Veeam B&R v5 recovery of a domain controller

[Gostev]

Well, that's exactly the reason why we start DC in safe mode before performing VSS restore - Microsoft requires this to make sure no 3rd party tools are running because they can potentially lock Active Directory database and other system files, thus preventing correct restore. Unless of course Kaspersky uses some very deep&dirty integration with OS via some hacks, making it always start (even in Safe mode) - which is a possibility. Our support should be able to determine what exactly prevents the restore logic from working properly, so I suggest that you open a support case at your earliest convenience.

[joergr]

to add this: this even worked in the times of veeam backup 2.0 like charm, veeam is a pioneer in this technology, remembered it and found it with google, take a look, featuring also good video demos ->

http://www.google.de/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=v ... Ig&cad=rja

best regards
Joerg

[Gostev]

Wow, these are like over 3 years old videos now, I remember myself making them shortly after I joined Veeam... what a find, Joerg. I am having a nostalgia moment here I am guessing this post was migrated, because at the time we had different blog, VeeamMeUp.com

[vota]

[merged]

I've a problem with Surebackup of a 2008R2 DC VM.
When i run the Surebackup-Job of this VM it starts in Directory Repair Mode.
This Problem exists since i use Veeam.

But its very interessting:
when i start an Instant-Recovery of this VM and boot it in the Virtual-Lab(booting with change the VMs-Network in vSPhere Client) the VM starts in Directory Repair Mode too - but after i logon and let it some time - the VM restarts normally

Veeam-Version is: 5.0.2.230

Does anyone have some suggestions for me

[vota]

hmm - i think my problem is solved.
i increased the timeout in my applicationgroup and now its working fine - maybe the vm took to long to come up properly?!

i will run a second testrun and give feedback later.

thanks,
BR
Stefan

[oarmandt]

First I must say I use version 6 of Veeam B&R.
I'm fairly new to Veeam B&R. I have one DC in the domain and as far as I understand Gostev earlier in this forum it is not a problem to replicate and restore.
Automated altogether - it should boot in safe mode etc.
When I first power on I'm asked how I will start Windows with Start Windows Normally being selected. This is as if Windows had been powered off unexpectadly - if I now accept Start Windows Normally it will boot up and after login I receive the dialog where to tell why it went down.
This is not as expected according to what Gostev said earlier - so what should I do to geet this right??
As a matter of fact all my servers is starting up in the same way - which seems wrong to me.

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Owe, actually dirty power off message is expected, you may find more info on that if you follow this link: restore image question

[daryanx]

I will add some weight to the request for documentation on this topic. It took me nearly 6 hours of searching the forum and running test restores in my testbed followed by diagnostics, etc and a support call to Veeam to be confident that my DC restore was going to be effective and not bring down the entire domain.

Gostev: I don't think that anybody is asking for an insight into exactly what you do and how you do it (your intellectual property) but it would be EXTREMELY useful to see a step by step guide into DC restoration. This would answer a number of questions that I have found repeated time and time again on this forum. For example, is the dirty power off screen expected?, should you login to the machine?, how many times will the machine reboot?, do I need to take any additional steps to restore a domain controller?, what do I do if the restore fails or appears to fail? I am across the correct answers for all of these now (if anybody needs help please PM me) but these answers were gained through a lot of hard graft and, ultimately, a lot of crossing of fingers and hoping. This isn't really acceptable when it comes to backing up and restoring machines on your network. A step by step guide to restoration would alleviate all of these concerns.

[oarmandt]

OK - if dirty power off message is expected which startup choice do I take?

Gostev said once -DCs are restored in non-authoritative mode. The process is automatic, and you should not do anything (just wait until the restored DC automatically reboots)

Gostev also said once - After being powered on for the first time, the restored VM will boot in safe mode once (the very first boot), perform VSS restore, and then reboot immediately. Until this point, everything is fully automated. After that reboot, the VM will boot up normally, and the restore process is done

What is to expected and what shall I do??

Thanks

[Gostev]

Paul, I agree it would be nice to have step-by-step for everything at all. But since DC recovery requires no user interaction at all (fully automated), the need for such documentation has not been pressing. Very, very few people dig as deep as you do - 99% just deploy and start using, trusting our expertise that the product will do the job correctly when the time comes (which it does, anyway - as you can see from your testing).

Owe, you don't need to do anything at all. The whole process is fully automated, you should not even open the restored VM console.

Thanks.

[vertices]

I can confirm that I just had the same problem with a DC recovery not finishing correctly. This was with Veeam 6 and ESXi 4.1. Environment is completely standard, single subnet, DCs are single purpose. This was a simple 2008R2 DC/DHCP/DNS server with no other software other than AV. I restored the DC (test scenario as I had never recovered a DC with Veeam before) and it correctly booted into Directory Repair mode. It sat at the login screen for around 10 minutes then auto rebooted. So the restore of AD was successful but every time it booted after that it booted into Directory Repair mode. So I logged in and changed the boot options in Administrative Tools > System Configuration > Boot Tab and unchecked "Safe Boot with AD Repair" and then it booted fine.

So something is definitely amiss here with AD restores. They work it appears, but definitely not fully automated.

[Gostev]

The process is fully automated. There are rare cases when this does NOT work (usually because of 3rd party software), but you cannot really make conclusion that it "definitely never works in fully automated manner".

For example, original poster has the issue with reboot not happening, and he was totally convinced it never happens automatically. However, as you can see, it does happen just fine as expected.

In your case, I would guess the issue is likely to be antivirus preventing our in-guest process from modifying the boot options automatically (and 10 minutes is too much of a wait anyway, this sounds like some internal timeout for the guest process). The process log from guest would confirm this, I suggest that you open a support case for this. If this is found to be the reason, the easiest way to fix this would be to simply add our guest process into the antivirus exceptions.

Thanks.

[vertices]

Can you let us know here what should be excluded from AV so we can go ahead and do that as a precaution?

Also, can you add how long we should normally have to wait once it boots into Directory Repair mode? And how long we should let it sit here before rebooting if it doesn't auto reboot?

[Gostev]

Rob, you should have the issue researched by our support first before we can make such recommendations. This was just an idea one from the top of my head on what could potentially be preventing boot settings update.

As far as I remember, in my lab reboot used to happen in about 1 minute after safe mode GUI appears. This was Windows 2003 DC and a small AD domain with only 2 DCs, so may be Windows 2008 DC would take a bit longer.

[rawtaz]

[merged]

Hi,

I have done a full restore of a few VMs, of which one is a Windows 2008 R2 Domain Controller. It was backed up with VSS support by B&R version 6, and restored to an ESXi5 host.

Now when I boot it for the first time, I am getting in the console the standard black screen saying Windows wasn't shut down correctly, and it offers me to boot in one of the three safe modes, or normally. A screenshot is at http://grab.by/c7Po .

Is this expected, or should the booting happen som other way? I have gotten the impression that Veeam somehow should make the VM boot into DSRM itself the first time, and one should wait patiently for it to reboot after up to 15 minutes, after which it would boot normally. Is this what should happen, or should one boot DSRM manually?

Please clarify what one should expect to happen on first boot, and also any steps one should take in order to get a restored 2008 R2 DC running again correctly. This is for everyones' reference, it wasn't easy to find a clear summary on this topic.

Thanks!