Even if your probe fails your backup can still work if the ports are
opened correctly on both your firewalls. Though supposedly Networker no
longer requires TCP/UDP 111 for Portmap and its use was retained for
backward compatibility; in my experience even if TCP/UDP 7938 is open
Networker still wants to use TCP/UDP 111. If you open it the probe
errors go away.

What do you get when you run rpcinfo -p "clientname" (From Backup
Server) and rpcinfo -p "Backup Server Name" (From client)?

It sounds like to me that you are allowing certain ports out but are not
allowing the reply back in. Depending on your Firewall if the drops are
occurring due to Firewall Policy and not a Firewall rule you will not
see it in the logs. E.G Checkpoint has certain built-in policies and the
enforcement of them is not logged.

The fact that manual backup works from the client usually means
something was missed in your firewall rules. I had this happen on
multiple occasions in my environment. You didn't mention it but check
your ACL's if you have them setup in your environment.

Thanks,

Dana

> -----Original Message-----
> From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU]
On
> Behalf Of bbemis
> Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2008 1:30 PM
> To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
> Subject: "Probe" errors when trying to back up remote client
> 
> We have a remote site with a Windows 2003 Server that we're looking to
> back up. We're running Networker 7.4sp1 on a Win2003 box connected to
an
> autoloader. I've installed the client on the remote box, and have
edited
> the "hosts" file on both machines to reflect IP's and machine names
for
> our NW server as well as the client. When I go to run a backup from
the
> server, it fails with the following error in the daemon.raw log file:
> 
> clientname:Probe Cannot determine status of probe process.  The log
file
> is empty.
> clientname:Probe 1 retry attempted
> 
> There is a firewall in front of the client as well as in front of the
> server, but as far as I can tell, I have the correct ports opened, and
the
> connections are getting through (nothing getting dropped in the
firewall
> logs).
> 
> Also worth noting, I can run a manual backup from the client without
any
> problems... just not from the server.
> 
> Any ideas? Could this be caused by the connection timing out or
something?
> The remote site is on a DSL line, but I can remote into it without
> noticing any slowness issues. Any help/suggestions would be
appreciated.
> TIA.
> 
>
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
> |This was sent by brian.bemis AT uconn DOT edu via Backup Central.
> |Forward SPAM to abuse AT backupcentral DOT com.
>
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and
type
> "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to
networker-
> request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this list.
You
> can access the archives at
> http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
> via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type "signoff networker" in the body of the email. Please write to 
networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu if you have any problems with this 
list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER