OSMonaco Posted November 11, 2009 Report Share Posted November 11, 2009 Hi all, I've got some issues with my retrospect SBS 7.6 install on an SBS 2008 server. (Sorry in advance, I'll translate all the messages from french) 1st : The software doesn't launch automatically when the backup must start. 2nd : Most of the system files (system state / logs / ...) can't be backed up because file access is denied. 3rd : When I close retrospect, I've got an error telling me that it has encountered a big problem and will add data in "assert_log.utx" (which I never found), and ask me if I want to inform EMC. When I close this message, it appears a second time. 4th : I can't select mailboxes for the backup (only first and second storage group), when I click on it, it asks for a login/password, but accepts any... I have got in the event viewer, ID 7030 Retrospect assistant service is marked as interactive but the system is configured for not allowing interactive services... I have got also ID 3, My Script has terminated with xxx errors... Please see my different messages : http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=6e35b8f6a7fd353dd0d290dca69ceb5c4fd5fd8cc10d4a4677b784fef9ed9be3 Thanks a lot in advance for your help!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted November 17, 2009 Report Share Posted November 17, 2009 I am having the same issues 1 and 3. Retrospect recognises the exchange server and the mailboxes but I can not back it up. It seems to quit retrospect when you try. So I have a similar but not the same problems 2 and 4. I contacted EMC and they said SBS 2008 is not really supported as its 64bit. They gave me a beta release to try but that doesn't work either. I've found if you leave retrospect open on the server it will backup some of the system files and any non system files but I have not found how I can successfully backup exchange. I have followed this: http://kb.dantz.com/display/2n/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=9633 But still no joy. I would love to get to the bottom of this and get backups working again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted November 17, 2009 Report Share Posted November 17, 2009 (edited) The beta version EMC provided me did fix the issue 3 when you close retrospect but it still does not start to execute scheduled tasks. http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/31789/post/128116/hl/sbs+2008/fromsearch/1/ Edited November 17, 2009 by Guest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted November 17, 2009 Report Share Posted November 17, 2009 Hi, for one of our backup servers we are using Retrospect Multi Server 7.6.123 on Windows 2008 Server Standard (x64) without problems. We do not use Exchange and storage is an iSCSI target and SAS attached LTO4 drive. We run Retrospect under its own account (not administrator) and we have it running all the time, so it doesn't need to start up when needed. So we do not experience you issue nr1. 2nd issue we do not get, because it doesn't backup the Retrospect server itself. We do this with another backup solution. We also do not get your issues 3 and 4... I realise this post will not help you much, but at least we can conclude in a certain setup (like ours) it is possible for Retrospect to work on Windows 2008 Server x64. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSMonaco Posted November 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2009 Yatcher, you wrote "I would love to get to the bottom of this and get backups working again.", so at the beggining your backups were OK ? Did the pb started when you have activated the exchange licence ? I wonder if it was the case for me, because it seams to me that I didn't have the error message when closing retrospect in the first tries... Ramon88, thank you for you information, but your configuration is totally different, so I don't think it's possible to compare. The only thing that can help, is the fact that you don't have exchange. As I told to Yatcher, maybe issues are comming from the Exchange add-in ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 Sorry by working again that might of been somewhat misleading. They were working with the previous sbs 2003 server I had not had success with sbs 2008. Eventually after setting up the correct rbu account and loading the patch and exchange 2007 support I have got retrospect to backup the server and exchange. The problem is it won't run the scheduled tasks unless retrospect is left open and the server logged in. I have even tried to update to retrospect 7.7 but the same problem occurs. How can you get retrospect to run automatically without the server being logged in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 Yatcher, did you check your Preferences?: Under "Startup": check "Enable Retrospect launcher service" check "Automatically launch Retrospect" Under "Security": Fill out the fields for: "Always run Retrospect as the specified user" (use a correctly privileged user). Actually we run the Retrospect user always logged in and remotely control it by RDP because they are always rack mounted servers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 The preferences are all correct. The launcher service is enabled but it does not work. I have specified a user to run retrospect as at it has the correct permissions. I know this as the RBU account was setup specifically for backing up the exchange and works correctly if retrospect is left open. THis is a problem if the scheduled tasks do not run automatically if the server is rebooted or logged out for some reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 I'll see if I can test this with one of our servers. If it does work it might be a problem with SBS as we do not run that. We're still running 7.6.123 btw, not sure yet if we will try 7.7 before some kinks get patched by EMC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 Okay, checked... I can confirm scheduled tasks do not get executed when not logged in with Retrospect running. Seems like a bug in Retrospect 7.6.123. The workaround is not logging out the Retrospect user and have Retrospect running al the time. Coincidentally this is the way we always have it running. What is troubling is Yatcher's conclusion this also happens with 7.7... So might be a bug for that version as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 When I initially reported this issue with EMC support they claimed it was because Retrospect was not compatible with 64bit windows(this was with 7.6) which is why I assumed with 7.7 which supposedly has 64bit support the problem would be resolved. I'm guessing its more an incompatibility with UAC or using alternate credentials on the service account. If anyone has any ideas or possible solutions though I'd love to hear them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rlshew Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 Could the autolaunch problem in SBS be because User Access Control requires Windows Services: Retrospect Launcher Properties set to run under the same account that has privileges to run Retrospect SBS? (in the service's Properties tab) This morning, on our new server, I discovered a similar problem with autolaunch of Retrospect Single Server 7.6 in Win Server 2008 x64. In Retrospect's Preferences, autolaunch is selected and Run As is specified to run in the admin account, as I did in Server 2003, but this might be insufficient in 2008 where User Access Control (UAC) might be interacting with Retrospect. I also noticed that the Retrospect Helper service is set by default to run in the Local account. Does anyone know if this has to be set manually to run in a specified admin account also? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 14, 2009 Report Share Posted December 14, 2009 Yeah, I do feel the problem is UAC related. Robin, is there anything you can comment on this issue? We know the workaround, but is it on the bug list? And can you confirm this is still an open issue for 7.7? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 15, 2009 Report Share Posted December 15, 2009 I tried changing the credentials on the retrospect launcher service as suggested in this thread: http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/32591/ I changed it from the local service account to the RBU account. I then closed retrospect and left the server logged in as a different local administrator account. Retrospect did start the scheduled execution this time however retrospect didn't open as expected it ran in the back ground and was inaccessible until the execution finished except through the activity monitor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 15, 2009 Report Share Posted December 15, 2009 I tried changing the credentials on the retrospect launcher service as suggested in this thread: http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/32591/ I changed it from the local service account to the RBU account. I then closed retrospect and left the server logged in as a different local administrator account. Interesting, I'll ask our systems engineer to test this. Retrospect did start the scheduled execution this time however retrospect didn't open as expected it ran in the back ground and was inaccessible until the execution finished except through the activity monitor. This is normal behaviour. What happens is that Retrospect will be executed in the background and you can't access that task through the desktop. This is due to the way Retrospect is built. Its gui is apparently not separated from the engine so to speak. I do feel this is a bit of an ergonomic problem in some cases. This is one of the reasons we leave the session in Windows open and Retrospect running for our backup servers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 16, 2009 Report Share Posted December 16, 2009 I tried changing the credentials on the retrospect launcher service as suggested in this thread: http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/32591/ I changed it from the local service account to the RBU account. I then closed retrospect and left the server logged in as a different local administrator account. Interesting' date=' I'll ask our systems engineer to test this.[/quote'] I've been told by our systems engineer we have one backup server running Windows 2008 Server STD with Retrospect Multi Server 7.6.123 which is installed under the admin account. This server has no trouble whatsoever executing backups even if Retrospect's frontend is not running. Another similar system, which has Retrospect running from a non-administrator account, can't do this and needs Retrospect's front end to be logged in and running. Ehrmmm... Myth confirmed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 22, 2009 Report Share Posted December 22, 2009 The problem now with changing the credentials of the launcher service to the RBU account created as per these instructions: http://kb.dantz.com/display/2/articleDirect/index.asp?aid=9633 Is that because you setup retrospect now to run as the logged in user instead of using the security option if retrospect runs while open it uses the wrong credentials. This is a catch 22. Retrospect won't start if you change the credentials but you need to to backup exchange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 I have tried everything now and I can't see a way of solving this problem and I seem to have hit a brick wall with retrospect support, plus now they have gone on holidays! I've tried using the ACT kit to try and disable UAC for retrospect but I can't seem to get that happening: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd562082(VS.85).aspx http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=635 I've tried to make some changes to UAC without disabling it as this would cause problems: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709691(WS.10).aspx The only way I can get backups to run is to log into the server as RBU and either leave retrospect open or change the credentials of the launcher service to RBU. Neither of which is 100%. Has anyone out there come across this and has any better solutions? I know it isn't just a one off as I can replicate this issue on all my sbs 2008 boxes. How do you backup an SBS 2008 server including exchange with retrospect? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 We might have to wait for Robin to adress this. I'm sure he's picking this up. He should be fairly busy with the new release coming out recently. Some workarounds you could use: You could try to resort to Windows Backup for the Exchange part and maybe backup those backup files with Retrospect? Or you could try to set up the box to autologon as Retrospect and have it startup automatically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poorman Posted December 23, 2009 Report Share Posted December 23, 2009 You might be able to get the background backups working the way you want by configuring Retrospect to "Run Retrospect as the logged-in user" and changing the login user for the Retrospect Launcher service to be the user you'd like Retrospect to use. I believe that "the logged-in user" actually means the user-id that is associated with the process that starts Retrospect. When you're at the keyboard interactively Retrospect is started by the windows shell (Explorer.exe), which is running with the credentials you logged-in with. Background executions of Retrospect are started by the Retrospect Launcher service, which defaults to running as the special "LocalSystem" account. If you explicitly tell Retrospect to "Always run Retrospect as the specific user" then the Launcher Service has to do special things to start Retrospect under a different user than the service is using. This runs afowl of the security enhancements that Microsoft has intentionally added (starting in Vista, several years ago), which prevents the background execution from starting unless you completely disable UAC. There's more discussion of this in the threads at http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/32591 and http://forums.dantz.com/showtopic.php?tid/32600. -- Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 24, 2009 Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 I tried changing the credentials of the launcher and helper service to RBU and then setup retrospect to run as the logged in user. It did kick off the backups automatically and you could see in task manager the processes were running as RBU. The retrospect monitor shows the backups running along. Problem is when it finishes there is no log of any backups in the history and the catalogues have not been updated. Also the email alerts do not work. The backup sets become unusable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 24, 2009 Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 It seems to bomb out when it trys to backup exchange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted December 24, 2009 Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 Ramons solution seems to be the best work around at this point. Exchange backup appears to be the problem, until retrospect can back it up I will need to find an alternative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yatcher Posted January 4, 2010 Report Share Posted January 4, 2010 Still no word from support and no success with the backups. Does any one have similar problems or better yet success backing up SBS 2008 or exchange 2007. I'd love to hear from someone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted January 5, 2010 Report Share Posted January 5, 2010 Are you using 7.7 with the RDU update? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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