Can Rapid Recovery backup machines over a VPN connection?

We are allowing workers to stay home for weeks or months now. I am not getting backups while the users are on a VPN connection from their home to our office. Is this even possible? And if it is, can you suggest things that may be preventing successful backups?

  • Here are my thoughts but we don't use any VPN's on our sites so this information is from previous work (not related to RR) The application has no knowledge of what is between the agent and the core so I would not expect a vpn to affect the application itself. But vpn's create private networks between points so you have to make sure the ip/ route between the core and agent can be resolved and a connection made. How this is done depends on the vpn you use, so I would contact the vpn vendor as a first step

    It may help if you treat it like a normal network/ route issue. Check ipconfig, ping, nslookup, tracert etc. You will probably find these are not what you expect due to the vpn software

  • is definitely right. You have to treat the VPN as if it is any other network and make sure all the ports are open for the core to contact the agent that's on VPN. Usually by default VPN's don't allow unsolicited communication from the prod network to the VPN network. So definitely start with checking the routing and the ports. For agent based backup you specifically need 8006 for communication and 8009 for data transfer (https://support.quest.com/kb/119905/default-ports-used-by-appassure-and-rapid-recovery).

    The other piece is DNS. I assume you have the machines protected via their hostname. When they connect to the VPN is their DNS entry being updated and is the core then able to ping that machine via hostname? If DNS isn't updating dynamically then the core won't ever be able to connect to the machines because it can't ever locate them.

  • Well, thanks so much. I have enough to chew on for a while! I will pass along the results when I have them.