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After restore of media server unable to login to domain

corona
Level 3
Hi all,

i need some help on this. I have setup 4 machines. 1 as netbackup master server, 1 as doman controller, 1 as 32bit windows media server and another as windows 64bit media server. All 4 machines were in the same domain. After a full system backup of the 2 media servers i did a traditional recovery. That is to rebuild the OS and then install netbackup binaries follow by full system recovery.

The restore went on fine and both completed successfully. But after recovery i did a restart of both media servers and then i tried to login it says "Windows cannot connect to the domain, either because the domain controller is down or otherwise unavailable, or because your computer account was not found". The domain controller is up and running but i can't seem to login anymore.

Also has anyone notice this thing. When i launch BAR on master server and i browse for files to restore for windows 32bit machines i can see option to restore local drives and Shadow Copy Components but when i browse for those Windows 64bit machines i can only see option for local drive but unable to see Shadow Copy Components? Both machines have been configure to include ALL_LOCAL_DRIVES and enable Add all directives to the backup selection list option.

Have anyone encounter this error?

Best rgds,
KCK
6 REPLIES 6

ahlip
Level 5
How did you do the "traditional recovery"?

For Media server, typically you should just re-install the OS, install NBU and restore the Media server catalogs.

The Media server error you are hitting is definitely a windows issue, if you are restoring system state on top of the running OS, then I do not think that is supported.

corona
Level 3
Hi Ahlip,

i did the traditional restore based on the below.

1. Reinstall the media server on a fresh OS installation using the extact computer name and disk layout structure.
2. Install netbackup binaries.
3. From master server i trigger the full system restore.
4. From master server the restore status is 100% successfull.
5. On the media server i can see that the full restore has "put back" the rest of the media server programs like winzip and data.
6. Proceed to restart Media server.
7. After Media server restarted i was unable to login as the last full backup is done when the media server is part of the windows domain.
8. But i can login locally if i change the logon option to Local Computer.

Am i right on the above steps? If i have did it wrongly please kindly correct me. Before the days of BMR this has been the way i used to recover windows server.

Another question what was "restore the media server catalogs" that you referred to? I did the reinstallation of the media server and proceed shortly to full recovery. The master server still holds the catalog content of that media server.

Best rgds,
KCK

Stafford
Level 4
I'm guessing that when you re-installed the OS you added it to the domain?  What you did was create a new computer account with the SID of the new OS install in your domain.  Then you restored and put it back to the old SID and AD is basically saying 'who the hell is this computer?'.  Remove it from the domain and re-add it, might need to wait a couple minutes after you remove it.

Typically during the restore process of a Windows server you really only need the base OS, patched to a minimum level (I usually do same SP and IE version, time permitting), then just the NBU client.  No need to add it to the domain prior to the restore.

corona
Level 3
Hi Stafford,

thanks for the point on SID. I did tried to remove the computer entry from AD and then at the media server level i disjoin and join back to the domain. In this way i was able to login back to the domain. Is this the general step that you would do if you were to recover a windows server which is part of a domain?

Actually during the restore process i only restore the windows OS and install netbackup binaries. I did not join the domain at this point. I simply go to master server and push down the binaries as the new media server appears under WORKGROUP. After full restore it becomes part of the domain because the last full backup but just unable to login.

Just another question. Even if the newly installed media server has a different SID or UID but when a full system restore is done with overwrite everything option enable doesn't it replace the newly built machine with the extact machine configurations as of the full backup? In this case i would not encounter this issue right?

Thanks again!

Best rgds,
KCK

Stafford
Level 4
If you did not join the domain after doing a base OS install prior to the restore then AD should have the same computer account/sid that it had prior to the failure which is what NBU should put back. 

corona
Level 3
Hi Stafford,

yes what i did is extactly what you mention but apparently it's not working that way. Nervertheless i will log a case with symantec support to clarify on this point.

Best rgds