NetWorker works mainly on hostname's. In case it is not able to resolve a IP to its respective hostname else the backup for the respective host will fail.

incase you don't have a DNS, you could always use the hosts file for name resolution. NetWorker does nto mind if its your OS is looking up the DNR entry or the hosts file entry as far as there is hostname to IP and IP to hostname resolution.

HTH.

I may have not made my question clear sometimes I don't.

The situation...

I can successfully ping the hostname of the client from the networker server.

nslookup on the client hostname is successful from the networker server.

(reverse) nslookup on the IP address of the client from the networker server fails.

I did try adding the hostname to the hosts file and that did not fix the issue.

Without the PTR pointer the client backup fails with "Hostname resolution failed"

When I add the PTR record for the client backup is successful.

So my question is why does networker need reverse lookup PTR record needed and \ or what does networker use the PTR pointer record for for?

Is there a change I can make so that the PTR pointer is not needed for successful backup?

Thanks

Yes, you can change - DNS :-D  It is simple security mechanism to prevent certain types of spoofing and keep away wanna be hackers to access data which is supposed to be protected.