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Hostname in caps after 8.x client install

BeavisRulz1
Level 3

Hello,

Does anyone know the registry key that the 8.x client looks at for the hostname/computername during the install process?

When our clients/servers are built, we use capital letters to keep everything consistent in Active Directory. On the flipside, we've always used lowercase for the name when we added the client to a policy, to make everything lowercase inside NetBackup. (I know, kind of petty, but that's how we like it)

With NetBackup 8.x, clients are added to the new "Host Management" & "Certificate Management" screens in the admin console. Even though we enter the client/server name in lowercase during the client install, somehow they show up in the "Host" column in uppercase instead.

As far as I can tell, when the client runs the certificate process during the install, it must be looking at a registry key for the hostname/computername, and since we named the box in uppercase during the Windows OS build, the NetBackup client is using it for the certificate registrations instead of the lowercase name that we manually input during the client installation.

So, if there is a registry key that the client install is grabbing the hostnam/computername from, we could change it to lowercase before we run the NetBackup client install, and then hopefully it would register with lowercase also in the Security Management screens.

I've attached screenshots of what I am talking about. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Larry

8 REPLIES 8

sdo
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I don't know for sure, but I would have thought that NetBackup would be using its own name resolution services/routines/code embedded within the application, which most probably reaches out to DNS - e.g. what does this command show on one of the problem clients, uppercase ?

bpclntcmd -self

On my test Windows 2016 standalone (non-domain joined) client I get a lowercase name from that command, and I get a lowercase name from "hostname" too.

And on a prod domain joined Windows 2012 R2 backup client, I get a lowercase name from bpclntcmd -self, and I get a lowercase name from DNS, yet I get an uppercase name from the "hostname" command.

.

Also consider what does the Master Server think the client's name is, i.e. if you run this command on a client, it effectively asks the Master Server... "who do you (Master) think I am ?" :

bpclntcmd -pn

 

Here's what I get from running both commands:

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin>bpclntcmd -self
gethostname() returned: KHWTTEST1011
host KHWTTEST1011: khwttest1011.domain.com at 172.27.xxx.xxx
host KHWTTEST1011: khwttest1011.domain.com at ::1
aliases: khwttest1011.domain.com KHWTTEST1011 ::1 172.27.xxx.xxx
getfqdn(KHWTTEST1011) returned: khwttest1011.domain.com

C:\Program Files\VERITAS\NetBackup\bin>bpclntcmd -pn
expecting response from server masterservername
khwttest1011.domain.com khwttest1011 172.27.xxx.xxx 55617

 

sdo
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Below is from a domain joined test NetBackup Client v8.1.1 on Windows 2016.

You get upper and lower case in different places to me :

> hostname
ZZZBK013

> bpclntcmd -self
gethostname() returned: zzzbk013.zzz.int
host zzzbk013.zzz.int: ZZZBK013.zzz.int at ::1
host zzzbk013.zzz.int: ZZZBK013.zzz.int at 10.12.xxx.xxx
aliases:     ZZZBK013.zzz.int     ::1     10.12.xxx.xxx
getfqdn(zzzbk013.zzz.int) returned: ZZZBK013.zzz.int

> nslookup 10.12.xxx.xxx
Server:  zzzdc001.zzz.int
Address:  10.12.yyy.yyy
Name:    zzzbk013.zzz.int
Address:  10.12.xxx.xxx

> bpclntcmd -pn
expecting response from server zzzbk002.zzz.int
zzzbk013.zzz.int zzzbk013.zzz.int 10.12.xxx.xxx 60982

.

I checked my hosts file on client and it's empty, and the master server does not use hosts entries for clients.

Could you check your hosts files on client and master ?

If that doesn't throw up anything, then we'll need someone on the inside at Veritas to hopefully inspect the code and maybe suggest what it might be about your environment that could be causing this for you.

Same boat, nothing in HOSTS files on either server or client.

Thanks. Maybe someone from Veritas can chime in.

 

Marianne
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On my own laptop with NBU client installed, the NBU Client_Name seems to correspond with 'hostname' output. 
Same as hostname in  this Registry entry: 
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters

sdo
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@Beavisrulz are your DNS names in uppercase?  My DNS names are lowercase.

Jim_MD
Level 3

My understanding NBU and other managment tools should comply with internet standard RFC4343 (and others)  all DNS  names (hostnames) are case insenesitve.    https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4343

One place I used to work for I tagged windows  by using Upper case and *nix as lower case.

 

X2
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@BeavisRulz1From my experience, the uppercase in certificate names comes from CLIENT_NAME property in NetBackup client (which is probably taken from hostname of the Windows server - for which the sys admins have the habit of using upper case). Run /usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd/bptestbpcd -verbose -client <clientame> from master server. It will give show you the CLIENT_NAME property.

I used to check and then change it to lowercase from NetBackup Administratio console > Host Properties > Clients > client properties

Once I saw the pattern in our Windows deployment, I gave a script to our Windows sys admin to change the name in NetBackup configuration to lowercase. No worries after that for upper case client name.