Unable to see SMB share with Veeam for Windows free edition

[CraftyClown]

Hi there,

We are testing out your backup solutions and were hoping to backup one of our workstations to a server on our network that has an SMB share.

Unfortunately when we try to browse to the shared folder we get a message that says 'The network location cannot be reached. For information about network troubleshooting, see Windows help'

The shared drive is connected and accessible to other software and devices, so I'm not quite sure what the issue might be.

I'm using Veeam agent for Windows 3.0.0.748 Free edition

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated

[Dima P.]

Hello and welcome to the community Richard!

If you share requires access permissions, please check the corresponding box below the path to your CIFS folder and type in the account and it's password. Once done it should be possible to browse the file share. Cheers!

[CraftyClown]

Hi Dima,

Thanks for getting back to me. I did try that however I'm still getting the same error message. I'm sure this is user error, but I can't work out what I'm doing wrong.

Cheers
Rich

[ender]

I've got Veeam Agent backing up to a SMB share on several computers, and it works without problems. Browse button might not work, however if you enter the full path to the share, and set credentials, it should work (Veeam will try connecting to the share when you click Next, and you can also test if it can reach the share by clicking the Populate button).

Depending on your SMB server, you may need to enter the username as DOMAIN\user or SERVERNAME\user before it's accepted.

[CraftyClown]

Thanks Ender i did eventually get it working. As you correctly pointed out the browse button doesn't work and always resulted in an error, however manually entering the correct path and completing the setup worked fine.

[ender]

AFAIK, Browse will try to use the credentials of currently logged-in user, not those that are entered in Veeam, which is why it may fail (if current user doesn't have permissions on the share).

[CraftyClown]

Ah yes, I forgot to mention I also needed to change the user running Veeam in Windows services to get things working correctly. On the two machines in question I am the only user who has permissions however browse never works whatever I do.

[ender]

Weird, I never needed to touch those settings - just setting username and password in Veeam was always sufficient for me so far.

[CraftyClown]

Yes it was rather odd. It was a suggestion on these forums from someone else having a similar problem and it worked a treat.

[robnicholsonmalt]

I'm just evaluating Veeam and got the same problem. I'm working in a disposal VM so forget which account I configured Veeam to use itself. If it works, I will be going back and making much more copious notes

[Dima P.]

Hello folks,

File share browse indeed relies on the Microsoft network discovery logic, so you need to type in the file share address, then credentials with access to browse the content of the file share. If the account was not specified, you will be able to browse only the file shares with machine account access (i.e. local system account). Cheers!

[bReathl3sS]

Hey everyone, I'm pretty new to Veeam but I am facing just this mentioned issue here. From what I understood from Dima P. is, that once entering the credentials and the correct initial path, I should be able to "browse" the file share and get a folder tree. However this isn't the case for me. Pressing "Populate" successfully shows the available space of the share. But I'm still not able to see any folder tree within Veeam's Job Setup whether it is "Browse" or "Map backup".
For clarification: I tried to map my job to an existing backup (as I reinstalled Veeam), but couldn't browse to that one. So for now, I just inserted the same path and created a new job and new backup chain which automatically created a folder following an "_1" to my folder with the original backup chain. Weird.
FYI - I have a Synology DS220j for private backup purposes. Logging in to the UI in my NAS' browser with the specified user and password works and I see the folder tree that the user has access to.
Did I misunderstand you, Dima P.?

[ender]

I think the problem is that the Browse dialog works with your current Windows credentials, not with whatever you typed in Veeam (which are only used once the backup runs).

[Dima P.]

Hi bReathl3sS,

Have you tried to open the same location via the same credentials thru the regular Windows explorer for the same machine where agent is installed? Thanks!

[bReathl3sS]

I think the problem is that the Browse dialog works with your current Windows credentials, not with whatever you typed in Veeam (which are only used once the backup runs).

If that is the case, it's obvious it won't work. Windows login is username A and my rights to access the backup folder on the NAS is user B.

@Dima P.: I just put the path in Win Explorer. It asked me for the credentials. I provided user B and password. Works. I can now see the folder tree I created in the NAS with user B explicitly created for Veeam. Directly editing the job and checking again didn't change anything. User B + credentials entered in Veeam. Still no folder tree in Browse or possibility to map my other backup job.

[Egor Yakovlev]

Logs would be awesome to get, if you are up to open support ticket.
Make sure you are using NAS-Server-Name\user format addressing NAS box, plain user name will work in local system context.
/Thanks!

[bReathl3sS]

Hey, I created a support case with logs attached to it: 04681035
But no, I used just "veeam" and not "nas-01\veeam". However, just checked, using "veeam" or nas-01\veeam" yields the same result for me. Backup job works and is created, but content of the share cannot be browsed and an already existing backup cannot be mapped.
I'm using Veeam Agent for Windows 5 - Free Edition from my home pc being connected via WiFi to my Fritz!Box which is connected via LAN to my nas-01.

[Egor Yakovlev]

1. For the sake of test, can you try enabling SMB1? Either under Server Management or via PowerShell "Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "SMB1Protocol" -All".
2. Button "Browse" is meant for cases where you don't want to type server name manually. If you typed path down, you can just hit Next and it will use said path with said credentials just fine.
3. As for the Map Backup being empty - do you actually have backup chain from that machine at the target destination?
/Thanks!

[bReathl3sS]

1. Sure. Enabled it via PowerShell, restarted. Editing Job and selecting "Browse..." now works! Shows both my PC and the NAS. So already thank you. Now something interesting happens: Although I added the credentials in the dialog box and ticked the check mark, I'm asked for credentials as soon as I try to show/open NAS-01. Entering the credentials of user "nas-01\veeam" doesn't show me the folders that "nas-01\veeam" has access to, but instead shows the folders that "nas-01/myusername" has access to. myusername is my Windows username which has the same name as a user I created on the Synology NAS. Don't know what Windows is doing there... But the same happens when I'm doing this in windows explorer. It keeps ignoring the credentials I'm entering for nas-01\veeam but instead assumes that I entered nas-01\myusername and shows me these folders ... but of course with no access rights cause the password was wrong. Manually navigating to the nas-01\Backup folder (to which nas-01\veeam has access rights) works in Win Explorer, but it's impossible to get there in the Veeam Brwose... dialog. And finding my old backup jobs (Map backup) is still impossible. I guess even the current job chain should be accessable from that point, but it is still empty and not searchable.
2. Sure, understood, but that Browse... thing is still odd
3. Yes. On a local drive, it is no problem, I can simply select an old backup chain *.vbm file from December 2020. But on the nas where there are 2 backup chains (*.vbm) files from my machine, I still cannot find one. Even not the backup chain job that I just created today which already got a full backup and an incremental backup!

[Egor Yakovlev]

Thanks for update!
It does seem to work as expected, but I agree, it adds some confusion:
1. "Browse" is expected to give no results nowadays, as it works over SMB1. We have some ideas how to improve it in the future, but for now best way is to enter path manually.
2. Both "Browse" and "Map backup" are working in context of the service user(VeeamEndpointBackupSvc service) - which is why it does not ask for credentials when using "Browse", and why credentials dialog is popping up on "Map backup".
3. Check if your NAS user permissions can be added in machine$ context, allowing your system to authenticate for said share?

I will pass your feedback up, to make this process more user friendly.
/Thanks!

[bReathl3sS]

1. Understood, keep on increasing UI friendliness!
2. I get what you mean. But don't misunderstand me. Using "Map backup" is not asking for credentials, it is still empty for me. "Browse..." is asking me for the credentials as soon as I open the NAS folder structure. But still Windows is doing rubbish there (showing wrong folders for entered credentials).
3. I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. Do you have a link or something to read? Also possibly worth to mention: Using File Level Restore and setting the path to my NAS backup folder (as Brwose... is not working ) shows me all backup chains that are available. "Map backup" fails to show me me any of these.
I guess I need to out myself now: I'm not an IT Pro! I was just advised by an IT pro that the backup intention I described for my NAS would perfectly fit with Veeam's Windows Free backup solution due to easy-to-use interface and file/volume recovery procedure

[Egor Yakovlev]

Articles depend on NAS vendor\model and undergoing infrastructure.
What I mean is you can try:
- check if you can add domain\PCname$ as permissions unit on your NAS box, like this. Some NAS boxes do have Windows ACL mode too.
- if that is local home network, you can go with "Everyone" permission allowing direct access

[sysinfma]

Yes, please drop SMBv1 and add browsing capabilities for SMBv2/3.

[Dima P.]

sysinfma,

Thanks for the details. We are discussing the possibilities with the RnD folks!

[sysinfma]

Bump.
6.0 is here, but the situation is still the same.

[sysinfma]

Bump.
6.1 is here, but the situation is still the same.
Think about it: Missing SMBv2/v3 support in the #1 backup software on earth!
It would be even better to remove the "Browse..." button completely than to leave it broken – for YEARS.

[mason64]

I am having the same issues with trying to get it to find my samba file server. everything else can find it via the host name and ip address but the windows agent cant find it.

Installed SMB1 - just seeing if i can try anything else or should i give it up as a bad job?

Thanks
Dave

[Dima P.]

Hello folks,

Thank you for your feedback. Unfortunately neither SMB v2 nor SMB v3 currently does not provide the functionality that has been available with SMB v1. Mind me asking would it be good enough if we allowed you to browse the current Windows network locations where you could select the file shares whenever those are available / accessible on your machines?

[Megatron702]

After I put in the /domain or FQDN the VBR was able to connect to my Synology share!