SureBackup + DHCP enabled Servers

[lightsout]

Hey All,

So I'm starting to get into SureBackup, and using its features, but we've got a problem in that a majority of our servers use DHCP to get their IP addresses. In our Application Grouping, I restore the DC & DHCP servers, which have statically assigned IP addresses and work fine.

When I restore a server which uses DHCP, the DHCP scope is closed and only serves reservations, and as the restored machine gets a new MAC address it doesn't get an IP at all (169.254.x.y). So my options are:

• 1. If I use the Veeam proxy to assign DHCP addresses, it will work, but it gives them a different IP address. Would that update dynamic DNS in Active Directory? I'm thinking no?
  2. Statically assigning the MAC address inside Windows would work, but would be ugly!
  3. I could configure the "alternate IPv4 address" in the servers, so in the absence of a DHCP server it'd get an address regardless. This looks to be scriptable thankfully.
  4. Or I change it all to statically assigned IPs.

I know some applications (SharePoint - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... e.12).aspx) add entries to the hosts file, so keeping the same IPs is desirable.

Is that what my options are? Any other help or suggestions weoculd be welcome.

[foggy]

There's a registry key that allows to preserve MAC address for VMs started in the virtual lab:

Code: Select all

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VeeaM\Veeam Backup and Replication\SureBackup
EnablePreserveMac
1

You can play with it (if you're on vSphere, then MAC should be registered in VMX).

[lightsout]

Ah that looks perfect. I am using vSphere 5.5 U2 with this.

So I've made the change, but I'm a bit confused. So I see the SureBackup VM appear, and looking in vSphere's interface, I see a new MAC address on this VM. Looking the SureBackup log, I see the existing MAC of the VM address being referenced.

When I look into SureBackup, I see the new MAC address, even with the key below present (and a reboot once set).

Is this working as intended then?

[nefes]

Do you have static MAC addresses set in VMware?
By default it uses dynamic addresses, so even if job tries to set any address, it is overridden by VMware itself.
See this KB for details: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/219

[lightsout]

No, they're still dynamic. Ok, so static MACs in VMware would do it. I'll keep that in mind! Thanks for the help.

[mschlott]

I've been using Veeam for years but I never seem to get surebackup working so I can do item level recovery on SQL and Exchange. This year I'm going to get it to work or else.

I'm running Veeam 9 update 1 and Vsphere 5.5 u3. When I run a sure backup job with my DC in the application group, the MAC address of the DC changes so windows treats it as a new adapter and sets it to DHCP. This causes problems with anything that I have that expects the IP of the domain controller to not change.

I have seen problems going way back with vmxnet3 adpaters having their MAC change. Is there some trick that I'm missing to get this working?

[NightBird]

Please look at
vmware-vsphere-f24/vmxnet3-and-surebackup-t14805.html

[foggy]

I've been using Veeam for years but I never seem to get surebackup working so I can do item level recovery on SQL and Exchange.

Mike, with Veeam Explorers for SQL and Exchange SureBackup is not required for item-level reсovery anymore.

[mschlott]

I'll check out new way of doing item level recovery.

So why not create VMs with the original MAC address when creating a virtual lab? I would think you want machines in a VLab to be identical to the original.

[foggy]

There's a registry value that prevents this, please see above.