Remote Controlling Syncrify Client

Remote Control is a feature available in the Syncrify Client Service application. This feature is NOT available when you use the Integrated client. Click here for more information about different types of clients.

Prerequisites of using Remote Control

• The build number of the Syncrify client must be newer than 657
• Windows service client is installed. This feature does not work with the Integrated Client, which has now been deprecated.
• Ensure remote control is enabled. Click Options under the Tools menu in Syncrify client and then check the box for Remote Control

Benefits

Remote Control allows administrators to:

• Manually trigger a backup on a client machine from Syncrify server's web interface
• Fetch log and configuration file from the client machine allowing administrators to troubleshoot problems.

Steps to use

• Log in as admin to Syncrify server's web interface
• Click Remote Clients under Quick Links
• Click View details next to the desired client
• The next screen display profiles configured on this client
• Click Run now to trigger a backup.

Important information

Keep the following information in mind when using this feature.

• A manual backup can take up to a minute to actually start when triggered from the server's web interface.
• The Syncrify client can connect to more than one server to run backups. However, remote controlling can be done through one server only. Consider an example where Syncrify client runs profileA to serverA, profileB to serverB and profileC to serverA.
  
  In this example, only serverA will be able to remote control the client. Syncrify client picks serverA for remote control because it appears in two profiles, whereas serverB is used in one.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

Following is a list of reasons why you cannot see a Client under Remote Clients:

• Backup Monitor Service is not running on the client. A service on the client's end pings the server once every 60 seconds. You won't see a client on the server's web interface if this service is terminated
• The service on the client looks at the configured profiles to determine the server's URL. Ensure the URL in these profiles is correct. Often users end up creating test profiles specifying an incorrect URL. These incorrect URLs can steer the service not to connect. Therefore, do not create test profiles with incorrect URLs for the server.
• Refer to $DATA_FOLDER\logs\BKServ.log on the client's machine for errors