After the appliance is deployed at a customer location, you can begin to download and install the agent software on protected systems.  

Role of the agent

The agent is software installed on a protected system. The agent performs the backup and sends the backup data to the local appliance. Consider the following important notes about the agent:

• The agent software must be installed on each system that needs to be protected.
• Backups of protected systems are image-based.
• Supported platforms include most Windows workstation and server editions.
• You can install and uninstall agent software without the need to reboot the target device, reducing the impact to the customer environment.

Agent requirements

Each protected device you support must meet the minimum recommended requirements. The following configurations are supported by the agent: 

Supported Configurations

*Microsoft no longer supports this operating system. Although x360Recover can perform backups, support is limited to basic troubleshooting and diagnostics.

**Only the Active Cluster member in the DAG group will receive a VSS-aware backup of the message store. Passive cluster members will receive a crash-consistent backup. This is a limitation of the Microsoft Exchange VSS Writer.

Important notes

Please note the following:

• Image-based backup and recovery can be a network-intensive operation. x360Recover does not recommend deployment on networks slower than 1Gigabit between the BDR and the protected system.
• x360Recover does not support the backup of NTFS volumes shared between multiple services using Microsoft clustering.
• x360Recover expects a standard Windows partition layout. Uncommon configurations (like custom OEM partitions, boot volume not on Disk 0, C drive not on a primary partition, etc.) might prevent successful virtualization.
• x360Recover does not support recovery scenarios where multiple volumes exist on a single disk (for example, C and E on Disk 0). During recovery, each Windows volume will be created on a separate disk.
• Most supported operating systems can be virtualized, except for XEN Server Virtual Machines with XEN-Tools drivers. XEN-Server 7.x+ paravirtual drivers are incompatible with the KVM Hypervisor used by x360Recover.
• x360Recover currently does not support bare metal recovery onto systems that utilize Windows-only drivers. These drivers are typically embedded motherboard RAID controllers on very low-end servers or mid-range workstation devices.
• The x360Recover Bare Metal Restore Wizard cannot recover systems with multiple Windows volumes on a single physical disk (for example, C and E on Disk 0). 

Prerequisites

As an administrator, you will install the agent onto each protected device that you support. Before you begin, complete the following prerequisites for each protected device:

• Uninstall third-party backup agents.
• You must uninstall previous backup agents before installing the agent. Backup agents from other products can interfere with the ability to properly access VSS writers and successfully create backups.
• Record the IP address of the appliance.
• During the agent installation process, you will be prompted to enter the IP address of the appliance.
• Check license availability.
• The agent will not back up a protected system without a license. Log in to the appliance and check to be sure you have a license available for the protected system. To add or remove licenses, visit the Licensing Portal.

TCP Ports

• 9090-9200 is required if a firewall exists between the agent and the appliance.
• 15000 internally is required for virtualization.
• 860 and 3260 internally is required for an iSCSI connection to the appliance.

Install the agent 

You can download the agent from the Login screen of the appliance, or from the Download tab within the appliance Web interface.

Whichever method you choose, access the appliance from a Web browser on the machine where you want to install the agent.

You will also be prompted for an optional list of disk volumes to be protected. 

We recommend explicitly specifying disk volumes in a comma separated list (for example, C,D,E ) to prevent the accidental inclusion of unwanted data in your backup (for example, an attached USB disk).

1. From the target machine, open a Web browser and navigate to the Appliance Web interface.

2. Click the Download Agent link.

3. When the file finishes downloading, launch the file to start the Setup Wizard. 

Click the Next button to begin.

4. After reading the agreement, select I accept the agreement. 

Click the Next button to continue.

5. Accept the default installation folder. 

Click the Next button to continue.

6. When prompted, enter the appliance IP address. 

This is where you will be prompted for an optional Lock password. 

If you enter an optional lock password, the appliance will prompt users before a system recovery. (This lock password is not yet used for Recovery Center or Virtual Office, but will be included in a future release.)

Click the Next button to continue.

7. When you are ready, click the Install button to begin installation.

8. When installation completes, click Finish to exit.

9. After several minutes, the appliance web interface will display the newly protected system in the Protected Systems tab.

Exclude an agent from anti-virus scans

Modern antivirus solutions (especially heuristic-based solutions like Sentinel One) are highly complex. They are also paranoid in their efforts to protect your systems from malicious actors. (Rightfully so!)

By their nature, backup agents interact with a system at a low level, using elevated privileges necessary to capture complete data protection. This sometimes causes backup agents to cross paths with antivirus software actively looking to prevent bad things from happening to your system.

Axcient strives to interoperate with all major antivirus vendors, and we perform extensive testing wherever possible. But wild and crazy things still happen from time to time.  In the rare event that you need to explicitly exclude your antivirus utility from scanning the x360Recover agent, you may make the following exclusions to your scanning settings.

• How to add an exception to Sentinel One for Axcient products

Exclude the agent installation folder

The simplest way to exclude the agent from antivirus scanning is to exclude the agent installation folder entirely.  

By default, the agent installation folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\Replibit

Be aware this location may have been changed during installation.  

The agent installation path can be found in the Windows Registry at

 HKLM\\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Replibit\Agent

If you wish to make a more targeted exclusion rule, exclude the following files inside the agent installation folder from scanning: 

agentservice.exe

efsvss-2003-x64.exe 

efsvss-2003-x86.exe 

efsvss-2008-r2-x64.exe 

efsvss-2008-r2-x86.exe 

efsvss-2008-x64.exe 

efsvss-2008-x86.exe 

FastDelta.exe

frandle.exe

ManagementService.exe

uefi-check.exe

xcloud-analysis-tool.exe

UpdaterService.exe

xcloud-analysis-tool.exe

You must also exclude the Analysis Tool, which is within a subfolder of the agent installation folder:

AnalysisTool\AnalysisTool.exe

Exclude AutoVerify / bootVM checks

During the nightly boot check, a communications driver is injected in the system image to create a COM port for communicating between the running VM and the appliance.  

On rare occasions, some antivirus scanners block the installation of this driver and prevent Autoverify operations from completing successfully.  

To prevent antivirus scanning from interfering with AutoVerify operations, add a scanning exclusion for:

C:\Windows\System32\axcomsvc.exe

Note:  This file is not installed into the production environment. It is only deployed temporarily during nightly boot checks within the virtual machine image, and discarded afterward.

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• Contact Axcient Support at https://partner.axcient.com/login or call 800-352-0248
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