FortiAnalyzer VM Backup Guest OS Credentials

[randy16randy]

I have a FortiAnalyzer VM that I am backing up with Veeam B&R v11a (build 11.0.1.1261 P20211211). The backup reports success and I have restored the entire VM (after a bad firmware udpate) so confident it is working. Occasionally I see a warning message from Veeam that it was not able to access the guest OS, although it does still report the normal volume of data backed up.

In the backup job properties I can set specific credentials for the VM. It offers Standard or Linux. I am using my normal admin user account but am not able to guess the correct settings to pass the Credentials Test. I thought it may be that SSH is turned off for the VM although that is not a service I wish to leave enabled so if that's the problem, I am hoping for a different solution.

Tried searching in the FortiGate forums as well but no joy.
Does anyone do similar, and if so, how have you configured the backup job?

Thanks
-Randy-

[rennerstefan]

Hi randy

As you are backing up a virtual appliance there is most likely no way to perform guest processing.
That’s why you get an warning but the job finishes and you can of course recover.
For those kind of VMs it is usually best to create a own job with guest processing disabled as you only want the vm itself being backed up.
Please be also aware that without guest processing we don’t care about any database or so that runs within the vm.
So I would advise to see if your appliance also has a built in config backup that you can store externally just in case you need it at some point.

Thanks

[randy16randy]

Thanks @rennerstefan. Yes, I do make a config backup whenever it changes so pretty sure I'm covered. I just hate spurious warnings.