Recommended setting: Specify the desired volume(s) to include in this backup

• This field specifies which volumes to include in the backup. 
• You can enter comma-separated specific drive letters to be backed up (i.e. C,E,F) or you can opt to set this field to blank, which backs up all volumes. 

Note: When Backup Volumes is set to blank, the agent backs up all supported volumes, including potentially unwanted volumes such as external USB drives. We recommend that you specify desired volumes, so the agent captures only those specified volumes. This reduces the risk (for example) of a USB drive being unintentionally added to the backup. (The blank ('all') setting automatically excludes unsupported volumes, Windows container base images, locally attached volumes configured for local cache storage, iSCSI mounted recovery volumes from the appliance, and virtual drives created by Recovery Center.)

Agent 2.27 and newer features the capability to set a maximum outbound bandwidth limit and perform throttling of network upload usage.  This is useful for Direct-to-Cloud deployments, to ensure that backup traffic does not negatively impact user experience and to prevent the agent from overwhelming the Internet connection.

Agent 2.x

To configure network bandwidth limits for Agent 2.x, modify the aristos.cfg file in the agent installation directory and add the following option:

NETWORK_MBPS=<limit> where <limit> is a whole or fractional numeric value expressed in Megabits per Second (i.e. NETWORK_MBPS=1.5 or NETWORK_MBPS=5, etc.)

Agent 3.x

To configure network bandwidth limits for Agent 3.x, modify the config.json file in the agent installation directory and add the following:

“send_mbps_per_second” : “<limit>” where <limit> is a whole or fractional numeric value expressed in Megabits per Second (i.e. NETWORK_MBPS=1.5 or NETWORK_MBPS=5, etc.)

Optionally, you may specify a separate network bandwidth setting for full backups.  If no bandwidth setting is specified for full backups, they will default to the settings applied to Incremental backups above:

“send_mbps_per_second_for_full” : “<limit>” where <limit> is a whole or fractional numeric value expressed in Megabits per Second (i.e. NETWORK_MBPS=1.5 or NETWORK_MBPS=5, etc.)

Agent 3.x Settings Format

Note that Agent 3.x uses a new configuration file format from previous agent releases.  Where Agent 2.x and earlier utilized a flat text file containing key names and values, Agent 3.x uses a JSON formatted structure that requires proper syntax to be present when modifying settings.

JSON is a structured format containing one or more keys with associated values.  JSON objects contain sets of key/value pairs bracketed within ‘{‘ and ‘}’ characters to denote the beginning and end of the content.  Keys and values are separated by ‘:’ and each set is separated by a comma.  The value of a key may be another JSON object, allowing for nesting of complex values and objects within the JSON.

As an example, the network bandwidth settings described above would be represented as:

{

    “send_mbps_per_second” : “1.5”,

    “send_mbps_per_second_for_full” : “5”

}

Disk IO throttling 

Agent 2.23 and newer features the ability to limit the maximum Disk IO operations on a per-volume basis during backup operations. 

Limiting Disk IO is primarily useful in preventing the agent from impacting user performance during backups, particularly on virtual instances where physical disk storage is shared among multiple virtual systems. For more details on how to use Disk IO throttling, see Agent Simple Disk I/O Throttling.

Note: The <limit> defined below is expressed as a whole number integer in MB/sec (MegaBytes per Second).  Limits are per-disk-volume, and data is read in parallel across all protected volumes on the system during a backup.

Note that fractional values are not allowed.  Entering a fractional value will cause the setting to be entirely ignored by the agent.

Agent 2.x

To configure Disk IO throttling for Agent 2.x, add the following two values to the aristos.cfg file in the agent installation directory:

MAX_READ_MB_PER_VOLUME=<limit>
and
MAX_READ_MB_PER_VOLUME_FOR_FULL=<limit>

Agent 3.x

To configure Agent 3.x Disk IO throttling, add the following keys to the config.json file in the agent directory:

“max_read_megabytes_per_second_per_volume” : “<limit>
and
“max_read_megabytes_per_second_per_volume_for_full” : “<limit> 

Agent 3.0.0 and newer support setting the CPU priority under which the agent will execute on the protected system. 

Note:  We do not recommend adjusting this setting unless you are directed to do so by Axcient Support.

To configure this option, edit config.json in the agent installation directory and set the following key:

“cpu_priority” : “<priority>”

<priority> may be one of: “High”, “AboveNormal”, “Normal”, “BelowNormal” , or “Idle”

The default Agent CPU priority value is “BelowNormal”

575

Warning: Applying changes to the agent configuration while a backup is in progress may cause the running backup to fail.  (For example, if you change the specified backup volumes.)

Find the aristos.cfg file  

The aristos config file is located in one of the following two locations (if the agent was installed in the default location):  

• 32-bit Systems:  C:\Program Files\Replibit\aristos.cfg
• 64-bit Systems:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Replibit\aristos.cfg

Before modifying aristos.cfg, make sure you stop and disable the service or the file will be write protected.

The default configuration is shown below:

1. From the Services app on the target machine, stop and disable the agent service.

2. Navigate to the agent installation folder.

3. Open the aristos.cfg file with administrative privileges.

4. Update settings in the aristos.cfg file. 

For example:

Modify volumes to backup

The BACKUP_VOLUMES= line of the config file is an inclusion list.  By default, the list will be blank, prompting a backup of all detected NTFS volumes.  To set your inclusion list, specify the volumes you would want to back up, separated with commas.  Please see the below image for an example:

Modify the number of worker threads

The number of worker threads per processor core is set to 4.

In some cases, you may need to reduce that number by manually specifying the number of threads.  To modify the number of worker threads:

1. Stop the service
2. Open the aristos.cfg file with notepad
3. Add the line NUM_WORKERS=X where X is the number of threads
4. Save the file
5. Start the x360Recoverservice

Note: Lowering the number of worker threads will reduce the speed of the backup.  If the backups start overlapping, you may need to increase the time between snapshots

When you are finished, save the file and restart the agent service.

Exclude the agent installation folder 

The simplest way to exclude the agent from antivirus scanning is to exclude the agent installation folder entirely.  

• By default, the agent installation folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\Replibit
• Be aware this location may have been changed during installation.  
• The agent installation path can be found in the Windows Registry at HKLM\\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Replibit\Agent

If you wish to make a more targeted exclusion rule, exclude the following files inside the agent installation folder from scanning:  

agentservice.exe
efsvss-2003-x64.exe 
efsvss-2003-x86.exe 
efsvss-2008-r2-x64.exe 
efsvss-2008-r2-x86.exe 
efsvss-2008-x64.exe 
efsvss-2008-x86.exe 
FastDelta.exe
ManagementService.exe
uefi-check.exe
UpdaterService.exe

NOTE: You must also exclude the Analysis Tool, which is within a subfolder of the agent installation folder:

AnalysisTool\AnalysisTool.exe

During the nightly boot check, a communications driver is injected in the system image to create a COM port for communicating between the running VM and the appliance.  

On rare occasions, some antivirus scanners block the installation of this driver and prevent Autoverify operations from completing successfully.  

To prevent antivirus scanning from interfering with AutoVerify operations, add a scanning exclusion for:

C:\Windows\System32\axcomsvc.exe

Note:  This file is not installed into the production environment. It is only deployed temporarily during nightly boot checks within the virtual machine image, and discarded afterward.