SharePoint (MOSS) Server Farm not detected using Windows 2003 R2 64 Bit OS and BackupExec 11d 64 Bit

[Michael_Ellis_2]

Setup

Running Backup Exec 11d (latest version) with HF6 on a Windows 2003 R2 64 Bit server.  I have installed the 64 Bit version of BackupExec 11d.

All of SharePoint services are installed on a single server that points to a remote SQL server.  I am running SQL 2005 SP2 (not MSDE) on Windows 2003 R2 64 Bit server.  SharePoint also is running the same OS.

All of the servers reside on our private network and communications between them are not affected by a firewall.

To make it easy until I got it working I am using my default BackupExec service account.  During the troubleshooting process I verified that I had configured the backup server correctly using the Administrator's Manual.

My BackupExec service account is a Domain Admin, a local admin on all servers in the SharePoint Farm and the backup server, has been granted full admin rights in SharePoint and on the SQL server and Databases.

When I attempt to discover a SharePoint Farm or attempt to add the Farm manually the farm is not discovered and get an access denied.  I have sent the logs to support (I have a contract) and have done everything they have asked and they have not discovered the problem.

I have attempted the discovery while running the services with the debug switch and sent those logs to support also still nothing has been found.

If I attempt to discover a SharePoint installation that is installed completely on one server including SQL the discovery succeeds.  That installation was done on a Windows 2003 R2 32 Bit OS.

Any help would be appriciated.

Message Edited by Michael Ellis on 09-12-2007 07:57 AM

[MrBuskin]

Some Questions:
1)    What Version of Sharepoint, by MOSS im assuming 3.0 or 2007 Portal
       a) This link may be applicable
              http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/289711.htm

2)     When selecting the Sharepoint Server are you looking at the SQL Backend or the Web server (Sharepoint Resources show up under the SQL)

[Michael_Ellis_2]

1.  I am using a 2007 Portal

2.  I am entering the name of the web frontend server.  When browsing to the SQL directly the SharePoint databases are selectable for a regular backup.  When databases are part of a farm they are not selectable for a regular SQL server backup.

[ttocyard]

I am having an almost identical problem! Have you found a solution to this yet?

Please Help

ttocyard

[The_Dude]

This sounds like the problem I'm having as well:

https://forums.symantec.com/syment/board/message?board.id=115&thread.id=21074

Are you running the x64 version of MOSS 2007?

[Michael_Ellis_2]

No solution yet.  I have "support" if you can call it that.  My ticket is with the Backline Engineering team and I just sent them an email asking if they expected to resolve my problem before the next release.

Still waiting for the reply.

[Thomas_McGeown]

Hi,

I am experiencing identical problems however with a 32 bit environment. 

Backup Exec Server: Windows 2003 Standard 32Bit, Backup Exec 11D 7170 (with Hotfix 6 installed)
MOSS Web Front end server: Windows 2003 Standard 32Bit, MOSS 200732Bit, Latest Backup Exec agent + AOFO
MOSS Database server: Windows 2003 Standard 32Bit, SQL 2005 32Bit, Latest Backup Exec agent + AOFO

All servers are fully hotfixed for all products.

The Backup Exec service account is full admin on all the servers, and is Site Administrator in MOSS
I have also attempted to authenticate using the MOSS service account with the same results and with my usual domain administrator account.

Anyone get any progress with this?

Tom

[Michael_Ellis_2]

No change still broke.

[Thomas_McGeown]

"Fortunate" enough to have a support contract with Symantec so have sat though the torturous on old music, flaky telephone line and frustrating phone menu system for the last 30 minutes and logged a "Major" case.

Should have a call back in 8 hours, but its pretty much guaranteed to be outside of any normal humans working hours (you'd think a call centre could conceptualise time zones hey!?).

With a bit of luck within an hour I’ll be able to convince the 1st line support guy I know how to move a mouse and get passed onto someone with some knowledge about the product - I’ll update the thread if I get a solution!

The day Veritas was sold to Symantec was a dark one.

Tom

[Michael_Ellis_2]

Tom,

I also have support and my case has been open for 2+ months with no resolution in sight.  My ticket is with the "Backline" or the "Back Burner" team which is the name I prefer.

Mike

[Thomas_McGeown]

RESULT!
I've made some progress in getting towards the root cause of this... without the assistance of Symantec support still awaiting the call back from them! "Major" obviously has a different meaning to me as it does to them!

Short explanation:
Seems to be an issue with having two NICS on different IP's with IIS set to use (All Unassigned).

I've had a fair bit of experience troubleshooting problems with Backup exec, as a result of their terrible support I have had to teach myself to use their advanced troubleshooting and debugging tools.

So I fired up SGMon, the Backup Exec Debug Monitor to try and have a look at the communications between the server front end, the backup exec database and the client on MOSS.
When trying to add the MOSS Server farm I can see the server talking to the database and retrieving its stored record for it. This succeeds.
The Server then attempts to communicate with the client - at this point i noticed it was trying to establish the connection with alternative NIC - x.x.x.200 address instead of the primary NIC x.x.x.89.
The .89 was a manually configured IP while the .200 was DHCP.
Obviously the DNS was issuing the .200 address over the .89 because of the link between  DHCP and DNS in Windows server environment.
So I did the following:
1. Went to the MOSS server and disabled the second NIC.
2. In IIS on the MOSS server manually configured the IP address the websites were being served on to the .89 address instead of (All Unassigned)
3. Opened Backup Exec Remote Agent Utility on the MOSS server and enabled Remote Agent Publishing and reduced the Publishing Interval to 5 Minutes.
4. Rebooted the server.
5. On the backup exec server opened the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file and added lines for the server simple name and the servers FQDN
6. I Ran an ipconfig /flushdns.
7. Restarted the Backup exec server.

After this I was able to add the server farm with a domain admin account and am currently running a backup!

Some of these steps are probably unnecessary - but this is how I got the **bleep** thing working!

I am still not happy with the setup – it is currently working with a Domain Admin User account and not a service account for example, but I will work these issues out as I continue to test.

Again I want to express my discust at the level of support offered by Symantec and the fact that after serveral months their support cannot work this out makes me seriously doubt if i can reccomend renewal of our support agreement when it comes up.

Hope this will help some of you out.

Tom

[Michael_Ellis_2]

I am glad you made progress, but Microsoft required me to multihome my web frontend servers.  I will work with my IIS settings and see how that goes.  I have already made entries in my hosts file.

Thanks for providing something that makes sense to try.  Symantec has not been much help in fact this is the first year I have had "support" what a waste of 20K.  Next year I will see if I can get my boss to sponsor me in the WSOP with the 20K at least that way there is a chance of a positive return on the investment.

Mike

[Thomas_McGeown]

Gonna set up the teaming for redundancy on that second NIC, should have been set up like that to start anyway, and see if that works OK with back up exec.
Would be nice to see if this is the same problem for others too, that way we can at least tell Symantec what they need to fix and they can publish a work around in the meantime.
But given that my 8 hour call back "Major" incident SLA is now broken, 24 hours since i placed the call, I imagine it will take until the next major release of Backup Exec before the issue is resolved. Terrible service.
Is anyone from Symantec out there with the backbone to respond?

[Michael_Ellis_2]

I still cannot detect my MOSS 2007 installation.  I am going to run my remote agents with the debug switch set and run SGMon again because I have made alot of changes and need to see if my error message has changed any.

[Thomas_McGeown]

Well I have successfully got my backup working with my NIC teaming setup - didnt think it would be a problem.

However I am still only able to connect to my MOSS with backup exec using my Domain Admin account. My service account has full admin over all local machines in the farm and is full administrator within MOSS.. really not ideal.

let me know how your SGmon goes, would be intersted to see if youre error has changed.

What changes have you made?

[Michael_Ellis_2]

I did not run SGMon yet, but here is my last SPSWrapperV3 Log.  It seems that my farm is detected but cannot build the topology.  I get an access denied error and the account I am using is a Local Admin, Domain Admin, a DB Owner in SQL, and Farm Administrator in MOSS.  I have installed MOSS as a single server and it works.  The log below is when a backend SQL 2005 server is used instead of a local SQL 2005 or SQL 2005 MSDE.

There is not a firewall between SharePoint and the backend SQL server or the backup server.  I have enabled remote connections over TCP/IP and named pipes using the Surface Area Configuration tool in SQL 2005.

Let me know what you think.  All of my SPSWrapper logs have the same error since I enabled it in August so my changes have not done anything.

[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:40 *************************************************************************
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:40 * VERITAS Backup Exec SharePoint Portal Server v3 Agent Debug Log       *
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:40 *    Date-Time:        Wed Oct 03 08:11:40 2007                         *
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:40 *************************************************************************
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:40   Security initialized for multithread.
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41  Establishing FarmType ..
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41 This is farm identified as  a Portal
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41 Request received.
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41   Request to execute a Get Topology(0x00000001) command.
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41   Command: 0x00000001
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41 ::Build Farm Topology
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41   Start
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41 Inside SPIsThisServerAWebService()
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41 Returning True from SPIsThisServerAWebService()
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:41 Inside Build Lists
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Inside GetBackupRestoreObjects()
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Getting BackupRestoreObject SharePoint_Config
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Inside GetBackupRestoreObject
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Found Configuration database SharePoint_Config
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Getting BackupRestoreObject Windows SharePoint Services Web Application
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Inside GetBackupRestoreObject
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Found SPWebService Windows SharePoint Services Web Application
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Getting BackupRestoreObject WSS_Administration
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Inside GetBackupRestoreObject
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Found SPWebService WSS_Administration
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Getting BackupRestoreObject SharedServices1
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Inside GetBackupRestoreObject
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Found a SharedResourceProvider Name is SharedServices1 ID : d9876284-f674-41a5-804b-b4300aec5dd9 DisplayName: SharedServices1 iBR.ToString(): SharedResourceProvider Name=SharedServices1 Parent=SPFarm Name=SharePoint_Config
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Processing child SharePoint - 80
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44   Failed to build the data for topology backup
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44    Exception !!
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

   at SPSManagedWrapperHelper.SpsManagedWrapperV3.b(SPBackupRestoreObject A_0)

   at SPSManagedWrapperHelper.SpsManagedWrapperV3.GetBackupRestoreObjects(SPBackupRestoreObjectCollection list)

   at SPInteropClass.BuildLists()
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44 Reply buffer for the Get Topology(0x00000001) command.
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44   Status: 0x00000bf1
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44   Waiting for Reply Empty Signal...
[ffffc028] 10/03/07 08:11:44   ...reply emptied.

[Thomas_McGeown]

Looks like the agent is trying to find something that is not yet created in youre MOSS farm.

Is this a live server with sites created? If not try creating a dummy site and adding some test data to it.
Other than that it seems odd, its looking for an instance of an object that has not yet been created, but the error doesnt really tell you more than that. A symantec support person would be usefull at this point.

[Michael_Ellis_2]

It is a functioning server farm with content.  I have some success with SharePoint 2003, but no joy with MOSS unless it is a single server installation.  I have installed MOSS on one server and point it to a backend SQL server and it will not work.  There are no firewalls between the backend SQL and the MOSS farm.

[Thomas_McGeown]

Sounds like a very similar environment to myself, with the only difference being you're running in a 64bit environment, but i doubt this ahs anything to do with it.
Do you search indexing configured?
whats the distribution of your services?

[Thomas_McGeown]

frontend
Central Administration
Office SharePoint Server Search
Windows SharePoint Services Help Search
Windows SharePoint Services Incoming E-Mail
Windows SharePoint Services
Web Application
sql
Windows SharePoint Services Database
This is ours - i presume yours is something similar (servernames changed)