DFS data on W2K3 R2 Server not backing up

[John_Terribili]

There are no errors to report at all. However, any directories that participate in DFS replication do not have any data contained within them backed up. This has only started happening after the installation of SP2 for 10d and hotfixes 42, 43 & 45. When attempting a restore and browsing to the directories participating in DFS, no data is available for restoration. This happens with Full and Incremental jobs. If I stop the DFS Replication service (using pre/post commands option), I am able to backup the data and have verified that all data is available for restoration. Please advise. Stopping the DFS Replication service is not an acceptable work-around.

Again, there are no errors generated by our backup jobs indicating that data is not backed up!

Thank you for your prompt assistance!
-John

[Greg_Harshenin]

I'm also experiencing problems with backup/restore of DFS data from W2K R2, and am interested if you've had any luck with this. I'm running BE for Windows 10.1 Rev 5629 with SP2 and Hotfix 43 installed.

I'm also looking for any documentation on the "correct way" to backup the DFS data.

ie: A backup was created to back up some DFS data under
\\w2k3R2servername\d:\maindfsfoldername\*.* /subdir
but the data doesn't appear to be restorable.

Should the DFS data primarily be backed up via:
Shadow Copy Components -> User Data -> Distributed File System Replication -> DfsrReplicatedFolders ?

I tested backing up 1 folder under the DfsrReplicatedFolders, but wasn't able to do a redirected restore of it. Instead, got this error (V-79-57344-65072 - Connection to the restore target has been lost. Operation canceled.) and had to restart the BE services.

All of this isn't giving me much confidence in Backup Exec 10d...

Would love to discuss this with Ken Putnam - an old friend in these forums. :)

[John_Terribili]

Hey Greg...unfortunately, no, I have not been able to resolve this. I am temporarily getting around this issue by using pre/post commands to stop the DFS-R service whie the backup is taking place and then starting it after the backup has verified. This is working for us temporarily, but in no way do I deem it to be a permanent workaround. I am running 10d with SP3.

I will be calling into Symantec support today to try and get an answer and if I do, I will post back with some information.

Here are my pre/post commands:

net stop "DFS Replication"
net start "DFS Replication"

Enabled these options as well:
-Run post-command only if pre-command is successful
-Run post-command even if job fails
-Run post-command after job verification completes
-Run these commands on each server backed upMessage was edited by:
John Terribili

[Hywel_Mallett]

There are a whole host of problems/changes with DFS with the latest SPs.
See http://www.backupexecfaq.com/faq/problems/dfs-backup-and-performance-issues.html

Basically you can do it the new slow way, and accept some limitations, or the old fast way, but accept that your BE installation is not "properly" up to date. Or you can use pre and post commands to start and stop DFS, as already mentioned.