Comments and Experiences with MacOS Agent 1.0

[PetrM]

Hello,

Please provide a support case ID for this issue, as requested when you click New Topic. The posts about technical issues without a support case ID will be eventually removed by forum moderator.

It's difficult to say what might provoke this issue, Catalina 10.15.x is in the list of supported OS. A closer look at debug logs is required, let's give a chance to our support team to investigate it. Please don't forget to share the support case ID.

Thanks!

[emiller]

I got the same "root handler" error when attempting to launch Veeam for Mac Agent on a MacBook Pro running macOS 10.15.7.
Opened Veeam Support - Case # 04697201 Response: "This error is due to the account being used to run the veeam application not having enough permissions in the OS to be able to run the application."

1. Make sure the user you are launching as has been added to the "veeam" group on the Mac, either in System Preferences - Users & Groups, by checking the box, or via command line.
2. If you still get the error (as I did), launching the app from the command line with sudo worked without error:
sudo /Applications/Veeam/Veeam\ Agent\ for\ Mac.app/Contents/MacOS/Veeam\ Agent

Not sure why this MBP has a problem, while another M1 MBP running macOS 11.2.3 does not.
I suspect the first MBP has some issue with its Active Directory Binding. I'll update after more testing.

[Gostev]

Also, for everyone else's information, Veeam does NOT offer phone support for the Mac Agent like they do for the Windows or Linux Agent. So, don't expect speedy assistance to your support requests for this product

I don't know who told you this, but this is a complete misinformation on their part. Here's the official support policy, as you can see there are no phone support limitations for any particular product. Also, it makes zero sense why would not we provide phone support for some agents, but not other. @m_zolkin FYI.

[emiller]

Update to my previous response, where attempting attempting to launch Veeam for Mac Agent.app on one MBP resulted in a "root handler" error, but "sudo /Applications/Veeam/Veeam\ Agent\ for\ Mac.app/Contents/MacOS/Veeam\ Agent" would launch the app.

Force unbound the MBP from Active Directory (got the "can't reach Active Directory to unbind" message, always a sign something is wrong with the bind). Checked my Domain Controllers. Did not find any abandoned computer objects for this computer. Rebound MBP to AD.
Even without rebooting, now the same user can launch Veeam for Mac Agent.app from the GUI without error.
Conclusion: Veeam for Mac Agent.app wants a clean AD bind. You may have other user account problems that only surface when you try to launch the Agent in the GUI.

[noahmehl]

I don't know who told you this, but this is a complete misinformation on their part. Here's the official support policy, as you can see there are no phone support limitations for any particular product. Also, it makes zero sense why would not we provide phone support for some agents, but not other. @m_zolkin FYI.

Well, that would be the case except if you call the US number: 800-774-5124, then pick option 2 for "Any Veeam Agent Products" support, then listen to the options, which consist of Windows Agent and Linux Agent. I picked Linux because that's the closet to Mac. Got an agent, was told there was no support for Mac Agent via phone. Go look up my call from today. PM me if you need more details. So, tell me what to call and what options to pick for my Case regarding my Mac agent...

BTW, my case is: #04713333. I didn't realize I was supposed to post that publicly, seems a little odd...

[Gostev]

Ah, well I guess the options were simply not updated to include Mac yet, as it's a brand new offering that has just been released along with V11.

@m_zolkin may be have the U.S. support manager review the call recording and talk to the support agent who said this?

[noahmehl]

The response on my case:

"The logging here seems to indicate that the network connection to the cloud connect gateway is being interrupted or dropped along the way. It's happening in the middle of the backup job so it's not an issue with connecting to the server in general or something like credentials. Using a packet capture tool like wireshark on the mac during the backup job may provide you and your network team with additional detail as to the cause of the network drop."

Yeah, I have a MBP, on a wifi connection, on a cable internet connection. Well, it's not reasonable that there won't be drops in a multi-day initial backup of 300GB over the internet to a VSPC managed cloud-connect server. I'm really confused by this, because like a backup copy, you can rely on the APFS snapshot to continue where you left off to ensure the initial backup can complete. I don't know how you're going to tell end users that they can't take their laptops home at the end of the day "because their initial backups aren't finished".... Or that you could get 99% done, and then have an internet drop and have to start ALL over.

[Gostev]

Let's wait for the Product Manager of this agent @PTide to return from vacation and comment, as perhaps they already have plans to address this. I know that with Veeam Agent for Windows, the capability to continue backup from the existing snapshot was only added in v4, and I certainly did not expect the v1 of Mac agent to have every bell and whistle right away

[m_zolkin]

Got an agent, was told there was no support for Mac Agent via phone.

We indeed provide phone support for Veeam Agent for Mac. The engineer may have mistakenly meant there was no support for FREE products. In any case, we'll listen to the phone call recording and coach the engineer if necessary.

An IVR menu will be updated soon.

[noahmehl]

Let's wait for the Product Manager of this agent @PTide to return from vacation and comment, as perhaps they already have plans to address this. I know that with Veeam Agent for Windows, the capability to continue backup from the existing snapshot was only added in v4, and I certainly did not expect the v1 of Mac agent to have every bell and whistle right away

I await @PTide's input here. However, I do have an update from my case. The engineer stated that a continuation from the snapshot is not possible now. However, I was given the steps to create a veeam.conf to update the retry timeout and retry count. I set these to 3600 second retry timeout and a 168 retry count. So, once an hour for a week. Seems reasonable to me. I'll update everyone on the result.

I don't necessarily agree with "every bell and whistle", as being able to backup directly to VSPC is an intended feature. End users are not going to care when there are other products on the market that "just work". If we end up having to deploy B&R for any Mac agent deployment, I'm not sure this is as "compelling" as it could or should be. Updating config settings may resolve this for the short term. But then we have to figure out how to get those deployed to every Mac we want to backup now.

[noahmehl]

Further updates from my case:

Unfortunately, you can update the retry count and timeout. However, this does not retry inside the current session, it retries with a new session. In other words, this is NOT a resume. Therefore, from what I can tell, this is not really usable for this use case

[PTide]

Well, it's not reasonable that there won't be drops in a multi-day initial backup of 300GB over the internet to a VSPC managed cloud-connect server. I'm really confused by this, because like a backup copy, you can rely on the APFS snapshot to continue where you left off to ensure the initial backup can complete. I don't know how you're going to tell end users that they can't take their laptops home at the end of the day "because their initial backups aren't finished".... Or that you could get 99% done, and then have an internet drop and have to start ALL over

I agree, the request makes sense. Moreover, we already have that in the queue.

Thanks!

[noahmehl]

@PTide,

Now the obligatory: when do you think we can expect this ?

[PTide]

@noahmehl,

when do you think we can expect this

This is currently being discussed internally. No ETA so far.

I also would like to learn more about your case as it's not quite clear what dataset are you trying to back up. It seems that you have included the whole /System/Volumes/Data, is that correct?

Thanks!

[noahmehl]

Yes, we are trying to backup /System/Volumes/Data. This is because there are lot of development and environment (like brew) related items that can be painful, since they live outside the Users folder. But the majority of the data is in my User folder (things like VMWare virtual machines, etc).

[PTide]

Would splitting the job in two work for you? One job for VMs' files, and another one for everything else (you can use exclude files based on extensions).
Another workaround would be to install separate agents inside those VMs and back them up from the inside.

Thanks!

[solmssen]

I was asked by @nikolaj to post some comments I made regarding Mac Backup in a separate thread veeam-agents-for-linux-mac-aix-solaris- ... 76357.html into this thread, so at the risk of repeating myself, I will just say that I'm a little disappointed by the lack of true image backup in the 1.0 release of Veeam Mac Agent. I want to stop using Time Machine, and while the file level backup included in the Mac Agent is very useful and gets Mac files into the Veeam repositories and ecology, which is great, it's not a replacement for Time Machine, not yet. Not as long as I can't go to a point in time and restore to it from bare metal.

My users are running heavily configured machines with lots of software and personal settings - the point of backing them up for me isn't just limited to user data, it's about making sure the work of making those machines the way the users want them is preserved. As finicky and weird as Time Machine can be, by and large if I backup a machine with Time Machine and then do a restore, that machine is the way I left it. All the software is where it should be, everything is configured the way it should be, in much the same way that the Veeam Windows Agent allows me to backup a complete machine state, not just the user's files. Right now, I'm using local USB disks and Time Machine, or in a few cases, a Synology NAS with individual shares for each Mac (so they don't crowd each other out) to back up to using Time Machine (or in the case of the btrfs Synology machines, I can have user quotas and one big share). This is on the face of it a terrible system that cannot scale, because there's no deduplication, no reporting, etc, etc. I was hoping Veeam would save me from this. But it doesn't seem to be a complete solution if I have to spend a lot of time installing and reconfiguring macOS and software after a restore.

My 2 cents, and worth exactly that to someone who isn't me, I'm sure. I'm small potatoes - my biggest networks are 25-50 physical and virtual machines and mostly Windows, so Veeam is still very attractive. But I was hoping to stop having to treat the Macs as a separate issue all the time.