Backs Up only some of the mailboxes in Exchange 2003 Informatoin Store

[Dieter_Tontsch]

I am running Backup Exec 11d (60 days trail version yet) on w2k3 SRV SP1 and am backing up Exchange 2003 SP2. I am backing up the Information store consisting of 4 Storage Groups with one or two Stores. I am wondering why it looks like the whole storage group is backed up but I guess that only osme of the mailboxes are able to be restored in case of need. when I am going to Restore and select the last bakced up Infomrmtion Store I see all the stores, but when I expand them in one only on mailbox of about 30 is offered to be restored, on anotherone all of them are available and on two of them none is shown.
the backup was ended with status succesfull, still I can not see in the log any details about which mailbox was backed up since I actually backed up the Information Store and not single mailboxes.
Any idea why not all mailboxes can be restored or where I can enable advanced loggin in order to see which mailboxes are backed up in order to be properly restored or not?

this is what it shows me in jopb history log:

Family Name: "Media created 12.12.2006 23:00:05"
Backup of "\\xxxxx.yyyyy.com\Microsoft Information Store\CER Storage Group "
Backup set #1 on storage media #1
Backup set description: "DailyBackup"
Backup Method: Full - Database & Logs (flush committed logs)
Microsoft Exchange Server Agent: Started
The option to enable the restore of individual items from the database backup was selected for this backup.

Backup started on 13.12.2006 at 04:00:48.
Backup completed on 13.12.2006 at 04:33:00.

-----------------

Backed up 2 Exchange Server stores
Backed up 10 Exchange Server logs
Processed 21.602.247.154 bytes in 32 minutes and 12 seconds.
Throughput rate: 640 MB/min



It also does nowhere tell me the amount of data it backed up, so I am not sure whether the whole store was backed up or just parts.

Thanks in advance,
Dieter Tontsch

[Garen_Keshishia]

Holy sh!t are you serious?

Do Symantec employees know the differece between a PST file and Information Store?

[James_Pirie]

Peter,

I read with interest your doc 286823 and this is the issue I have. The users I have with the same details through the General, Account, E-Mail Addesses and Exchange General Tabs appear in my restore list for the storage group.

My question is what are the implications of making changes to the names in Active Directory Users and Computers and which tab entry would I have to modify?

The following does not show:

General Tab - E-Mail: james.pirie@domain.com
Account Tab - User Logon Name: james@domain.com
E-Mail Addresses Tab - SMTP: james.pirie@domain.com
Exchange General Tab - Alias: james

Jeffrey mentioned some problems may occur.

Regards

James

[Dieter_Tontsch]

Peter, this is cool but does Symantec realy believe that one will go thorugh and change all LegacyExchagne DN's for all user attributes? If this is mandatory they would have mentoined this in advance since the mail attribute is actually the primary mail address or replay address. This can cange someitmes, but the legacyExchangeDN is composed form the Alias you give an user at creation time, usually the uid, which is fine for me.
They can't expect that one screws his AD just because of this thing. I have sticked back to legacy mailbox backup in addition to IS backup without this cool new not working feature.

[Peter_Burgess]

Hey, I agree 100% percent.

If memory serves me correctly, the LegacyDN is the one that Outlook "remembers" and uses in it's address book. So if I change user 1's DN and then user 2 tries to send an email to user 1 (hitting control K to populate the name) chances are that mail won't get routed correctly.

Now, like I said, I haven't thought about this since I had a similar problem with BE9 a few years ago so I may be completely wrong.

But yes, I agree with you. We shouldn't have to jump through hoops just to get a bunch of data on to a tape. Backup software really is the 1 thing that needs to be 100% reliable. BE hasn't been 100% reliable since... well, pick any version number below 8.

[sly_upah]

I may have gotten it to backup every box with GRT, but it still doesn't restore. I noticed that in my selection list, i was only able to see about 70% of the mailboxes that existed on the server. I restarted the remote agent on the exchange server and changed the credentials for the remote agent service from local system to the privileged account that was supposed to be able to backup the mailboxes. After i did that, i was able to see all the boxes in the restore selection list. Wasn't able to restore an individual message, but at least they all showed up this time.

someone please try this and let me know if you have the same success, or if you can even get the restore to work.

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Sly, I'm seeing the exact thing that you are with restoring individual messages from GRT backups. I'm not having the issues related to Active Directory because my alias names are the same as my default email addresses and login. But after successfully backing-up my Exchange 2003 SP2 IS using GRT for individual restores, I can only restore the header and subject line. The rest of the message is 100% blank. Also, if I restore attachments (regardless of size or type), they are always corrupt when I try to open them from the restored message.

And before a Symantec rep chimes in about if I have already installed HF2 and HF6, please don't waste my time with a stupid question such as that.

All in all, I think we all will have several more weeks/months of frustration before all of this 11d mess is resolved. For the time being, I'm simply using the legacy method to backup my mailboxes.

Ken

[Dieter_Tontsch]

Ken,

since I still have different legacyExchagneDN's and mail addresses I do not even bother yet with the GRP thing. I sticked to legacy mailbox backup, but I never restored one since 11d, can you confirm that restore using legacy mailbox backup works at least?

Cheers,
Dieter

[Dieter_Tontsch]

Which other kind of comparable (in positive sense) backup-software do you suggest? On the other hand I am using BE since 8.6x or just used that before jumpt to 11d due to a complete upgrade of my environment here in Germany, and at lteast I can handle this. Sticking to something different again changes everything, but do you have some suggestion which is worth testing it?

Thanks,
Dieter

[Philip_Pearson]

I have the service account on the agent running as the same user as the backup exec account, it has full access to exchange and has a mailbox. I can backup up the store, mailboxes and restore at individual email level, I don't know what I did that was different to others but it just works for me.

Countless other issues though

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Dieter, I'm having no issues with legacy backups and restores. Of course, the legacy backups are terribly slow, but I know that they can be trusted. Indeed, the ONLY reason I upgraded to 11d was the speed promises of GRT backups. We all know where this has gotten us, however.

Ken

[Dieter_Tontsch]

Thanks Ken,
well let's hope they will fix it in a few month. I've upgraded to 11d because I have upgraded all the rest of my IT and thought I shoudl go to the last versoin, I was running beofre on 8.7somthing or so

Cheers,
Dieter

[sly_upah]

Ken,

are you able to restore from legacy mode backup for exchange?

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Yes, I can successfully restore using ONLY the legacy method. This is true for B2D and tape. I am running HF2, HF6 and HF8.

Ken

[sly_upah]

I have not seen HF8 anywhere. also, when i restore, i get an error

Restore- \\\Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes Unable to restore any content for *user* because the Microsoft Exchange database that hosts that mailbox is offline or the mailbox doesn't exist.

with a general final error

Final error: 0xe0008488 - Access is denied.
using the same credentials i used to back up the items.

that is the same error i get when trying to restore using GRT. i bet if i got this resolved i could restore from GRT also.

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

HF8 is simply the recent driver update. The only reason I have included it in my previous post is because I have found that when communicating with Symantec on this board, you MUST include EVERY single item possible as a sign of documentation.

[sly_upah]

when you delegate exchange control, does it make a difference if the user is granted exchange full admin via group membership, or do they need to be directly listed in system manager?

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

It has always been my practice to grant my Backup Exec account full rights from within the Microsoft Exchange System Manager under the security tab of the IS. Doing this will always give you the correct permissioning.

Ken

[sly_upah]

i have given the account full control over the entire server and mailbox store in exchange manager, and still nothing. still get access is denied. the same account used to work in backup exec 10

[sly_upah]

It would seem that it is indeed a security issue. I was able to restore using legacy mode to the mailbox on the service account, but not to the account that it was backed up from. i'm going to try a GRT restore of another message and see if it restores.

[Kenneth_Sheppar]

Sly, I'll be somewhat surprised if you're able to restore mail items using GRT. I've had no issues with the legacy method, but after 4 different network/server installs with 11d, I've not been able to get one server to successfully restore GRT data from tape or B2D. I even went to the extent of formatting a server hard drive and installing ONLY Windows 2003 Server SP1 and Exchange 2003 Server SP2. No other apps or software were installed and BE 11d with all updates would NOT restore GRT data. Maybe I was using the wrong type of keyboard or mouse...

Yeah, I'm frustrated.

Ken Sheppard