Cannot create TFS backup plan, permission issues in a non-domain setup

Question

I am trying to create a backup plan for my TFS 2010 server. This TFS server (MRSPOCK) is *not* part of a domain. My backup destination folder is a shared folder on a Windows 7 Professional PC (SCOTTY). However, during the readiness checks I get the following error:

[ Grant Backup Plan Permissions ] Account MRSPOCK\Administrator failed to create backups using path \\SCOTTY\Backups
[ Backup Tasks Verifications ] Account MRSPOCK\Administrator failed to create backups using path \\SCOTTY\Backups

The first results Google provided me was related to the backup folder having a space in its name, but mine hasn't. From what I gathered I assume the problem is due to the fact that my MSSQL service account does not have enough rights to write to that folder. When I tried to backup to a local folder this succeeded without issues. But of course, the point of backups is that they are not made to the same PC. :-)

Unfortunately I don't know how I can do this as I cannot access the users of the other PC. Is there something I'm missing, or is there a workaround for my issue?

Answer 1

Hi Jensen, 

Thanks for your post. 

 

Do you mean that the MRSPOCK\Administrator account has enough permissions on SCOTTY machine?

Try to set the backup path on your MRSPOCK machine, like \\MRPOCK\Backups, then recreate the Backup Plan again, can create correctly?   

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John Qiao [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

As far as I can tell, yes the account MRSPOCK\Administrator has enough permissions. When I log in on MRSPOCK using Remote Desktop, I can browse to the SCOTTY\Backups folder, (I need to log-in of course), and I can create files and folders on the shared drive. I took a screenshot of the share settings: http://bit.ly/HUUQxB

Only the TFS backup tool seems to be unable to create anything on it.

Answer 3

Hi Jensen, 

Thanks for your reply. 

 

Yes, I agree with you that this issue relate to TFS Power Tools.

It seems that you  are not the only customer who occurred this issue, please refer to Fgza’s and Pradeep’s replies in the last of this similar post: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfspowertools/thread/add75f6f-2fab-4124-9e6a-5b3ca04deb74.  

For this scenario, you can submit it to Microsoft Connect Feedback portal at: https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio. Microsoft engineers will evaluate them seriously. 

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John Qiao [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us