Storing root or admin passwords in backups

[stantoncole]

It has been a while since I have directly configured backup permissions for Veeam. With the concern about security and ransomware in backups the question has come up can backups be done without the backup system storing root or admin permissions on Linux and Windows systems? I understand they are required to perform installs and setup services, but when the jobs run, can there be a diminished permissions configured or a service account created as backup operator to not allow full administrative rights to be stored in the backups?

[Mildur]

Hi Stanton

Welcome to the forum.
What are you trying to backup? Physical or virtual machines? What Hypervisor? HyperV, Sphere (ESXI or vCenter)?

Administrative permissions may be required for some operations like application aware processing for domain controllers for virtual machines.
Veeam Backup & Replication V12 will allow you to use gMSA instead of storing credentials to backup your windows VMs. That should help for Windows VMs. For Linux systems, you can use cert based authentication or just disable AAIP if you don't need the features for your linux vms.

If you backup a vSphere environment and you are using vCenter, you can use granular permissions instead of the full administrative permission set.
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

Thanks
Fabian

[stantoncole]

The question is for Acropolis and VMware virtual server backups. I will take a look at the link you shared, thank you.