Bare metal restore from vbr 11?

[daystrom]

case 06137744

I used to install vbr and agent side by side on hyper-v hosts, and run agent backups for the host, and vbr bacups for the vms. Since v11 of vbr that's not been possible for me, agent refuses to run outside of vbr. I've put considerable effort into trying to resolve that with no success.
As a fallback I run backups of the host in vbr. However I've never found clear guidance for a bare metal restore of a vbr created backup of the host. Can you point me to any guidance that exists?
Also does vbr 12 do a better job of cooperating with agent? I could update to 12 if so.

[HannesK]

Hello,
VBR in a VM and the agent in the parent partition would be a supported scenario. Microsoft does not allow running applications in the parent partition of Hyper-V (which makes sense, because that would be like running VBR on the VMware ESXi console)

The agent on the Hyper-V host would run standalone (there are forum posts around that topic)

Best regards,
Hannes

[daystrom]

I don't understand your response.
I have configured this successfully several times: On a server (the host, the physical box) agent and vbr are installed independently. Agent backs up the entire host, and it's easy to create a recovery media. vbr backs up the vms. The two software installations are completely separate but on the same machine. This is a great system.
No vmware software is installed on any of the hyper-v vms, which is what you seem to think I'm doing.
While I like to install agent and vbr side by side, on one server for the last few versions of veeam software I've not been able to run agent independent of vbr. I've posted here about that and got nowhere.
If I have to run agent from within vbr on that server, how do I create a bare metal recovery media to use with the image it creates?
Thank you Hannes

[HannesK]

Hello,

I have configured this successfully several times: On a server (the host, the physical box) agent and vbr are installed independently

yes, I know that works often (there are many posts on the forums with that setup). But it's unsupported. The user interface you can see of the "physical box" is a virtual machine (the root or parent partition). That's why I referred to "VMware console"

VBR should run inside a regular VM (not in the root partition).

The agent can run in the root partition / "bare metal" and one can create a recovery media with the recovery media wizard. Most customers run that agent standalone to avoid chicken / egg dependencies with VBR.

Best regards,
Hannes

[daystrom]

Thanks again for that Hannes
VBR is not supported when deployed on a hyper-v server? Instead, it is to be installed on one of the vms on the hyper-v server? And from there it can back up other, sibling vms? That's totally unexpected.
And when you said "yes, I know that works often (there are many posts on the forums with that setup). But it's unsupported. The user interface you can see of the "physical box" is a virtual machine (the root or parent partition). That's why I referred to 'VMware console'" you are referring to the view of the host that is available in vbr? It sees the physical box, the host, as a vm?

[HannesK]

To be in a supported state, VBR must run in a VM. There are many discussions around that on the forums.

I guess the easiest way is to ignore the VMware part. My assumption was, that most people on this forum worked with VMware at some point in time. But without having worked with VMware, the comparison makes no sense. sorry for the confusion!

[daystrom]

OK, I get it. Rather mind blowing on my side <g>. I'll give it a try.

Thank you for helping out HannesK.

[daystrom]

One part of this is still a mystery. With vbr installed on a vm, in my case the domain controller, what happens if the dc vm needs to be restored? I can't assume that I'd have access to the dc at that point. Would one install vbr from scratch on another vm, so as not to disturb agent on the host, and restore from that other vm? That's part of why it seemed natural to install vbr on the host - all of the vms that are being backed up are separate from the vbr installation.

[HannesK]

With vbr installed on a vm, in my case the domain controller

VBR should be installed in a VM that is not hosting any other roles.

VBR needs to be installed somewhere to restore something, yes (sorry, just stating the obvious, but you asked)

The extract tool could maybe be an alternative option https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=120