Today a slightly different blog. Normally I blog about implementing stuff in Microsoft 365/Azure AD/Security. This one, is about an issue I encountered last week while restoring an File Share via Azure Backup.
When restoring the data I got stuck with an error “The snapshot corresponding to the selected recovery point does not exist”. This part is covered in the last part of the blog. In the first parts, I’ll walk you through the steps for implementing Azure Backup and restoring the data.
Assuming that there’s a storage account and file share is in place we continue with the backup part.
Configure Backup for Azure Files (File Share)
- Open the Azure portal via https://portal.azure.com
- Browse to your storage account via Storage Accounts or via the Resource group
- Select the storage account which holds the File Share
- Select the file share you want to backup
- Click Capabilities
- Click Backup
- Click Backup
- Select a Recovery Service Vault or create a new one
- Modify the backup policy if required
- Click Enable backup
Your backup infrastructure is now complete. New backups will be created based on your backup policy (schedule).
Note: Don’t panic if your backup job does not start immediately at the scheduled time. If you just deployed a new backup policy this could take some time. Take a look the next day and you’re fine 😉
Restoring the backup!
Most important thing to do is testing your backups. Without being able to restore a backup is completely useless. While trying to restore I encountered an issue. I was presented an error stating that my recently created backups (snapshots) where not available.
Error: The snapshot corresponding to the selected recovery point does not exist.
Verify the following steps:
- Open the Azure portal via https://portal.azure.com
- Browse to your storage account via Storage Accounts or via the Resource group
- Select the storage account which holds the File Share
- Select the File Share
- Click Snapshots
- Click a recently created snapshot
If you do see the data within the snapshot (which is your backup) you’re fine. If you see an error like shown below there’s probably some IP whitelisting which has to be done. Read below!
- Open the Azure portal via https://portal.azure.com
- Browse to your storage account via Storage Accounts or via the Resource group
- Select the storage account which holds the File Share
- Go to Networking
You probably see that the setting “Enabled from selected virtual networks and IP addresses” is configured and one or more virtual networks. This is fine in terms of backing up and accessing the data.
When it comes to restoring data, it’s all about the endpoint where you initiate the restore from. In most situation this is your own notebook/desktop. If your endpoint is not within one of the configured virtual networks, there’s no access to the snapshot possible.
Therefor you have to create an IP whitelist in the Firewall. This can be done easily by adding your current IP address to the exclude list. For your convenience this is shown in your portal and can be added to the whitelist with one simple click.
Click save and wait for a few minutes. Try to access your snapshot once again and you’ll see the data within the snapshot.
