How Can I Allow End Users to Restore Files?

[gypsythief]

I have set up a Veeam Backup and Replication server, v11.0.1.1261, in a small office to protect a file server and 4 workstations, all running Windows 10 Pro 21H1. The network is peer-to-peer with no domain controller. I have configured a backup job and added all 5 computers to it which now appear under Physical Infrastructure -> Manually Added. The backup job is working well, and I can restore files to the computers from the VBR Console. Authentication was achieved by creating a backup account with the same password on all computers for VBR to use.

During setup, VBR deployed Veeam Agent 5.0.1.4584 to the five computers, creating Start Menu entries for "Veeam Agent", "Configure Backup", "Create Recovery Media", "File Level Restore" and "Volume Restore". Clicking any of these options from the Start Menu brings up a dialogue box stating: "Unable to complete the action because this backup agent is centrally managed by your system administrator.", and the Agent program quits.

I would like it if users could run restore operations; they are all trusted, and I am not always around to run it for them from the VBR console (not, of course, that they're losing files *that* often!) Is there anyway I can achieve this? I can't find any information in the help docs regarding such a scenario, and poking about adding accounts under "Users and Roles" but that doesn't seem to have done much.

Any help appreciated!

[Mildur]

It is possible. You need to make sure that you have configured managed by agent Backup Jobs (it will be created as a backup policy for workstations).
If you have created a backup job managed by the backup server, remove the vm from there. This job cannot be used for doing restores directly on the agent device.

If your users doesn‘t have local admin permission, enable this option for the agent:
Allow file level recovery without administrative account

Additional Info:
Prerequisites for doing restores on the agent

[gypsythief]

Ah, quite simple then, thank you for that! I did indeed configure a "managed by server" backup job, as I wanted "Synthetic Full Backups" and "Storage Level Corruption Guard" options for the backup, and I wanted those options to be managed by the server so the clients could be turned off whilst those processes ran over-night.

I assumed I would need a "managed by server" backup job to achieve that, but would it still be the case with a "managed by agent" job that the agent could go offline overnight and the server would carry on creating synthetic full backups or performing a health check? I ask as previously we had unmanaged stand-alone agents backing up to a NAS file share, and all the computers had to remain turned on for any such tasks to complete. I was hoping to avoid that by using a VBR server.

[Mildur]

As far as I know, synthetic full is part of the backup job itself and the client should be online when the job is doing a synthetic full.

For the healthcheck i don‘t know exactly. I never have back-ed up workstation agents in my environment.

I think I will test this on my work computer.

[gypsythief]

I had scheduled a synthetic full backup of all computers to run on Saturday at 20.00h GMT. At that time the file server was on, but all four workstations were off.

Unsurprisingly, the incremental backup part of the backup job of the four workstations failed, but rather pleasingly the synthetic backup of all five computers completed successfully, generating a new full backup file for each computer based on the original full backup plus the incrementals it had managed.

My original question was if I could have restore jobs manged by clients when backup jobs were managed by the server. The answer was "no". However, as synthetic full backups can be achieved by a VBR server *even when the clients are off*, which is more important to me than allowing endpoint-restores, then I will stick with server managed backup jobs, and accept the lack of endpoint manged restore (which, to be fair, isn't much of an extra burden. Luckily files aren't lost that often!!)

Thank you Mildur for all your help with this; I would be interested in the results of your tests if you find time to do them!

[Mildur]

Your welcome.
As soon I find the time, I‘ll give you a feedback