Backing Up Exchange Mailboxes

[gb21park]

Have read articles 266177 & 261150. When first installed Veritas advised us to just back-up the Public Folders and not the mail boxes. This worked for a couple of months, and now the back up of the public folders is failing with the A000848c code, "unable to atach to one of the devices". Article 261150 provides a "fix" so that I can go back to trying to back up the mailboxes, but now it says the user is not authorized. We have not changed servers, passwords or any other major configuration items. The authorized user is the Administrator who is a memeber of all the right groups. I don't know what else to try.

[Sheetal_Risbood]

Hi,

When is the above mentioned error generated? While accessing the mailboxes or it is seen is the job log after the backup fails?

Are you able to backup the Microsoft Exchange Information Store successfully ?

Try creating a new user and make it the Backup Exec service account. Create a unique mailbox for this account.
Send some mails to this account for activation.
Also, ensure that the mailbox is not hidden in the GAL.


Try rerunning the backup using the new account and check out the results.

Let us know the further updates on the progress.


NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to answered questions pool.


Thanks.

[gb21park]

I thought I sent you a reply, but I either didn't, or I don't know how to get at it. The error msg. is generated during the back-up process. Yes, the Exchange Store is backing up.

I did try to set up a new user with all the "right rights", and I still can't change the configuration of the back up either. According to article 261150 I am properly configured to back up the mailboxes, but I can't if I don't have the rights to select them. When the original tech was installing it, he spent hours on the phone w/Veritas and could never get the mailboxes to back up properly. He was told that backing up the public folders was all we needed to do, and now they are causing the error.

Thanks for you initial reply

[Ken_Putnam]

Public Folders and Mailboxes are two different things
To ensure that you can recover, you need to be doing Stores Backups along with your Public Foldre backups. All that Mailbox backups give you (aside from headaches) is the ability to restore one mailbox or one message rather than having to restore the complete store and then extract what you want

[gb21park]

That's good to know, but I'm still getting the failure on the Public Folders that I wasn't getting before. The "unable to attach to device" in the back-up log. It was working when we first set it up and just now started to fail.

[Ken_Putnam]

Domain Admin should have rights to all files etc, but unless the mailbox associated with the DomainAdmin id has explictily been granted rights within Exchange, will not be able access Exchange Resources like Public Folders and Mailboxes.

If you are not doing a "Connect As" for Exchange, but rely on the rights for the BackupExec Service account, try loggin on to the Media Server as the Service Account.

Can you see all the public folders?
Can you attach and open all Mailboxes?

[gb21park]

I changed the backup exec user using the instructions in article #266075, per another letter I read from someone having the same problem. Using this new user, yes, I can view the mailboxes and everything. Does this mean my back-up should not fail tonight?

[Ken_Putnam]

Should work. Let us know.

[Dave_Bunye]

Rights you need:

- Full Exchange Rights
- Full rights to a mailbox which is visible on the global list
- Owner level rights for public folders in some cases

As long as you can now view and enumerate all the mailboxes and public folders, you should be fine now. Just keep in mind the above rights requirements next time you cannot access the resources.

[Renuka_-]

Hello,


1. Please update us if the problem persists.


2. Please perform the following suggestions to troubleshoot an "Unable to attach" error when trying to backup/restore Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:



1. Ensure that the job is being created while logged in as the Backup Exec default logon account.
2. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account mailbox is not hidden.
3. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account has Domain Admin and Local Administrative rights.
4. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account has Service Account Admin rights at the Site level in Exchange.
5. Verify that mail can be sent to and from the Backup Exec logon account mailbox.
6.Verify that the logon account user is visible in the global address list.
7. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account has Exchange full rights at the Site level in Exchange.
8. Ensure that the account is unique. i.e the first four letters of the name of the account are unique.


Also please refer to the following technote to help in resolving the issue:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/266075




NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to the ‘answered threads’ pool.

[gb21park]

Unfortunately, it still did not, In the back up log, the Final error still says 0xa000848c, then final resource errors, and then the same unable to attach to MS Exchange Public Folders. Any other ideas?

[Dave_Bunye]

Without scanning this entire thread again, did you make sure you have mounted all the public folder stores? Have any names changed which would cause a an existing job selection of Public folders to fail while looking for a non-existant folder?

[gb21park]

The public store IS mounted. I'm not sure what you mean by name changes? What names might have changed?

[Dave_Bunye]

By name change, I mean a change in a Public Folder name from "Public Folder 1" to "Public Folder A" would cause a job to fail if it was still set to look for "Public Folder 1".

Also, if your job is set to backup "Public Folder 1" and that folder has since been deleted, the job will also fail since it no longer exists to attach to.

Also, confirm your account still has rights to the folder. It's always possible rights have been changed on purpose or by accident. My account is set as Owner of all public folders.

[gb21park]

I'm sorry, I clearly don't know what I'm doing. No, no folder names have changed. I created a new user, gave it more rights than GOD (with a name unlike any other in the GAL per another answer I got) and I can't get the back-up to recognize it, and I also cannot get it to appear in the GAL. The system wants to use the default account of Administor, which has always worked in the past, but it does not appear in the GAL, nor is the name Administrator unique, because there are groups with the same name. Honestly, Exchange Server was thrust upon me with absolutely no training and I'm not having much luck. I looked at the last time the back up worked successfully (about a month ago) and I don't see any changes. What else can possibly be wrong?

[Renuka_-]

hello I has sent you the following response before, please verify that you have followed all the steps provided, because you have stated in your last response that the user is invisible in GAL and also is not unique. So please make it unique and make it visible in GAL.



Please perform the following suggestions to troubleshoot an "Unable to attach" error when trying to backup/restore Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes:



1. Ensure that the job is being created while logged in as the Backup Exec default logon account.
2. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account mailbox is not hidden.
3. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account has Domain Admin and Local Administrative rights.
4. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account has Service Account Admin rights at the Site level in Exchange.
5. Verify that mail can be sent to and from the Backup Exec logon account mailbox.
6.Verify that the logon account user is visible in the global address list.
7. Verify that the Backup Exec logon account has Exchange full rights at the Site level in Exchange.
8. Ensure that the account is unique. i.e the first four letters of the name of the account are unique.


Also please refer to the following technote to help in resolving the issue:
http://support.veritas.com/docs/266075





NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be marked assumed answered and would be moved to the ‘answered threads’ pool.

[Dave_Bunye]

Ok, to get something to show in the global list, just make sure the "Hide" option isn't selected. Verify this setting by going to the user account in AD, go to Exchange Advanced tab (you may have to activate Advanced view under the view menu item in AD) and confirm it is not selected.

Sometimes Exchaneg can take hours, even a day or more, to update the global list. It all depends on how active the server. You can force an update by restarting the Exchange services, but that has obvious issues for your users. :)

When you create a job, you can change the login accoun for the jobs by going to the credentials node and switching which logon account to use per resource. You can also go to Network/Logon Accounts and make the new one your default if it would work with all the other resources you are backing up. Generally though, if you try to create a job and the logon account will not work, it should prompt you for a new one.

[Amruta_Purandar]

Hello,

Please refer the following technote and verify if the mailbox is visible in GAL.
Title:
How to remove the "Hidden" attribute from Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 mailboxes so that the mailboxes will be available to the Global Address List for backup purposes
http://support.veritas.com/docs/243328

Additionally refer the following technote.
Title:
Backup Exec cannot back up Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes which are hidden from the Global Address List.
http://support.veritas.com/docs/232086

Revert with the results.

NOTE : If we do not receive your reply within two business days, this post would be marked ‘assumed answered’ and would be moved to ‘answered questions’ pool.

[Sheetal_Risbood]

As per our previous reply, marking the case as assumed answered and moving it to answered questions pool.