Could you clarify what you mean by agentless? This could mean differrent things in different contexts.

Thanks Anderson for the reply.  It is in the context of adding vCD vApp VMs using Avamar proxy.

Adding clients under the vCenter configures them for image level (agentless) backups. The procedure for configuring VMware image backups is documented in the Avamar VMware guide.

I don't think I've understood the question.

Then how do I backup the machine at the image level using Proxy from Avamar Admin Console GUI and from MCCLI?  After adding the vCenter I can browse to all the vCenter VMs in the Avamar GUI and be able to add if it is not added already.  For image based, how would I add a machine irrespective of whether it is added at Agentbased level or not?

If you backup a VM using VMWare plugin, you shouldn't need to install the Avamar Client inside the VM.

In some cases, you need to protect also applications inside the VM, like SQL. In that case, you must install the client inside the VM, activate with the server and configure the backup (you don't need filysystem backup here, only the application).

Using the default configuration, Avamar Server will not allow activation of the client within the VM because there's a machine activated with the same name (inside the vcenter domain). You must enable "allow_duplicate_names" to be able to activate the machine.

Open with a text editor mcserver.xlm (/usr/local/avamar/mc/server_data/prefs/mcserver.xml)

find "allow_duplicate_names". Change from "false" to "true"

Restart mcs service (dpnctl mcs restart)

The full process is discribed in "Avamar for VMWare". Take a look.

You do not need to set allow_duplicate_names unless the clients will be activated into the same domain.

admin@testgrid01:~/>: mccli client add --name=clientA --domain=/clients 0,22210,Client added Attribute Value ------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- clientid 149347c646d903c0306e0fb7ce33c36fd2e254ab fullName /clients/clientA admin@testgrid01:~/>: mccli client add --name=clientA --domain=/ 0,22210,Client added Attribute Value ------------------------------ ---------------------------------------- clientid bd4ce86fe9ad3d845f30dc368603550c36185dc2 fullName /clientA admin@testgrid01:~/>: mccli client add --name=clientA --domain=/clients 1,22238,A client with this name already exists and duplicate names are prohibited. Attribute Value --------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- data      ERROR: Host named: (clientA) is already registered as /clients/clientA

Thanks Anderson for the info.  I think I am getting to it now more closer.

I have two independent  vmware environments with two vcenters and two avamar proxy servers. When registering virtual machines for image level backup (Import Multiple Clients) I cannot add servers with the same vmware name although they are in different vmware vcenters. When one of them is registered the other one is grayed in Select Virtual Machine. I set allow_duplicate_client_names option to "true" but that didn't help.

Yes I restarted mcs but it didn't help. However  I managed to register both virtual machines using mccli. So my problem is solved.

thank you.

When registering virtual machines for image level backup (Import Multiple Clients) I cannot add servers with the same vmware name although they are in different vmware vcenters.

This is a slightly different case since a vCenter isn't a true Avamar domain. It's a special case and it's handled somewhat differently.

I set allow_duplicate_client_names option to "true" but that didn't help.

Did you restart the Administrator Server (MCS) after making the change?

While logged into the utility node or single node system as the admin user with keys loaded, you would run:

dpnctl stop mcs

dpnctl start mcs

Hi ianderson

We have client with the same hostname reside in vCenter domain and  backing up as VM Image. Now the customer want to install agent + database plug-in so they can backup database. From your statement above, "

You do not need to set allow_duplicate_names unless the clients will be activated into the same domain.". 

In this case vCenter and client domain is different, but still do not allow this. How do we tackle in this kind of scenario?

Enter the Avamar server domain [clients]: /DomainA avagent.d Info: Stopping Avamar Client Agent (avagent)... avagent.d Info: Client Agent stopped.                      [  OK  ] avagent Info <5008>: Logging to /usr/local/avamar/var/avagent.log avagent Error <7531>: Unable to register DamainA/client1.corphq.com with Administrator avamarnode1:28001 '* 115 * nodename cannot be registered because it already exists in another domain' (115) avagent.d Info: Client activation error.                   [FAILED] avagent Info <5008>: Logging to /usr/local/avamar/var/avagent.log avagent Info <5417>: daemonized as process id 19400 avagent.d Info: Client Agent started.                      [  OK  ]

If you don't wish to continue backing these clients up using the agent, the easiest thing to do will be to retire them. If you wish to continue backing up these clients using the agent, you will need to enable duplicate names. The instructions are given further up the thread:

Re: How to enable multiple activations for single machine (Agentless and Agent based)

Edit: Grammar

From the GUI:  I go to the VCenter domain>>New Clients>>Select the VMs to add from the VCenter cluster, but it returns the following error in the attachment.  Essentially, the VMs that are giving me a challenge were registered previously, but with the agent.  Now I would like to protect them from at the VM level.  Thanks, and let me know if that makes sense.

There's not enough information here for me to help.

What command did you run or GUI widgets did you click to generate that output?