Retrospect 6.5 and clients

[disteinborn]

I recently installed Retrospect 6.5 professional on my Windows XP Pro system. I updated the clients on the two networked computers that I also backup with this software. One computer is recognized and can be backed up. The other client can't be added to the list of current clients. Retrospect can "see" the client when I use the "test" feature on the add clients dialogue but it can't add the client. I would appreciate any suggestions that Dantz has on how to fix this.

[natew]

Hi

 

Try disabling the firewall on the problem client. If that works we can set up the firewall to let Retrospect through. What are the network connections like on this machine? i.e. are you using internet sharing or a VPN or anything?

 

Nate

[kpurcell]

Well,

 

I have this exact same issue. But both machines (server and 1 client) are behind a firewall not between them unless there is something running locally on the client as a firewall. Doesn't have zone alarm or anything I aware of.

 

Help!

[disteinborn]

Nate:

 

Thanks for your suggestion. The client uses McAfee's sottware firewall and that firewall is configured to let the Retrospect client communicate over the network (it worked fine with version 6.0 and its client). The network is a standard TCP/IP network with a cable/dsl firewall/router functioning as a DHCP server. The computer that is running the main program has the current version of ZoneAlarm Pro on it and that is also configured to allow Retrospect to communicate. I can still ping the client computer with Retrospect and it sees it and sees that it has the Retrospect Client on it. I just can't add it as a "client" to the list of network clients to be backed up.

 

I will try disabling the firewall on the client to see if that makes a difference.

 

[natew]

Hi Ken

 

Please post some info about the OSes you are using and the network connections

 

Thanks

Nate

[disteinborn]

Folks:

 

I made two changes to the client computer. First, I uninstalled (removed) the software firewall. Second, I changed the computer's name in the network. After rebooting the client computer, the host computer is able to add it as a client for Retrospect and Retrospect is able to back up this client. I don't know which change was critical or whether both were required.

 

Dan

[natew]

Hi

 

The firewall was probably it. However there are EXREMELY rare cases where a computer's name can cause problems.

 

Nate

[jhg]

See the "can't see client" thread on the Networking/Clients forum.

 

[is there a way to add a link to another thread?]

 

The solution has to do with the client not responding to multicast, and explicitly binding

the client to the network adapter with 'retroclient -ip nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn'

[natew]

Hi

 

There are a lot of things that can prevent clients from not being seen. The most common (as in this case) is a firewall.

 

In other cases you have to bind a client to an IP address because the OS routes multicast to the wrong adapter. Firewalls usually don't change this routing they just block the packets.

 

Nate