Avamar 19.7: PDM fails with 404 error after upgrade due, preferences.dtd are incorrect

Summary: After upgrading to 19.7, the Proxy Deployment Manager (PDM) fails with a 404 error due to incorrect permissions on the preferences.dtd file.

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Symptoms

After upgrading to 19.7, PDM fails with:

Error while fetching tasks. Failed with HTTP error code: 404 additional information
HTTP Status 404 - Not Found.


Error while fetching tasks

Cause

This error can be associated with wrong permissions on the file:

/usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd


Confirm the issue by checking the connectionmanger.log and the deploymanager.log

Connectionmanager.log is shown below.
 

2023-01-18T15:41:57.410+0000 INFO  [ost-startStop-1][util.MCCipherUtil#getDocument]: getDocument: mcserverXMLFile:/usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/mcserver.xml
2023-01-18T15:41:57.412+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][util.MCCipherUtil#getDocument]: getDocument fail: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:41:57.412+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][   util.MCCipherUtil#cryptValueByXPath]: Decrypt failed at: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:41:57.412+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][util.MCCipherUtil#   getResultValue]: Error found for decrypt: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:41:57.413+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.RabbitMQUtil#ConnectionFactory]: getConnectionFactory Exception====
2023-01-18T15:41:57.413+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.RabbitMQUtil#ConnectionFactory]: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:41:57.413+0000 INFO  [ost-startStop-1][             util.RabbitMQUtil#ConnectionFactory]: cf.isSSL():false

 

The following is seen at the end of Deploymanager.log. 
2023-01-18T15:42:03.262+0000 INFO  [ost-startStop-1][util.MCCipherUtil#   getResultValue]: getResultValue:rabbitmqAP
2023-01-18T15:42:03.262+0000 INFO  [ost-startStop-1][             util.MCCipherUtil#cryptValueByXPath]: xPath://entry[@key='rabbitmqAP']
2023-01-18T15:42:03.263+0000 INFO  [ost-startStop-1][util.MCCipherUtil#      getDocument]: getDocument: mcserverXMLFile:/usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/mcserver.xml
2023-01-18T15:42:03.265+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.MCCipherUtil#      getDocument]: getDocument fail: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:42:03.265+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.MCCipherUtil#cryptValueByXPath]: Decrypt failed at: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:42:03.265+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.MCCipherUtil#   getResultValue]: Error found for decrypt: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)
2023-01-18T15:42:03.266+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.RabbitMQUtil#ConnectionFactory]: getConnectionFactory Exception====
2023-01-18T15:42:03.266+0000 ERROR [ost-startStop-1][             util.RabbitMQUtil#ConnectionFactory]: /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd (Permission denied)

Resolution

1. On the Avamar as root, check the file permissions:

ls -ltrh /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd

The result looks like this:

-r-------- 1 admin admin 4.5K /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd

2. Change the permissions of preferences.dtd.

chmod 444 /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd

The file permissions now look like this:

 r--r--r-- 1 admin admin 4.5K /usr/local/avamar/var/mc/server_data/prefs/preferences.dtd

3: Ensure that no backups are running, then restart the tomcat service:

emwebapp.sh --restart


The Proxy Deployment Manager can now be used to re-deploy proxies.
If the proxies were not deployed recently, there wont be any option to upgrade them in PDM.
Deploy them manually and delete the old proxies.

Related KB:
Avamar: Proxy Deployment Manager (PDM) fails right away with: "Error while fetching tasks. Failed with HTTP error code:404 additional information" HTTP Status 404 - Not Found

Article Properties
Article Number: 000208959
Article Type: Solution
Last Modified: 10 Jun 2025
Version:  5
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