Feature Request - VM Guest OS File Indexing without Guest OS credentials

[petesteven]

As the title suggests, I have another feature request
Specifically, VM Guest OS file indexing without requiring Guest OS credentials.

We are trying to build environments that are as secure as possible and minimize access to production workloads as much as possible.
Unfortunately, this requirement is completely bypassed during a backup job with VM Guest OS File Indexing. In this case, I am always forced to enter the Guest OS credentials.
For Linux VMs, this requires several utilities to be installed on the Linux VM: openssh, gzip, and tar.
Due to security policies, my clients simply cannot allow us to log in to all systems. Unfortunately, GMSA isn't the solution either.

Unfortunately, I am absolutely dependent on VM Guest OS File Indexing for certain security features. Without it, I cannot use these functions.

Many other backup tools have been able to perform indexing during the backup for years without requiring credentials or the installation of an agent. Here, for example, FUSE is used in the background for the supported formats.

I would like to see Veeam make an adjustment here so that this is possible out of the box when backing up VMs, and I don’t have to enter and distribute credentials.

[PetrM]

Hi Peter,

The request fully makes sense, and it has been noted. Despite the undeniable value of this request, I’m not ready to comment on timelines.

Thanks!

[jeronimo]

We need that too.
Can someone explain why guest OS credentials are required in the first place if you're not using application-aware backups but only want the guest index?
Maybe I'm missing technical details, but Veeam gets the snapshot as usual, can mount it, either before or after sending it to the repo, and extract the guest index from the filesystem. It does not need access to the client system in order to do that.
Of course we'd need it to work with NSS (Novell) too!

EDIT/UPDATE It is especially strange that you can't mix Windows/Linux machines (we use Vsphere tags) in a backup job as you can't distinguish them anywhere in the "credentials for individual machines" dialog (unless you'd create tags for Windows/Linux or something along those lines manually in vsphere...)

Thanks.

[petesteven]

With the “VM Guest OS File Indexing” feature, Veeam connects to the running guest operating system during the backup job, scans the file system, and stores a searchable index (catalog) in the Veeam database or catalog. To enable this indexing process to run within the guest, Veeam requires login credentials with sufficient privileges to authenticate on the guest and temporarily integrate the necessary runtime components. On Windows VMs, the login credentials (local admin) are required because application-consistent processing runs via the VSS provider—Veeam must trigger VSS to temporarily pause the applications/file systems and, in parallel, start the indexing service in the guest. On Linux VMs, Veeam connects via SSH (root or sudo) and uses or installs the system tools mlocate/locate to generate the file list—without these permissions and tools, the index cannot be built.

This means that the credentials are currently required simply due to the procedure described above. In my opinion, this should be changed.

[PetrM]

Hello,

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! This topic is indeed a truly amazing source of ideas and internal discussions about future improvements.

Thanks!