Restores for Guest Files and Folders with VMware

You can restore guest files and folders from a virtual machine streaming backup or IntelliSnap backup to a virtual machine or destination client.

You can restore files and folders:

• From a Windows VM backup to a Windows VM or destination client.

• From a Linux VM backup to a Linux or Windows VM or destination client.

File Restore Methods

Guest files and folders can be restored to a physical client or to a virtual machine (VM) in the following ways:

• Guest Agent Restores

• Agentless Restores

• Live File Recovery

• Enabling Restores from Backups Using UNIX MediaAgents

General Considerations

• To recover larger files or in other cases where you cannot restore a file, restore the complete virtual machine or the disk that contains the file.

• If a backup set contains some subclients configured for regular backup and other subclients configured for IntelliSnap backup, initiate browse and restore operations from each subclient rather than from the backup set.

• If a virtual machine has a GPT partition, you can use any file restore method to restore files from a streaming backup, IntelliSnap backup, or backup copy.

• When you restore folders from a backup that was performed using the Collect File Details option, folder permissions are not restored.

• For Windows:

  • Restores of symbolic link files and hard link files are not supported.

  • For restores of dynamic disks and dynamic VHDX files, you must perform a live browse.

  • For files stored on Windows Storage Spaces, you can perform a live browse to view and restore guest files and folders, with the following considerations:

    • The VSA proxy or MediaAgent that is used for the live browse must be running on Windows Server 2012 or later.

    • The MediaAgent that is used for the live browse cannot be part of a clustered environment.

    • You cannot simultaneously browse two cloned VMs that use the same storage space information.

  • You can restore files from NTFS file systems with the following limitations:

    • The formatted cluster size (allocation unit) must be 1024 or greater.

    • You cannot restore any archived (stubbed) files and folders.

    • To restore files that have been dehydrated by Windows deduplication, use live file recovery.

      You must use a MediaAgent that runs Windows Server 2012 R2, or a version of Windows Server that is at or above the version of Windows Server that the guest VM runs. The MediaAgent must have the Virtual Server Agent installed and the Windows deduplication role enabled, and you must specify the MediaAgent as the VSA proxy when you restore the dehydrated files.

• For Linux guest VMs:

  • When you perform a live browse for a Linux guest VM, the directory hierarchy displays results for each guest VM using the same root directory structure as the source VM, and are restored using the same folder structure. Mounted devices are shown in the directory structure according to the following rules:

    1. If a device is present in the source VM under the /etc/fstab folder with the device UUID or logical volume name, the live browse results show the device in the same location.

    2. If a device cannot be located in the root file system and the device is a raw disk, the live browse results show the device under the /cvlostandfound/blkuuidOfDevice directory.

    3. If a device cannot be located in the root file system and the device is a logical volume, the live browse results show the device under the /cvlostandfound/vgname-lvname directory.

    Prior to 11.20, directories were listed under volume names or mount paths that were different from the source VM.

  • From a backup that was performed using the Collect File Details option, you cannot restore any file that has zero bytes, hard links, or symbolic links.

    To restore these files, deploy a File Recovery Enabler for Linux (FREL) and use Live File Recovery.