Manual FSA Agent install fails

[iternity]

Hello,

I get an "Access is denied" error when I try to remotely install the agent on a file server. The Deployment check says the file permissions are ok, e.g. that the vault service account has the local admin rights on the filre server. I was then advised to install  the fsa agent manully.

I ran vcredist_x86, then the FSA agent .msi installer (x64). The first problem I am noticing is with the credentials. Neither the vault service account nor the domain account is accepted. Only if I type in Administrator by itself will it work. This behavior is regardless if I am logged in as  local admin, domain admin or vault service account.

During the install, I get a message "Couldn't create service" for the File Collector Service. It does install the other two (Placeholder and Blocking) fine and they can be started. But the installation does not succeed and a cancel will remove the two running services as well.

Any advice on this? We have the following VMWare setup:

- DC is Server 2008, SP2  Standard 64bit; has the SQL Server 2008 64 bit
- EV 8.0 SP2 is on Server 2003 R2, SP2 Standard 32bit
- File Server is on Server 2008 Standard 64bit

From the EV machine I can access the C: Drive on the file server (and shares if  I gave permissions for vault service account) as well as the registry.

thanks!
bjorn

[Nick_White]

I've actually seen the same problem recently. When you created the OS installation did you do it via SISPrep and if so, did you select the generalize option? I suspect that you might have a problem with the SID in the OS being the same as another server that was generated from the same sysprep image as that definitely causes the local admin addition problem

[iternity]

I don't know SISPrep (so answer is probably no), but I am pretty sure it was cloned in VMWare from another system (somebody else set it up). So if I reinstall the OS from scratch the SID should be fine, right?

[Nick_White]

If it was cloned then the SID is the problem. (I meant sysprep, non sisprep!) You can get hold of an app called newsid that will change the SID, but note that you will need to add the server back into the domain when it has a new SID as the security token for the computer domain account is based in part on the SID

[iternity]

We had actually recently discussed this. The program is no longer available from sysinternals:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897418.aspx

[Nick_White · Accepted solution]

I'm 99% sure that's going to be the problem, so if newsid isn't available then you will need to find some other way of changing the SID. Sorry I can't help any further but that should definitely fix your problem

[iternity]

Ok, found newsid somewhere. In retrospect, after glancing over Mark's article, I think I may have been ok with just changing the password (I have been using the same pw on all accounts).

Unfortunately, newSID seemed to have hosed the machine a bit. I get a message thta the Recycle bin is corrupt and the FSA Agent installer seems to hang.

The bright side is that I was able to re-add the comp to the domain fine and I was able to add the evault1 user as local admin. It now stays in the list, so I think you are right that it was an SID problem.

I am in the process of installing a new system and hopefully it will work fine then. I'll let you all know.

In the mean time, thanks to Nick, juggernaut1 and JesusWept2 for their suggestions, it was greatly appreciated.

bjorn

[iternity]

Nick, you can up your guess from 99 to 100 percent concerning SID. Everything is working fine now.

Thanks again for your help!

bjorn