Binding RALUS to a specific IP/Network?

[Patrick_Tavares]

The old Unix Agent had the "force_address" option which would bind the remote agent to a specific IP address. Does the RALUS have this or a similar option? We upgraded to the RALUS but have been unable to figure out how to force IP binding... it currently listens on the wrong IP address in our multi-homed machine.

Thanks,
-Patrick

[Vince_Anderson]

I agree with the previous posts - this should be a configurable setting, especially considering the fact that the agents are no longer free.

However, to work around this issue, we also had to "trick" the system on SuSE 9.x hosts. For the first nic, we set the hostname to the FQDN without a short name alias (for use on the "normal" LAN), and the 2nd nic to use the short name alias without the FQDN on the "backups" LAN. This causes VRTSralus to bind only to the nic using the short name on the backup LAN and works great.

BTW - once this is set this way, it still can fail - be careful the firewall is not getting in the way, as the agent uses dynamic ports once the connection is established. We added a FW_TRUSTED_NETS = ", tcp" to the SuSE firewall config file - may be different on FC4, etc. This reduces the complexity of the firewall config by allowing the backup serves access as trusted hosts. Hope this helps prevent someone else out there from banging their head on the wall trying to get these agents to work on multi-homed machines!
Vince

[marco_di_folco]

Hi,

Any news about adding the force_address option to RALUS?

We've hit this issue too and we cannot backup our multihomed Linux servers.

Thanks.

[infotek]

Every other daemon on my linux system can be instructed to listen on a specific interface.  Every single one of them...

Have your developers read the man page on bind(2)

  I purchased the RALUS clients because of security concerns in the older free product.  If symantec have hired contractors to implement its daemon without the ability to bind to specific interfaces,  am I supposed to believe they can code with security in mind?  unlikley...  Fix it or loose business.