In the new v6 architecture, Veeam Backup & Replication allows the creation of complex and highly performing environments by adding proxies and repositories, instructed and orchestrated by the central Veeam Backup Server. This server however still holds its own proxy and repository roles, created during the installation.
Is it possible to disable those roles, and transform the Veeam Backup in a command console of our backup infrastructure?
Proxy Role
If you ever used several proxies, you noticed how easy is to do maintenance on them simply disabling them:
But if you try to do the same on the Veeam Backup server, you will find out this operation is not allowed:
however, this operation is not possible only via the graphical interface. If you installed Veeam Powershell cmdlets, you can disable the proxy via script with a simple command:
Get-VBRViProxy-Name"VMware Backup Proxy"| Disable-VBRViProxy
Once you did this, our proxy list will show the Veeam Backup proxy in disable state (look at the grey icon):
Then, if you want to reactivate the proxy, you will only need to run:
Get-VBRViProxy -Name "VMware Backup Proxy" | Enable-VBRViProxy
Default Repository
During Veeam Backup installation, the installer creates a default repository in c:backup. Right as in the default proxy, even this element cannot be removed through the GUI:
Even here, you can remove it via Powershell:
Get-VBRBackupRepository -name "Default Backup Repository" | Remove-VBRBackupRepository
In this way you have deleted the default repository.
Once you finished these two activities, Veeam Backup Server has become a pure central console to manage your backup infrastructure.
Great post! Just a quick note: to safely erase the default repository without issues, it is necessary to have at least one defined job (it doesn’t matter if it was actually executed or not).
Otherwise it won’t be possible to create new jobs, an error will always occur (“Backup repository not found”) and you will need to reinstall Veeam B&R.
This note is related to all 6.0.x releases.
Danilo
DC, good catch and this is exactly one of the reasons why this operation is disabled in UI. I would not recommend performing this operation through this PowerShell hack.
Also, please note that Veeam B&R 6.1 does allow to disable default proxy, as well as delete the default repository using UI (unless it is the last remaining one).