Viewing and Managing Computers
Remote computers are viewed and managed from the 'Computers' page of Site Manager, under the 'Backups' heading on the left-hand side column. This page displays a list of all managed computers:
The dark blue side menu can be used to filter and group computers based on tags. Clicking on a tag (e.g. 'Connected') will filter the computers list to show only those computers with the connected tag. Clicking on a group header (e.g. 'Status') will show the computers sorted into groups based on the tags in this group.
Toolbar Buttons
- Add - Adds new computers to Site Manager. See the section later on this page for details.
- Delete - Deletes selected computers from Site Manager.
- Install Agent - Uses remote MSI tools to install or reinstall the Site Manager Agent on computers.
- Upgrade Agent- If automatic upgrade of agents is turned off in settings, this button can be used to initiate manual agent upgrades.
- Force Reconnect- Disconnects and reconnects the computer and updates computer data for the selected computers.
- Set Passphrase - Allows the passphrase for the selected agent to be updated to the one used installing the agent.
- Manual Agent Installation - This shows information on how to install the agent manually and provides download links to MSI installers.
- Open Filters - Opens the filters of the table.
- Download to CSV - Exports the computers table data as CSV. This can be imported into other tools.
Groups and Tags Side Menu
- Configure - Configure groups and tags and their visibility. More information about groups and tags can be found here.
- All Computers - Shows all the computers.
- Status and A Custom Group: Groups to filter the computers by.
Clicking on a group or a tag filters the computers.
The group can be collapsed or expanded by clicking on the 
icon
To learn how to hide groups from the side menu and from the tags column, click here.
Computer Statuses
The following table contains all the possible statuses for a computer:
| Agent State | Description | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|
Connected Connected (Reboot Required) Connected (Upgrade Required) | The computer is online and running a remote agent. | If the status is 'Connected (Reboot Required)', the computer is online, as in the 'Connected' status, but there is a reboot pending due to an agent upgrade. The agent will continue to function normally but will not use the CBT driver until it's rebooted. 'Connected (Upgrade Required)'agents are running out of date agent software. These agents will either upgrade automatically or require the 'Upgrade Agent' function to be used depending on the Site Manager settings. |
| Initializing | The agent is negotiating their connection with the Site Manager Server. | Initializing agents cannot be interacted with until they enter the 'Connected' state. |
Installing Agent Upgrading Agent | The agent is in the process of installing or upgrading the Site Manager Agent software | These agents cannot be interacted with until the install or update operation is completed. |
| Unlicensed | The computer does not have an appropriate standalone or Macrium Agent License. | A new license can be added by going to the 'Licenses' page. Alternatively, if a copy of Macrium Reflect is installed on an 'Unlicensed' computer and the computer status is refreshed, it will change state to 'Connected'. |
| Unauthorized | Mismatch between the passphrase on the Agent and Server | 'Set Passphrase' in the toolbar allows the passphrase for the selected agents to be updated to the one used when installing the agent. If the passphrase set on the server and the agent match, the computer will re-initialize and enter the 'Connected' state. |
| Disconnected | The Site Manager Agent is not connecting to the server | Agents in this state may not have an agent installed or may be experiencing communication issues. To resolve this, the agent can be installed using the 'Install Agent' button or manually on the agent computer. If the agent is already installed on the computer, see the Troubleshooting Agent Communications page for more details. |
Computer Details
Each managed computer row can be expanded to show detailed information on the computer. To open or close the computer detail information, click the '
' marker on the left-hand side of the computer row. The information is divided into tabs, as follows:
Details
Shows the basic details of a computer as well as the last activity data.
The 'Logs' and 'Event Logs' buttons at the bottom of the control can be used to go to the 'Logs' and 'Event Logs' pages, filtered to show the data for this computer.
'Custom Description' and 'Tags' can be edited by clicking on 'Edit'.
Custom Description
Computers may be given a description to help identify them. By default, the description is taken from Active Directory or the computer itself. A custom description may be set by clicking on 'Edit'.
Tags
Tags are useful to group computers for backup and filtering purposes. More details information on groups and tags can be found here.
A tag has the following structure:
Each tag is contained in a group - these groups are used to categorize tags in menus and other places. For example, a "Departments" group might hold different tags such as "Accounts" or "IT". These tags are then shown under a heading for the group in the left-hand side menu of the 'Computers' page.
The group and the tag are separated by the \ character. Everything before the \ is the group and everything after is a tag.
In most places, the group is only shown as part of the tag if there are tags with the same name in multiple groups.
Automatic tags are added and kept up to date by the system and cannot be edited directly.
Assigning a Tag
Tags can be assigned to a computer from this view.
Existing tags can be assigned to a computer by selecting them on the dropdown menu.
Groups or tags can be searched for by typing in the input.
Shortcut
If you don't want to type the full group name when searching for a group or a tag, press 'Tab' and it will automatically fill the rest of the group name for you.
The same is valid for the tag name.
Creating New Groups or Tags
New groups and tags can also be created and assigned to a computer in one go. This can be done by typing a new group or tag and pressing enter or clicking on the 'Add' option.
After adding the new group or tag, it will show as orange - meaning it is a new group or tag.
In the example above, a new group called "A New Group" will be created and a new tag called "New Tag" will be added to that group.
Disks
The disks and partitions on the computer are shown here, to help in determining how and what to backup from this computer.
Local Scripts
The 'Local Scripts' tab contains information from agents about standalone Macrium Reflect installations. This tab is included to help with the transition of backup scheduling from being locally scheduled on each computer to being centrally scheduled on the Site Manager.
A list of .xml backup definitions and script files stored locally on the computer are listed here and may be run manually from Site Manager with the 'Run Now' option.
After pressing 'Run Now' a dialog will pop up to select the type of backup (Usually full, differential, or incremental but may have other options for different backup types) and confirm the backup:
Tools
Some extra features that are less used can be found in this view: 'Resync Logs', 'Get Network Information', 'Reset VSS', and 'Reboot Computer'.
Resync Logs
A confirmation modal will be shown before starting the resync.
The selected agents will be disconnected and on reconnect will resync all backup logs.
Remote Restore
This will open the remote restore wizard for the selected agent. For more information about the remote restore wizard, see this article.
Get Network Information
Reset VSS
When clicked, this will send a message to the agent to restart the Microsoft VSS service. This can be used to clear some VSS-related backup errors without having to directly access the computer. To prevent accidental use triggering backup issues, the agent will only perform the action if there is no backup currently running.
Run Backup
When clicked, this opens the 'Run Now' wizard for the selected computer. An existing definition, that includes the selected computer, can be selected to specify which disks and partitions are included in the backup.
Reboot Computer
This can be used to reboot the computer. This may be useful if the agent is reporting that a reboot is required to activate the CBT driver or for other maintenance reasons. When clicked, a further set of options will be shown:
The 'No User Reboot' option will only succeed if there are no users logged in. The 'Reboot' option will give any logged-in users a 5-minute warning before rebooting, to allow them to save any work. The 'Force Reboot' option will immediately reboot the computer with no warning. As with the reset VSS option, this will always fail if a backup is already in progress.
Repository Quick Info
This tab provides repository information for the selected computer, including the total number of backups, total number of backup sets, disk space used for the backups, earliest backup date, and most recent backup date. Repositories, where backups exist for the selected computer, can be rapidly browsed using the 'Browse' or 'Browse Sets' button.
Adding New Computers to Site Manager
Computers are added to Site Manager using the 'Add Computers' wizard which can be accessed from the computers page.
Site Manager uses NetBIOS names to uniquely identify computers (though connections are over TCP/IP). This means that a NetBIOS name must be provided before a computer can be added to Site Manager. However, Site Manager provides multiple ways to look up a computer’s NetBIOS name for user convenience.
Domain Computers
Site Manager can search Active Directory to find domain computers. To set up a connection with Active Directory, users can choose a domain login provider or enter the connection details manually. For a manual connection, enter the name of the domain controller and the credentials of a user authorized to perform searches (the domain field is used in domain forests where the domain of the user differs from the target domain). The connection will be verified before the next step of the wizard.
The tree on the left can be used to navigate the domain and computers contained within the selected organizational unit are displayed in the table. The selected computers will be added to Site Manager.
The final page displays the computers which have been added to Site Manager.
Network Computers
Site Manager can search for computers on the network it is connected to. Users can select computers from the search results to be added to Site Manager.
Add Computers Trying to Connect to Site Manager
Agents that have been configured to communicate with a given Site Manager server will have already set up a communication channel. The computer still needs to be added for Site Manager to manage it, for security reasons. This can be bypassed by using the 'Auto Add Agents' option on the 'Agents' page of the settings.
This option will list all computers that have an agent configured to seek the Site Manager server. Users can select computers to be added from the table.
If there are no computers seeking a connection with Site Manager then this option is disabled.
Adding Computers Manually
Computers can be added manually if the user knows the NetBIOS, DNS name, or the IP address (IPv4 or IPv6) of the target computer. DNS names and IP addresses will be resolved to a NetBIOS name by Site Manager. Multiple computers can be added if they are separated by semicolons (;), whitespace is ignored.
The table reports the success of name resolution; agents with resolved NetBIOS names are added to Site Manager. Unsuccessful IP lookups will also be reported. Note that NetBIOS and DNS names are not checked to allow offline computers to be added.
Installing the Site Manager Agent
Adding a computer to Site Manager will add the computer in the 'Disconnected' state unless the computer already has the Site Manager Agent installed and configured to connect to this Site Manager Server.
The Site Manager Agent can be installed remotely via the Site Manager user interface or manually using the Site Manager Agent MSI installer.
Installing the Agent via Remote Install
If Site Manager is on a domain or the appropriate steps have been followed, the agent software can be remotely installed on the client to be managed. See Troubleshooting Agent Communications for a detailed guide to network and firewall requirements for this process.
Steps to Remote Install
Installation Credentials
Administrator-level access to the computer is required to install an Agent. If available, the credentials used to log in to Site Manager will be used. If Site Manager is configured to allow anonymous access, the installation process will prompt for credentials before attempting the installation.
Additional credentials may be configured on the 'Settings' page.
- Select the computers to perform a remote install on.
- Press the 'Install Agent' button on the toolbar.
- Select 'Confirm' in the dialog that pops up to attempt the installation or cancel to exit.
- Site Manager will attempt the installation and show the status of each computer.
Once each install has finished, the status will be displayed. If all the installations succeed then only the 'Done' button will be available, which will close the 'Install Agents' wizard.
Problems with Remote Installation
If there are any issues installing the Site Manager Agent on any of the selected computers, an error message will be displayed:
All failed installs can be retried simultaneously via the 'Retry Failed Installs' button or on an individual computer basis by using the 'Retry' buttons in the table next to the install status. Each failed computer has a help icon that can be clicked to provide detailed information about the failure.
If 'Retry' is selected for a computer, or computers, that failed the install due to credential errors, Site Manager will prompt for new credentials that will be used for the next installation attempt:
Once new credentials have been entered and 'OK' has been pressed, reinstallation will be attempted using the new credentials.
Other possible errors are:
| Install Error | Description | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|
| No Credentials Available | The installation cannot proceed because there are no cached credentials to try. This only occurs when attempting the install when the management console is set to allow anonymous login and the password prompt is canceled on attempting the install | Retry the install and enter credentials when prompted. |
| Credentials Rejected | None of the entered or cached credentials were accepted by the computer as valid. This may occur if the computer is not part of a domain and the computer is configured to only allow unelevated access remotely. | Retry the installation with different credentials or attempt a manual installation. |
| Remote Install Not Available | The installation process connected to the WMI server successfully, but the WMI installer component is not installed. This typically occurs on Windows XP machines as later editions have this component installed automatically. | Install the Remote Installer WMI component on the remote machine and try again. |
| WMI Not Available | Could not find a WMI process to connect to. Either the computer is offline, not a Windows machine, or WMI remote access is blocked for security reasons | Check the computer status and try again or manually install the agent. |
| Operating System too old | The computer connected but is below the Windows version required for the Site Manager Agent. | Upgrade the OS on the computer. |
| Installer Error - 1234 | The installer ran, but returned an error code and was not successful. The number in place of 1234 is the code from the installer | Contact Macrium support or try a manual install. |
| Install Failed | A general failure in installation. | Retry the installation or contact Macrium support. |
| Computer not present on network | The computer name could not be resolved to an IP address by either DNS lookup or LLMNR broadcast. | Check that the computer is present on the network and that DNS is correctly configured |
| File sharing unavailable | The computer IP address could be looked up, but an attempt to connect to the Windows administrative share failed (\\computername\admin$) | Check that the computer is present on the network and that Windows share traffic is not blocked |
| Could not connect to computer via cached IP | The current IP address for the computer could not be looked up, but IP address information was used to attempt the installation. This failed and may be due to either the IP being out of date or authentication issues. | Check that DNS returns the correct IP address for this computer if available, |
| Remote Install already in progress | Either a previous remote install attempt is still running, or another browser session has initiated a Remote Install to this computer. The computer status should be listed as 'Installing' to reflect this. | Wait for the install attempt to complete and the computer status to change from 'Installing' and re-attempt if required. |
Installing the Agent Manually
If remote install is not available, the agent can be installed manually. See Agent Manual Install for more details.
Adding Computers With Agents Preinstalled
When a Site Manager Agent is installed, it is configured with the information required to access the Site Manager server. This is provided automatically when the agent is installed via the Site Manager 'Install Agent' function or manually if the agent has been installed via MSI installer file. If the Agent is properly configured, it will enter the 'Connected' state automatically when added to Site Manager. If the agent has been configured with the incorrect details (or details for another Site Manager server), the agent must be reconfigured by either reinstalling the agent via the 'Install Agent' function or running the Agent Configuration Tool on the agent itself.
If the Site Manager has been configured with a different security passphrase than the one configured in the 'Security' page of the Site Manager server settings, it will enter the 'Unauthorized' state.
To fix this and manage the agent, you can set the correct passphrase on the agent using the Agent Configuration Tool, reinstall the Agent (remotely or manually) which will reset the passphrase, or supply the old passphrase in Site Manager. When this is done, Site Manager will connect to the agent using the old passphrase and update the passphrase to the appropriate one for the current installation.
To set the passphrase, select the computers by checking the appropriate box in the computers list and press the 'Set Passphrase' button in the 'More Actions' dropdown. This will open the passphrase editing dialog:
To set a passphrase, check the 'Use custom passphrase' option and enter the passphrase in the box. Press 'Confirm' to apply the passphrase.
If the passphrase is correct, the computer will connect. If it is incorrect an error will be shown:
Deleting Clients from Site Manager
To delete computers from Site Manager, select the computers to delete via the checkboxes and press the 'Delete' button in the toolbar:
This will bring up a confirmation dialog box, including information on any computers which are part of currently scheduled backups or Backup Definitions:
To remove these computers, press 'Confirm'.