Access Denied on backup jobs on archived File-servers

[Johnb]

We're getting random "Access Denied" erros in Backup Exec (10d and 11d) when running incremental and full backup jobs of our archived file servers (using enterprise vault file archiving).

This issue seem to be related to the archive attribute, which always seem to be present on the files that get "Access Denied".

Since this is happening only on our archived file servers, we think it's related to Enterprise Vault.

I've consulted both Symantec Backup Exec Support and Enterprise Vault Support regarding this matter, without getting anywhere.

Has anyone else experienced this issue?

Thanks
- John B. Tjelta

[CM]

   We are getting the error message too, did you manage to find a fix for this?

[Johnb]

We have unfortunately not found any solution to this problem yet.

We were adviced by our Symantec Enterprise Vault consultant to add an exclusion for the Backup Exec Remote Agent and Officescan Antivirus in the registry on the file servers but that didn't do the trick either - perhaps you'll have better luck?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE => SOFTWARE => KVS => Enterprise Vault => FSA => PlaceholderService:

Edit/Add the REG_SZ key "ExcludedExes" with the value "beremote.exe".

We also added the Officescan which gave the value: "beremote.exe; PccNTMon.exe".

Please post any valuable information on the forum. Perhaps we'll have better luck working together on this.

- John

[Johnb]

I did some further testing today regarding the Access Denied problem with our backup. Here is what I did/discovered:


I found a folder on one of the file servers which had 7-8 files that was archived by Enterprise Vault. These files had the EV shortcut icon, and they also had the O (Offline) attribute set. The folder also contained a single file with the A-attribute set. I created a full backup job in Backup Exec 11d to backup this folder. The backup method was the one we use on all our jobs: “Full – using archive bit (reset archive bit)”.

The job failed with the error message “access denied” and “file in use” on all the files that were archived (all the files with the O-attribute set). It did not fail on the file that had the A-attribute set. After the job had finished I checked the files again. All the files that had the O-attribute set before had the A-attribute instead. The EV shortcut icon was also gone. The file that had the A-attribute before had no attributes.

I ran the same job again. This time it didn’t fail on any files. When I checked the files afterwards – all the A-attributes were gone. None of the files had any attributes set.

What it looks like to me, is that Backup Exec can’t take backup of any archived files. It needs the files to be recollected from the archive before it can back them up. It also seems like Backup Exec actually do recollect the files by attempting to back them up, so the next time the job runs, they’re recollected and the backup job doesn’t fail.

I also suppose that this recollecting by Backup Exec creates “extra work” for the Enterprise Vault File archiving jobs since it has to re-archive all the files again. It probably also affects the file server during backup jobs since all files are put back on the server.

As far as I can see we have two options:

1. Create a pre-script that runs before backup. This script recollects all the files from the archive (removing the O-attribute). This should remove the access denied errors on our backup jobs. This does not sound like a good idea to me.

2. Discard all archived files from our backup jobs somehow. No files with the O-attribute are to be backed up by our jobs. All the archived files are backed up by the specified job for the Enterprise Vault.

[CM]

John,

Thanks for posting that information, we searched the backup exec high and low for ways to block out files marked with "o" the closest we came was to not backup anything over 18months old (Which is when we archive files).

However I spend an afternoon and deleted the registry key "Excluded EXE" and placed beremote.exe first, then out virus scanner (Mcafee) in there, rebooted and this seems to have got around the access denied message.

Could it be your AV uses another process besides PCCNTMON.exe, you could get filemon, set of a backup of an archived area and see which processes are hitting it, then add them into the exclusion list also?

Good luck!

[Johnb]

I think we just found a solution as well - but a different one!

We tried stopping the Enterprise Vault File Placeholder Service on the file server and running the backup jobs afterwards. This did the trick! I tried backing up a single folder, containing just one file (an archived file of course). The job completed successfully, and it looks to me like it backed up the EV shortcut for the archived file, since the amount of data isn't zero. The "size on disk" file size was about 4kb, while the backup job of the one file backed up about 8kb. The complete file size was about 200kb.

This means that we could add pre/post batch scripts for our backup jobs, stopping the EV Placeholder service before taking backup, and then starting it again afterwards. Something like:

net stop "Enterprise Vault File Placeholder Service"

and then:

net start "Enterprise Vault File Placeholder Service"

[CM]

Glad to hear you got it going in the end! :)

[Ash]

Hi,

Just a thought on this! You can run EVFSABACKUPMODE.exe from the enterprise vault program folder against FSA server before backup. This file can be copied to any other computer that does not need to be an enterprise vault server. The syntax is:

EVFSABackupMode.exe -backup <FSASERVERNAME>

and after backup run following:

EVFSABackupMode.exe -normal <FSASERVERNAME>

I hope this will work!!!!

Regards,

Ashish

[Johnb]

We tried running the EVFSABackupmode.exe but it didn't work for us. It might for someone else though.

Here's the link to the usage of EVFSABackupmode.exe:

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/287905.htm

- John

Message Edited by Johnb on 08-30-2007 02:22 AM