, I was able to perform backups from the testing server with no problem.
I then installed vBackup on the PC we use for managing the production server. I followed the exact same instructions as when installing vBackup previously, but any time I try to run a backup (the backup types are always Backup-Image-SSH since I am running the free version of ESXi), it fails with this same error.
There are no spaces in the names of the virtual machines I am trying to backup or in the names of the jobs I create. I have also tried using the copy of vBackup that is installed on my desktop (which worked fine with the testing server), but I still get the exact same error message.
I have confirmed that SSH is enabled and working on the production server, and I can login to it with no problem using PuTTY on the same machines from which I'm running vBackup.
I've included a complete dump from the command executed by one of the backup jobs below. Thanks in advance for taking a look at this.
C:\Program Files\Thinware\vBackup>"C:\Program Files\Thinware\vBackup\vBackup.exe" -v EB -j backup -d after
Thinware(R) vBackup(R)
Version: 0.3.0.2460 (Version 0.3) - Expires: 9/30/2013
Copyright (c) 2009-2013 Thinware, Inc. All rights reserved.
Visit us at: www.vbackup.com
________________________________________________________________________________
Process Started: 7/23/2013 10:19:23 AM
Application Settings:
- SMTP Server =
- SMTP Username =
- SMTP Password =
- SMTP From Address =
- Notification Recipients =
- VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit Install Path = C:\Program Files\VMware
\VMware Virtual Disk De
velopment Kit
Execution Arguments:
- Virtual Machine = EB
- Server = 192.168.100.10:22
- Server Username = root
- Server Password = *********
- Job = backup
- Job Type = Backup-Image-SSH
- Backup Root = C:\Users\user\Desktop\Backups
- Disk Exclusion = None
- Backups To Keep = 1
- Quiesce Guest File System = True
- Create Snapshot Task Timeout = 15
- Remove Snapshot Task Timeout = 15
- Encrypt Temporary Password File = False
- Compression Level = None
- Maximum Log Size = 10240
- Backup Type = Image-Full
- Debug = after
Validating settings...
SMTP server not provided, e-mail notification is disabled.
Attempting to ping server... Server responded to ping.
Establishing connection to server...
One or more certificate problems encountered while establishing connection
to https://192.168.100.10/sdk:
* A certification chain processed correctly, but terminated in a root cer
tificate which isn't trusted by the trust provider.
* The certificate's CN name does not match the passed value.
Server Platform: VMware ESXi 5.1.0 799733
Hypervisor property for 192.168.100.10 updated.
Verifying virtual machine exists on server... Virtual machine located successful
ly.
Virtual Machine Guest OS: FreeBSD (32-bit)
GuestOS property for EB updated.
Backup Folder: C:\Users\user\Desktop\Backups\EB
Backup: 130723_101926
Log File: C:\Users\user\Desktop\Backups\EB\vBackup.log
Executing backup job...
Checking for existing temporary snapshot(s)... No temporary snapshots found.
Creating folder for backup data... Done.
Retrieving virtual machine ID... CRITICAL: Unable to retrieve virtual machine ID
. Error while creating 'virtualmachine' file. The filename, directory name, or v
olume label syntax is incorrect.
CRITICAL: Unable to complete backup.
Cleaning up after job failure... Done.
Process Complete: 7/23/2013 10:19:27 AM
Elapsed Time: 4 seconds