[BETA] Veeam Explorer for Active Directory

[foggy]

Have you copied all the files from both folders or just the db and the logs? Other files are also required.

[allankjaer]

Thanks, I missed a file

[brupnick]

This is an awesome tool and one that I can't wait to show off to my co-workers. However, when I try to restore anything from a Windows FLR, I receive an error that says, "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." I've only had VEAD for a few hours, so it's quite possible that I missed something basic somewhere along the way (like how does it know where to restore the items back to?).

[foggy]

Brian, could you please elaborate on the error, at what moment do you get it? Are you able to open and browse the AD database in Veeam Explorer for AD? How about other restore types - do they work fine for the same backup file?

[Gostev]

when I try to restore anything from a Windows FLR, I receive an error that says, "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

Then this has nothing to deal with VEAD. You should open a support case and investigate FLR issue before trying out VEAD. Thanks!

[brupnick]

Hey foggy-

I started a Windows FLR of my domain controller from last night, then navigated to C:\Windows\NTDS. I double-clicked the ntds.dit file which opened VEAD. Next, I navigated to the OU where my user account is located using the left pane. I right-clicked my user account in the right pane, selected Restore To and immediately received a message box with the error provided. I tried restoring an OU and received the same message.

Am I missing something?

[Gostev]

OK, if you are able to do that then FLR does work fine. Perhaps you are just running into some bug, this is very early beta code anyway. If you want to help in polishing the code, please open a support case so that VEAD devs could take a look at the issue through debug logs. Thanks!

[brupnick]

Should I open a support ticket for this or do anything else?

[Gostev]

Sure, just put [VEAD BETA] tag in the beginning of issue description.

[brupnick]

Done. 00560287.

[brupnick]

OK, if you are able to do that then FLR does work fine. Perhaps you are just running into some bug, this is very early beta code anyway. If you want to help in polishing the code, please open a support case so that VEAD devs could take a look at the issue through debug logs. Thanks!

Just in case anyone else has the same issue, this was a known bug that is fixed by replacing two DLLs (Veeam.ActiveDirectory.Restore.dll and Veeam.ActiveDirectory.Storage.dll in VEAD installation directory) with those provided by support. Once I did that, everything worked as expected.

[foggy]

Brian, thanks for finding time to update the thread for future readers, much appreciated!

[Regnor]

Just used VEAD for the first time and it did its Job very well; I did reset a password from one of our systemusers and forgot that there were "endless" tasks running with this users credentials...2 minutes later everything worked again

[Andreas Neufert]

Perfect example... thank you.

[Wolfraider]

Feature request, the ability to restore group policy objects.

[Regnor]

@Wolfraider: You could always power up your DC in Virtual Lab and export that GPO; or use FLR and restore it from your SYSVOL folder.

[foggy]

Feature request, the ability to restore group policy objects.

Travis, thanks for your feedback. Much appreciated.

[Gostev]

Updated the first post of this topic to include link to the cumulative patch that addresses all issues reported on the beta code so far.

[stanyb]

Hello, did anyone found a solution on this?
I had the same error, restored the ntds.dit file, explored ti, opened it with VEAD, but it was the parent domain that was displayed not the domain from the DC.
thanx for info.

[veremin]

Hi, Stanislas, have you already downloaded the cumulative patch that Anton was talking about? Thanks.

[stanyb]

Ow, I'm sorry Vladimir, did it now, now it's the good domain
Thx !!!

[veremin]

Glad to hear that my input was helpful. If you come across any issue while working with VEAD, please, post it here and open a case on it (with corresponding mark). This will help us to polish the solution further. Thanks.

[srx]

Had Problems with the recovery - got the News, that my NTDS-File is not supported on the running OS.

Yesterday I had an ad-update from 2003 to 2012. My Backup-Server has 2008 R2 as OS. Is this the Problem? If yes, is there a solution?

[veremin]

Can you elaborate a little bit on the issue you got? Have you already contacted our support team with that? Thanks.

[srx]

Last week we migrated our DC from 2003 to 2012.
After the new backup from the new 2012 DC, I tried to open the NTDS-File with the AD Explorer. While opening I got the error:

"The specified database cannot be opened on this OS Version."

OS Version from the Backup-Server is W2K8 R2 - is this the Problem? Support has not been contacted yet.

[Kostya]

Last week we migrated our DC from 2003 to 2012.
After the new backup from the new 2012 DC, I tried to open the NTDS-File with the AD Explorer. While opening I got the error:

"The specified database cannot be opened on this OS Version."

OS Version from the Backup-Server is W2K8 R2 - is this the Problem? Support has not been contacted yet.

Earlier on this thread:

If you want to open Windows 2012 or Windows 2012 R2 AD database, you have to have Explorer for Active Directory installed on Windows 2012/8 or later.

[srx]

Yes, but the VEAD is installed on a W2K8 - that means, the Suggestion is not completly correct? We need at least a W2K12?

[foggy]

The suggestion is correct, since it states that at least Windows 2012 or Windows 8 (not Windows 2008) is required to open Windows 2012 Windows 2012 R2 databases.

[zak2014]

Hi, I have standalone VBR server and try restore object to AD server by VEAD.
I using restore to... option with domain credential.
I got error message "The LDAP server is unavailable"
Where is mistake?
Petr

@Petr

Hi I got the same error. It was basically a DNS issue.Try adding the DNS server IP to your Veeam server or update the host file on Veeam server.

[brupnick]

Good morning-

Is this beta still available? I tried to show it to a coworker the other day and received an error message saying that "Veeam Explorer for Active Directory Beta is expired."

Thank you!
Brian