Feature request: check for credentials

[m.novelli]

Many times I create a backup job during the day, I schedule it for the night and then next day I discover that all VM, or only few, didn't get backupped due to wrong VSS credentials

At the end of the wizard "Create a new backup Job" there should be a button "check credentials" that check if Veeam can logon to VMs

Thanks

Marco

[Vitaliy S.]

Hi Marco, thank you for your feature request, I'm sure it would not be hard to implement this. Thanks!

[Gostev]

At the end of the wizard "Create a new backup Job" there should be a button "check credentials" that check if Veeam can logon to VMs

But, which VM? This is the problem, and reason why this feature not implemented. Checking every VM in the job will take too much time, people do not want to wait for so long. Checking specific single VM is quite useless - what about all other VMs?

If you see some creative way to workaround this stopper, please do share.

Thanks!

[Bunce]

Wouldn't it make sense to be an option (CHECK CREDENTIALS button) against each VM - in the dialog that allows you to supply different credentials against each VM? That way the user can test only the VM's that are needed..

Backup Exec has the same thing - I think its assigned at a 'resource' level though.

[alexfeig1]

This would actually be helpful, and I know that Backup Exec will do this for you. Sure it takes awhile, but so does waiting for a backup to complete and fail because you put in the wrong credentials.

It wouldn't have to be a mandatory option, make it a button in the VSS configuration screen. You can check off every VM with a Check All button or just check one and then click the Check Credentials button

[m.novelli]

But, which VM? This is the problem, and reason why this feature not implemented. Checking every VM in the job will take too much time, people do not want to wait for so long. Checking specific single VM is quite useless - what about all other VMs?

If you see some creative way to workaround this stopper, please do share.

Thanks!

The "check credentials" button should check ALL VM with VSS enabled
Most of backup software have this button (Backup Exec, Brightstor)
I would lovely wait for this task to run (imagine 5 - 10 processes that spread on the network to check credential, about 1 sec for each process to complete, for most of the Vmware Infrastructures would be a fast process)
As a workaround, when you modify a Backup Job adding a VM, you can imagine a button "check credentials for newly added VM"

Marco

[Gostev]

I would lovely wait for this task to run (imagine 5 - 10 processes that spread on the network to check credential, about 1 sec for each process to complete, for most of the Vmware Infrastructures would be a fast process)

Unfortunately, the picture you had painted is only the case in small lab network, with local connectivity and all VMs being up (although even with that, it will take much longer than 1 sec to perform this check). However, as soon as we talk about more realistic deployments with bad links, and multiple VMs with some being down - we are talking about waiting for timeouts, performing retries etc. - and this is where the process starts taking forever.

[m.novelli]

Unfortunately, the picture you had painted is only the case in small lab network, with local connectivity and all VMs being up (although even with that, it will take much longer than 1 sec to perform this check). However, as soon as we talk about more realistic deployments with bad links, and multiple VMs with some being down - we are talking about waiting for timeouts, performing retries etc. - and this is where the process starts taking forever.

You are right, maybe 5% of Veeam Customers with 100+ VM in each Backup Job would suffer this issue...
So it's good that 95% of remaining customers can't benefit of this feature

Put your % number and get a tradeoff of that feature

Marco

[johnlockie]

[merged]

Under Guest Processing, in the Guest OS credentials add a "test" button to verify that the account used has the appropriate credentials...

This way we do not find out when the job attempts to run after hanging for 10 minutes that "oops....access denied"

[ggillette]

I would also like to see this feature implemented. We have VM's across separate domains and standalone (workgroups), and when we add them to a backup job that has guest processing set up for a master account from our primary domain, the backup fails and we don't know until the next day. Also, out of the box Windows Server 2012 has firewall rules for SMB and remote volume management disabled which will prevent Veeam guest processing from working (we have fixed this with GPO's, but when building VM's in a workgroup or not in our primary domain the GPO's don't apply). Ideally, I would like the feature to go like so:

1. Add a VM to a backup job

2. Go to the Guest Processing section, click Advanced, highlight the VM, and press a button labeled "TEST CREDENTIALS" or something similar

3. The Veeam server copies an executable into the VM (exactly as it would via a normal guest processing job), executes it, receives a "succeeded" response, and notifies you of the results.

[veremin]

Hi, Greg.

From my perspective, in this case the problems mentioned above will still persist:

1) The ability to check only one VM within the job wouldn’t be for some help.
2) The option to check every VM within the job is likely to take too much time to process each VM, especially, taking into real deployment caveats , such as link of rather mediocre quality, etc.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback; much appreciated.

[m.novelli]

Hi, Greg.

From my perspective, in this case the problems mentioned above will still persist:

1) The ability to check only one VM within the job wouldn’t be for some help.
2) The option to check every VM within the job is likely to take too much time to process each VM, especially, taking into real deployment caveats , such as link of rather mediocre quality, etc.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback; much appreciated.

Let's look at this feature request in this way: Symantec Backup Exec run the credential check since many years and it works fine.

How Veeam Engineers can tolerate this?

Marco

[ggillette]

Hi, Greg.

From my perspective, in this case the problems mentioned above will still persist:

1) The ability to check only one VM within the job wouldn’t be for some help.
2) The option to check every VM within the job is likely to take too much time to process each VM, especially, taking into real deployment caveats , such as link of rather mediocre quality, etc.

Anyway, thank you for the feedback; much appreciated.

re: 1) My intention of using this feature would be if I am adding a new VM to an existing backup job and I want to verify guest processing will work on it prior to the job running / potentially failing at night. Here's an example... I build a new VM in a workgroup / not in our primary domain. I add the VM to an existing Veeam backup job. The credentials I have set on the guest processing are for my primary domain, but won't work on this VM. I click "Set User", give it the appropriate credentials, BUT OOPS, I fat-finger the password, and the job fails that night. In most cases this isn't a big deal because I can correct the problems the next morning and execute a RETRY, but it sure would be nice to have it right the first time.

re: 2) I don't think I would ever have use for a "TEST ALL" button (though I could see how someone might want this, too)... I would only need it on single VMs

[averylarry]

How about a slightly different related request --

I'd like to have the ability to store multiple credentials at some level other than the job level. Right now I have 2 completely separate forests running in the same VMware environment. So when I create a backup job with virtual machines from both forests (which is beneficial for dedupe), I have to manually set the username/password for all the VM's which are not whatever I chose for the default.

Does that make sense? Like a drop-down box to select "global credential A (1st domain), global credentials B (2nd domain), global credentials C (Linux user/pass)"

As a bank, we are required to change passwords entirely too often, including backup passwords. So I'd like to be able to change the password in 1 location and have it populate every job.

(Unless this already exists somewhere)

[veremin]

I'd like to have the ability to store multiple credentials at some level other than the job level.

Let’s wait and see what version 7 might propose to you.

[lobo519]

Back to the initial request. A "Pre Flight Check" button that checks the credentials would be most helpful. The option to check all or select the VMs to check would be ideal. I don't think anyone wants the check to run every time a job is created or edited but on demand. As others have stated, this button has been in Arcserve and Backup Exec for years. I am just now dealing with a credential issue and this button would most certainly make this easier.

[m.novelli]

The "Pre Flight Check" should also be smart to explain when there is an error if is due to wrong username/password or inability to access C$ share (Windows Firewall or UAC possible issue)

ciao

[averylarry]

If the credentials can be stored somewhere other than at the job level, it should be much easier to implement a credential check at that level instead of in the job.

[dellock6]

I've seen a preview during last Tech Field Day by Rick Vanover, they shown the possibility to store encrypted password in a central location, so they can be used without people beeing obliged to know them. Simply ask the guy who knows it to write it in the box, and then a Veeam admin can re-use those credentials in different jobs. Nice!

Luca.

[Cragdoo]

Would be nice to have the ability to verify the individual accounts set in the guest processing section when setting up or editing an existing backup job. Usually you would have to run the actual job before you receive any warning about inaccessible administrative shares due to incorrect credentials etc

Thoughts ?

[foggy]

Craig, thanks for the feedback. Your voice is counted.

[ggillette]

I was really hoping to see this in v7. Very disappointment to not see it. This would be rather simple to add, as Veeam already has the infrastructure set up to do it.

Ideally, I would like the feature to go like so:

1. Add a VM to a backup job

2. Go to the Guest Processing section, click Advanced, highlight the VM, and press a button labeled "TEST CREDENTIALS" or something similar

3. The Veeam server copies an executable into the VM (exactly as it would via a normal guest processing job), executes it, receives a "succeeded" response, and notifies you of the results.

[mlinders]

We use some global form of credentials for most of our servers. Some however will need different local service account credentials. Since we need to create the account object in Veeam it seems only logical that you would have the ability to test the credentials on a per VM basis.

If "It takes too long to check" is the reason, i'm definatly not feeling it. I have to set-up credentials for 40 different accounts. Run the backup. Wait for it to complete. Look at the warnings, change the credentials and start the test all over again. It's a dreadfull solution. We don't need a check every backup run, but the possibility to check the credentials before we put the backup job into production.

My vote goes to implementing this kind of feature.

Regards,
Mark

[ggillette]

You nailed it, Mark. It is such a pain to make all the backups with the assumed appropriate credentials, execute the backups, and cross your fingers for the best. Even if the credentials are correct, there are other issues that could cause guest processing to fail (like the admin share not working in Windows 2012 due to firewall restrictions), so it would be super handy to have this feature when creating new backups.

[veremin]

Listening to our customers, we have already added credential manager in version 7. We will consider adding test credential functionality in the future releases. Thank you all for the feedback.

[pkelly_sts]

I'd like to add another vote to the "Test Credentials" folks. It's so frustrating adding a new VM to a backup job only to see the next day that it failed due to something that would have been easily fixed.

I'd /love/ to be able to right-click on a job & hit "Run Test" or similar to just run it through the basics (login ok, write access where required etc.) once on demand. It doesn't need to be tacked onto the beginning of an actual job (it's too late to bother testing at that point as the job is running now anyway).

Paul

[m.novelli]

+1

Marco

[kjstech]

I also would like to see a test credentials button. I have a backup failing a few nights now because each day I have to try another set of credentials and then cross my fingers and hope that it works tonight.

Please add a test credentials button, it would save a lot of hassle and time and get backups going again. i do not like to see "failed" backup jobs in the history or emails out because one VM cant connect to guest share due to invalid login credentials.