Forcing guest interaction proxy

[signal]

I'm trying to get a GIP to be selected, but the job fails back to the backup server. The VM guest to back up is in a different subnet.

Here are the adresses:
Backup Server (BS): 10.1.12.20
GIP: 10.1.20.11
Guest: 10.1.19.55

There are many other guest VMs, but I'm using one here to represent them.

The BS is blocked by firewall and may not contact the guest dirctly. It has openings to reach the GIP.
I put the GIP as the only one to be used in the job, but the logs show this is not chosen. GIP is listed first, with "level=DifferentSubnetworkProxy" and the BS with "level=DifferentSubnetworkBackupConsole : failover only". Yet, the BS is chosen and the job fails.
Opening the firewall between BS and Guest is not an option. The GIP has been deployed to handle the OS interaction.

How can I get the job to use the GIP, and fail if it does not work?

EDIT: Using VIX is not an option, as the VMs are secured with UAC and Administrator account is disabled.

[wishr]

Hi Signal,

Please let us know the following:
What guest OS your target VM runs?
Have you configured GIP to be used in the Job settings?
Is the target guest OS accessible by LAN from the GIP machine?

The limitations of GIP are listed here.

Thanks in advance!

[signal]

Hi wishr

Thanks for your reply.

What guest OS your target VM runs?

Both the BS, GIP and Guest all run Windows Server 2012 R2

Have you configured GIP to be used in the Job settings?

I've attempted both automatic selection and trying to force the GIP by selecting only that VM in the list of proxies.
In automatic it just selects one of the registered Windows systems "at random", and when trying to force the GIP the BS is used.
As I stated in my original post:

I put the GIP as the only one to be used in the job, but the logs show this is not chosen. GIP is listed first, with "level=DifferentSubnetworkProxy" and the BS with "level=DifferentSubnetworkBackupConsole : failover only". Yet, the BS is chosen and the job fails.

Is the target guest OS accessible by LAN from the GIP machine?

Yes, there are no firewall rules between the GIP and Guest. Seen from VBR perspective they are in different subnets.


The GIP and Guest are in a different AD Domain to BS, proxies, storage, etc. I don't think it should be relevant as VBR seems to not care about that.

[wishr]

Hi Signal,

Thank you for the answers.

GIP operates via RPC or VIX, in case of RPC usage you should supply an account with Local Administrator privileges in the Guest OS. Could you please confirm (saw your comment in the initial post) that your account has the required privileges because if GIP is unable to connect the failback to the B&R server will be initiated and this will look similar to the symptoms you are experiencing. Since you B&R server is located in the different subnet it will fail to connect to the vC as well and the job will fail in the final.

Some additional information related to GIP is here.

Thanks

[signal]

Could you please confirm (saw your comment in the initial post) that your account has the required privileges because if GIP is unable to connect the failback to the B&R server will be initiated and this will look similar to the symptoms you are experiencing.

The service account used is local administrator on the GIP and on the Guest system.

From what I see in the log (mentioned in first post), "[Log folder]\<Job name>\Job.<Job name>.Backup.log" there is an "election process" to choose the GIP to use.

Code: Select all

Info  Task group <id> is ready. Preparing next task group for processing
Info  - - Request: VssProxy, proxies [Guest interaction proxy resource [id=<GIP id> . srv name=<GIP fqdn> : access level=DifferentSubnetworkProxy]],[Guest interaction proxy resource [id=<BS id> . srv name=<BS fqdn> : access level=DifferentSubnetworkBackupConsole : failover only]]
Info  - - - Response: Guest interaction proxy resource [id=<BS id> . srv name=<BS fqdn> : access level=DifferentSubnetworkBackupConsole : failover only]
Info  Staring guest agent

Here it goes on trying to use BS for the GIP process and fails.

Note: This is a closed system with no posibility to copy out the logs. I've just typed in the log entries as I see them.

[wishr]

Could you please let us know what do you see in the B&R session screen? We will appreciate if you could post a screenshot or something representing all the actions happened during the session.

Unfortunately, this small piece of the log does not tell us anything interesting and there is no indication of any "election". After the lines you've typed in should be some events indicating that the GIP connection has been established, and right after them you probably have some kind of errors. The same can be noticed in the session UI in right in B&R.

[signal]

Could you please let us know what do you see in the B&R session screen? We will appreciate if you could post a screenshot or something representing all the actions happened during the session.

As this is a closed system I have no way of getting a screenshot out.
The GUI out for the job is:

Code: Select all

[list]
[*][color=green]Job started at 13.12.2018 11:48:29[/color]
[*][color=green]Building VMs list[/color]
[*][color=green]VM size: 480,0 GB (128,3 GB used)[/color]
[*][color=green]Changed block tracking is enabled[/color]
[*][color=green]Queued for processing at 13.12.2018 11:48:57[/color]
[*][color=green]Required backup infrastructure resources have been assigned[/color]
[*][color=green]Creating storage snapshot[/color]
[*][color=red]Processing <Guest1> Error: Failed to prepare VM for processing: Failed to connect to guest agent. Errors:
'Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<FQDN of Guest1>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>].
Win32 error. The network path was not found.
 Code: 53
Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<IP of Guest1>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>].
Win32 error. The network path was not found.
 Code: 53
'[/color]
[*][color=red]Processing <Guest2> Error: Failed to prepare VM for processing: Failed to connect to guest agent. Errors:
'Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<FQDN of Guest2>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>].
Win32 error. The network path was not found.
 Code: 53
Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<IP of Guest2>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>].
Win32 error. The network path was not found.
 Code: 53
'[/color]
[*][color=green]All VMs have been queued for processing[/color]
[*][color=green]Deleting storage snapshot[/color]
[*][color=red]Job finished with errors at 13.12.2018 11:50:04[/color]
[/list]

And for Guest1:

Code: Select all

[list]
[*][color=green]VMware Tools are not up to date, some fuctionality may be affected[/color]
[*][color=green]Using guest interaction proxy <BS FQDN> (Different subnet)[/color]
[*][color=green]Failed to inventory guest system: Veeam Guest Agent is not started[/color]
[*][color=red]Failed to prepare guest for hot backup. Error: Failed to connect to guest agent. Errors: 'Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<Guest1 FQDN>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>]. Win32 error: The network path was not found. Code: 53 Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<Guest1 IP>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>]. Win32 error: The network path was not found. Code: 53'[/color]
[*][color=green]Queued for processing at 13.12.2018 11:49:48[/color]
[*][color=green]Required backup infrastructure resources have been assigned[/color]
[*][color=green]VM processing started at 13.12.2018 11:49:53[/color]
[*][color=green]VM size: 100,0 GB (18,8 GB used)[/color]
[*][color=red]Error: Failed to prepare VM for processing: Failed to connect to guest agent. Errors: 'Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<Guest1 FQDN>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>]. Win32 error: The network path was not found. Code: 53 Cannot connect to the host's administrative share. Host: [<Guest1 IP>]. Account: [<GuestDomain>\<Service account>]. Win32 error: The network path was not found. Code: 53'[/color]
[*][color=green]Network traffic verification detected no corrupted blocks[/color]
[*][color=red]Processing finished with errors at 13.12.2018 11:49:56[/color]
[/list]

[wishr]

Thank you for the efforts!

Unfortunately, this information makes the situation even more complicated. I would recommend you to request a Webex session with our support engineers since we should have a look at all the info on our own, especially at the log files to not assume or recommend anything improperly due to lack of details.

Please do not forget to post your case ID here once you have it.

Thanks

[signal]

Again, this is a closed system, and a webex is impossible.

I've typed out a little more from the log file:

Code: Select all

Info  [VssProxyHelper] VSS Proxy is needed: VSS is enabled
Info    Testing vss proxy ip [10.1.20.11], netmask [255.255.255.0]
Info      Testing vm ip [10.1.19.55]
Info  Vss proxy host <GIP fqdn> and Vm are not in the same subnetwork
Info    Testing vss proxy ip [10.1.12.20], netmask [255.255.255.0]
Info      Testing vm ip [10.1.19.55]
Info  Vss proxy host <BS fqdn> and Vm are not in the same subnetwork

Right after this comes the GIP selection process I put in earlier:

Code: Select all

Info  Task group <id> is ready. Preparing next task group for processing
Info  - - Request: VssProxy, proxies [Guest interaction proxy resource [id=<GIP id> . srv name=<GIP fqdn> : access level=DifferentSubnetworkProxy]],[Guest interaction proxy resource [id=<BS id> . srv name=<BS fqdn> : access level=DifferentSubnetworkBackupConsole : failover only]]
Info  - - - Response: Guest interaction proxy resource [id=<BS id> . srv name=<BS fqdn> : access level=DifferentSubnetworkBackupConsole : failover only]
Info  Starting guest agent

So, the BS is selected over the specified GIP. My question is why? And, is there a way to either get the GIP selected first, or the BS excluded?

[wishr]

Hi Signal,

In the above lines, there is no indication which component is selected, but your UI session states that B&R server is selected for processing the Guest OS interaction (probably because of the failback to B&R server due to some GIP processing failure).

There should be some lines with exact error messages (5-20 following lines) after the "Info Starting guest agent" line indicating what's going wrong with GIP tying to put the file into the share. I recommend you to collect as much information as possible from the log files and open a case with our support engineers since logs analysis is performed on the support team end and it's definitely required in this case.

We will appreciate if you can post the above lines of code as well as the case ID, so we can keep a track of the situation from the product management perspective.

Thanks

[Ctek]

I just came across this exact issue, where the GIP, while the only one selected, does always failover to the VBR server itself, even if the GIP has proper network access to the SQL server I want to backup.

@Signal, how did you end up resolving yours?

[foggy]

Since this is a pretty old thread, I recommend contacting support directly for assistance - they will be able to review logs to identify the actual reason of guest interaction proxy failing over to the backup server.