CrashPlan updated to 4.3.0, now will not connect

[stualden]

For anyone else with problems similar to me, here are the steps I used to get it working:
1. Stop crashplan plugin in GUI
2. Stop crashplan jail in GUI
3. Replace value <jail path>/var/lib/crashplan/.ui_info with .ui_info from client computer
4. Make following changes to <jail path>/usr/pbi/crashplan-amd64/share/crashplan/conf/my.service.xml
i) Change xxxx in <location>0.0.0.0:xxxx</location> to match value in same file on client computer
ii) Change xxxx in <servicePort>xxxx</servicePort> to match value in same file on client computer
5. Start crashplan jail in GUI
6. Start crashplan plugin in GUI

Note that when editing .ui_info I used "nano -L .ui_info". The -L flag ensures a newline is not added to the end of the file.

I tried this procedure to get everything back to port 4243. When I restart the plugin, it's overwriting the my.service.xml file and changing the servicePort value to 4244. (Interestingly, the location value stays at 4243.) Sockstat -l confirms that Java is listening on 4244, so the UI can't connect to the engine. Is there a way to prevent the plugin from overwriting my.service.xml?

UPDATE: Finally figured out the problem - I knew that ui.properties (which is in C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\conf\) was okay, but I had neglected ui_<account name>.properties (which is in C:\ProgramData\CrashPlan\conf). A spurious port value there had led the CrashPlan service to detect a "conflict" (that's the new 4.3 behavior) and change to a new port.

Default listening port is 4242 and default client/server port is 4243. If these are already used, it will select a new pair of ports (typically still differing by 1, although I can't confirm that always happens). With a little diligence (and editing in all pertinent files!), you can work everything back to 4242 and 4243 again. To recap (hope this helps someone), the files you need to inspect and possibly modify are

Server:
<jail path>/var/lib/crashplan/.ui_info
<jail path>/usr/pbi/crashplan-amd64/share/crashplan/conf/my.service.xml

UI (Windows as an example):
C:\Program Files\CrashPlan\conf\ui.properties
C:\ProgramData\CrashPlan\.ui_info
C:\ProgramData\CrashPlan\conf\my.service.xml
C:\ProgramData\CrashPlan\conf\ui_<username>.properties

Thanks to everyone for sharing their findings!

 

[Halfe]

Hi. Is there a way to block update from 4.2 to 4.3? after this update i cannot use CP. and Due to a disc crash i had i have to restore before i can change to my new Backup solution.

 

[andyclimb]

These guys certainly give me a huge bloody headache... these silent updates, with new features that just instant break everything.... we're left to 'figure it out'' days, weeks after... only when we notice that things have stopped working..

I had an interesting problem... my ports were all weird... they were 4243 as per the instructions... but found out that now

Code:

root@crashplan_1:/var/lib/crashplan # netstat -na | grep LISTEN | grep 42
tcp4       0      0 *.4258                 *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0 *.4259                 *.*                    LISTEN

it was actually 4259.... weird...

 

[Andrew076]

These guys certainly give me a huge bloody headache... these silent updates, with new features that just instant break everything.... we're left to 'figure it out'' days, weeks after... only when we notice that things have stopped working..

I had an interesting problem... my ports were all weird... they were 4243 as per the instructions... but found out that now

Code:

root@crashplan_1:/var/lib/crashplan # netstat -na | grep LISTEN | grep 42
tcp4       0      0 *.4258                 *.*                    LISTEN
tcp4       0      0 *.4259                 *.*                    LISTEN

it was actually 4259.... weird...

I have had the same "issue". My Freenas side seems to stay the same but the Windows GUI side keeps changing. The good thing is that the Plugin itself is still working (you can see that by the Green light in the plugin) - remember the Windows side is just the GUI (Graphic User Interphase) and doesn't have to be connected for Crash plan to be working. Anyway you are probably like me and want to check every few days or so that backups are occurring regularly by looking in the log.

So what I have found that I have to do are the following steps:

1) I go to the Jail and then into the shell and type service crashplan stop
2) On the windows side I go to the C:\ProgramData\CrashPLan\.ui_info file and change the port to 4243 then copy the whole line (my key consistently is getting changed).
3) Back on the Freenas side I type in the shell that I opend in step 1 above: ee /var/lib/crashplan/.ui_info
Delete everything in there then use the paste function to paste the info copied from Step 2 above - exit out.
4) Still in the shell type service crashplan start
5) Then still in the shell type sockstat -l and look to be sure you have port 4243 listening etc.
6) Then on the windows side I go in to processes and close/terminate everything dealing with Crashplan,
7) Then I start crashplan on the windows side and it has so far always connected. I check the logs to be sure that it has done is back up and I again feel comforted knowing my data is of that has been backed up.

you may need to check your my.service.xml file too to be sure it has the ports correct. My file has not been changed and I have not had to edit it yet... In case you need to check from the shell you opend in step 1 just type ee /usr/pbi/crashplan-amd64/share/crashplan/conf/my.service.xml

 

[AceMilo]

Hey guys I'm having the same issue. I have figured out that my FreeNAS crashplan has updated itself to 4.3.0 and I can no longer connect to it remotely. I used to modify the ui.properties file (I have a script to switch between local and remote, it worked perfectly until recently) but that no longer works. I've tried pretty much everything suggested on this thread but it still doesn't work. No matter what I do it just says unable to connect to backup engine. The port has changed to 4271, I tried copying the .ui_info file over to my machine, editing every file suggested, everything, but nothing works. I'm on a mac (technically hackintosh but it's the same as mac) and every solution that seems to work is for windows users. My crashplan is still working and backing up because I get the emails from code42 that it's all working fine but I can't connect to it to modify anything. I really need to get in there, any help is appreciated.

 

[nigma]

It's seems randomly that the GUID from the ui_info seems to change. I have to go through the process of copying it from the jail to the local machine fairly often.

 

[davester711]

Yes, this update seems like a direct shot at those of us running a headless system like FreeNAS. This is almost intolerable. Has anyone attempted a ticket with Code42 on how this update can be maintained within a headless environment?

 

[stualden]

They don't support it, so I'm not sure a ticket there would help. But if you're using a Windows front-end, please see my note above, and make sure to check all six files to make sure you don't have any stray ports which it's treating as "conflicts." I was just about to pull out my hair too until I realized how many places a conflict could exist. Once I got it straightened out, it's been working just great.

 

[davester711]

Thanks stualden, I could have been more specific on my post that I was basically agreeing with nigma. I can get it "working", but if another blind update is pushed, or if my freenas reboots or I do maintenance I need to go through the process of editing all the front-end files again (I have found that just doing the ui* and .ui_info files is enough). I built this system so I didn't have to worry about backups, and now I find myself greatly concerned about the overall stability of this solution.

Ultimately I would like code42 to care for me as a customer, as they care enough to partially describe how to run headless to begin with, but because my freenas is my primary file store, holding the most important items, not having a (secure) reliable off site backup is simply unacceptable. Without a doubt, they effectively broke this configuration.

 

[KyleChx]

Hey everyone.

I have a similar issue with the new install where i have a clean install, fresh install of crashplan's software on my deskop and followed the directions from this thread and THIS thread (as well as some subsequent threads and videos on youtube).

I still can't get the application to see the crashplan services running and can verify the ports are all correct on both sides. One thing I HAVE noticed is that the .ui_info file on the NAS is never populating/ being created. I have dragged the one from my desktop to /var/lib/crashplan/ dir and it is not helping.

I am installing the jail from the plugin menu and have NOT tried to install it manually yet. I have done the reinstall on my workstation a few time and deleted all the files as well as reloaded the freenas a few times (since it is a new install) to try and get it working.

Any help would be appreciated as I spent a day troubleshooting to no avail. I know the FreeNAS is behaving somewhat correctly as i can get plex to run smoothly and transcode at 1080p across networks with no problem.

Couple notes:

• I am trying to get this setup as a plex media server that is backed up to crashplan. so my jail destination storage is /mnt/Volume0/Plex/ for both jails and am wondering if this could be causing issues with permissions (all permision owners are still root with the groups still wheel).
• I am not using DHCP and am making sure to have the storage for crashplan to be 'read-only'
• I am going straight from clean install, create volumes, install plugins for plex and crashplan, accept EULA, setting up jail storages, and the guides linked above
• I am noticing each time I reinstall getting one error message when shutting down the service in SSH (no errors starting the crashplan service, though)
  • /usr/local/etc/rc.d/crashplan: WARNING: no shebang line in /usr/bin/cpuset

 

[KyleChx]

nevermind. looks like my issues are more towards the .ui_info wanting to keep changing! Same with the my.service.xml information even when both changed and saved in conjunction. Once the jail is restart or the NAS restarts it all changes and needs to be changed again

And can someone let me know how crashplan on my windows computer is supposed to look? When I log in it always defaults to my windows workstation

 

[davester711]

Getting uglier. As noted (FreeNAS forum) on another thread, my remaining core issue with the new crashplan (outside of this ridiculous rotating GUID configuration, which I could script after I get it working again), even if you disable everything you can at the OS and Java level, you still can't disable ipv6. And it appears that the crashplan folks are invoking ipv6 specific calls that are causing problems. I found a older post here (http://diario.beerensalat.info/2008/10/12/java_and_ipv6_on_bsd.html) on the topic:

Consequences
Please read again "on dual-stack systems it will create an IPv6 socket". That means that there is alyways an IPv6 socket created, independed from desired address family. Of course such a socket can not bind to an IPv4 address. Thats the reason for many users receiving a java.net.BindException: Can't assign requested address when enabling IPv6 on a machine.
An IPv6 enabled java application can not bind to an IPv4 address and only under the condition, that the socket is bound to INADDR_ANY and IPV6_V6ONLY=0 it is able to receive IPv4 packets!

To make it worse, it is not even possible to bind to localhost. With the default settings the name localhost is resolved to the IPv4 address and of course binding of that IPv4 address to an AF_INET6 socket fails.

He continues:

My conclusion
It is very difficult or impossible to use the current (1.6.0) Java implementation for server services if they should listen on IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. With many BSD's default settings it is not even possible to bind to a combined IPv4/IPv6 wildcard address.

So if I read this correctly, and it hasn't been fixed/changed, if crashplan moved their Java service to support both ipv6 and ipv6, there is really no way to fix this without moving your FreeNAS and Jails to ipv6.

Anyone with suggestions on how we may get things running again with out ipv6, please post. I've bent over backwards to get this working again, but I really don't need to create/build/maintain an ipv6 network on top of this just to salvage my crashplan installation.

What a bleeping mess.

Edit: Confirmed ipv6 introduced in 4.3.0:
http://support.code42.com/Administrator/4/Configuring/Using_IPv4_And_IPv6_In_Your_Code42_Environment

 

[Andrew076]

nevermind. looks like my issues are more towards the .ui_info wanting to keep changing! Same with the my.service.xml information even when both changed and saved in conjunction. Once the jail is restart or the NAS restarts it all changes and needs to be changed again

And can someone let me know how crashplan on my windows computer is supposed to look? When I log in it always defaults to my windows workstation

I am not 100% sure what you mean, but this is how it looks for me when I login on Windows.

Then when I check the History log to be sure it is working...

If you have other questions let me know and I will post more screen grabs for you.

 

[Andrew076]

Show

Getting uglier. As noted (FreeNAS forum) on another thread, my remaining core issue with the new crashplan (outside of this ridiculous rotating GUID configuration, which I could script after I get it working again), even if you disable everything you can at the OS and Java level, you still can't disable ipv6. And it appears that the crashplan folks are invoking ipv6 specific calls that are causing problems. I found a older post here (http://diario.beerensalat.info/2008/10/12/java_and_ipv6_on_bsd.html) on the topic:



He continues:



So if I read this correctly, and it hasn't been fixed/changed, if crashplan moved their Java service to support both ipv6 and ipv6, there is really no way to fix this without moving your FreeNAS and Jails to ipv6.

Anyone with suggestions on how we may get things running again with out ipv6, please post. I've bent over backwards to get this working again, but I really don't need to create/build/maintain an ipv6 network on top of this just to salvage my crashplan installation.

What a bleeping mess.

Edit: Confirmed ipv6 introduced in 4.3.0:
http://support.code42.com/Administrator/4/Configuring/Using_IPv4_And_IPv6_In_Your_Code42_Environment

Is this a new issue? I have 4.3.0 and I don't recall any of these issues...

 

[KyleChx]

I am not 100% sure what you mean, but this is how it looks for me when I login on Windows. View attachment 8530

Then when I check the History log to be sure it is working...

If you have other questions let me know and I will post more screen grabs for you.

That def. was appreciated

 

[jchan94]

Just to keep the documentation inside this forum: to fix the update problem, SSH into your FreeNAS install and enter your jail (via jexec). Then type

Code:

cat /var/lib/crashplan/.ui_info  ; echo

Copy that code to your client, in Windows its located in C:\ProgramData\CrashPlan\.ui_info which can be edited in Notepad

In Mac, open terminal and type

Code:

sudo nano "/Library/Application Support/CrashPlan/.ui_info"

After typing your admin password, delete the current line and paste the one from your server.

Tried this but still not connecting :\

 

[jchan94]

It didn't work for me initially either, did you do all of this:



I completed both steps and it is working again for me. The port changed to 4297 for me as well.

I don't see the ui<account>.properties file.

I only have ui.log.properties and ui.properties.

how did u create taht file?

 

[Halfe]

is there a way to avoid update from 3.6.3?

EDIT:

can anyone who got 4.3.0 working make a recepie. I'm having trouble making it work and i need CP because i have 1-2 TB of data i need to get back after server crash. and i have now changed my backup plan to a easier one.
http://jottacloud.com/

you have to run it on a windows client. But its a better than CP and cheaper

 

[Jase]

For those that use the Mac CrashPlan app for headless configuration, I have written a little script you can put into Automator which will automatically configure the GUI.

I have found that the port and key on the CrashPlan engine changes at engine startup, so the script pulls down and extracts the port from the .ui_info file each time it's run, then makes the necessary changes, launches CrashPlan, and reverts the change after you close the app.

USAGE:
- Ensure you save the SSH keys for the CrashPlan jail to your Mac (search the Internet for this - it's relatively simple). This allows you to logon without prompting for an SSH password
- Change the CPSSHUSER variable at the top to the username of your jail (I have crashplan)
- Change the CPHOST to the hostname / IP address of the CrashPlan jail. You should be able to see this in the Jail section of the FreeNAS config screens.

Code:

CPSSHUSER='mysshusername'
CPHOST='hostname/ip of crash plan jail'

cd /Library/Application\ Support/CrashPlan/

mv .ui_info .ui_info_bak

scp $CPSSHUSER@$CPHOST:/var/lib/crashplan/.ui_info ./.ui_info

CPPORT=`cat .ui_info | cut -d ',' -f 1`

sed -i .ui_info "s/$CPPORT/4200/g" .ui_info

ssh -f -L 4200:127.0.0.1:$CPPORT $CPSSHUSER@$CPHOST -N

open -W -a CrashPlan.app

kill $(ps -A | grep 'ssh -f -L 4200:127.0.0.1' | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}')

rm -f .ui_info
mv .ui_info_bak .ui_info

exit

Hope this helps others! I am sure you could do something similar for Windows, I don't have the inclination as I rarely use Windows to access CrashPlan!

 

[stualden]

The recent FreeNAS update ( to FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201509220011) broke access to the headless CrashPlan server again. As before, I used Liriel's concise recipe above to try to fix things:

For anyone else with problems similar to me, here are the steps I used to get it working:
1. Stop crashplan plugin in GUI
2. Stop crashplan jail in GUI
3. Replace value <jail path>/var/lib/crashplan/.ui_info with .ui_info from client computer
4. Make following changes to <jail path>/usr/pbi/crashplan-amd64/share/crashplan/conf/my.service.xml
i) Change xxxx in <location>0.0.0.0:xxxx</location> to match value in same file on client computer
ii) Change xxxx in <servicePort>xxxx</servicePort> to match value in same file on client computer
5. Start crashplan jail in GUI
6. Start crashplan plugin in GUI

It still didn't work (client was just hanging on the splash screen, never even got to the point where it says it can't connect to server). I went back and checked the .ui_info on the server, and it was being overwritten with the same port, but then a different key, and then (this is new) a 0.0.0.0. For example, it looked like this:

4243,7e5fdffd-fb9f-4244-b8eb-86b1aa032cfd,0.0.0.0

The .ui_info on the client did not have the trailing ,0.0.0.0 (and it never did in the past either, at least not on my system). So instead of copying the client .ui_info to the server, I tried copying the server .ui_info to the client. That did the trick. Hope this helps someone else.