Installation on different Machines are recognized as same Machine and renamed

system · 2015-05-27T15:00:09.000Z

Hello!

over the last weeks I have introduced Avast Business Security to several Workstations and File-servers. In the final step of installing a number of File-server based on MS Server 2008 R2 it occurs that this installations are shown as “copies” of the same instance. The new installs don’t show up as separate machines in the Dashboard but simply rename certain instances, which were installed before thus renaming the old installation as if the machine name changed.

Could this be a collision of some hash or id which is used to identify an installation within the dashboard (which is funny somehow as of course this machines are different in Name, IP, AD-SID)? How can I avoid this if I try to repeat the installation step?

Thanks ans Regards,

Matthias

system · 2015-05-27T15:11:10.000Z

Hi Matthias,

Are the machines cloned by chance? There was a system put in place with the last update for cloning that may be causing an issue. I haven’t seen other reports of this as of yet.
If they are clones it may take up to an hour for the backend to recognize they are clones and seperate them if they are all on at the same time. If not it could take longer.
If they are not clones, is the email you are using on the forum the email associated with the account? If not PM me the email and I’ll take a look at the account.

Thanks!

Jeff

system · 2015-05-27T15:38:31.000Z

They are clones in the sense that they once shared one image which was then “sysprepped”. I can’t remember exactly, because this is already quite a while. All in all this is true for about 5 out of 10 machines…

All our Workstations were rolled out in the same manner and although we have a higher number of machines here I haven’t seen this with the workstations. For the Rest of the File-Servers it could possibly be that those are real/fresh installs.

I repeated this out of curiosity and yes, only on of the clones shows up in the Dashboard.

The E-mail addresses of the business-account and the forum are the same…

Regards,

Matthias

system · 2015-05-27T15:48:53.000Z

I think I got a better guess and will elaborate: “cloning” hasn’t been the issue (which would be unlikely because of the sysprep also) but these machines were imported from the same HyperV-Export and thus got the same MAC-Address… will change and then try again.

I was cheering too early. Actually the MAC-Address on the Main-Network-Adapter doesn’t make a difference. So also now I’m not sure what was the diefference between this 5 and the rest when installing…

Regards

system · 2015-05-28T09:51:45.000Z

Any results on the investigation of the account?

Thanks and Regards,

Matthias

system · 2015-05-28T15:05:34.000Z

Hi,

what are the device names in question? I see on that is showing that it has been reinstalled dd-fs-02 ?
Also, make sure the device(s) are running the 2.10.2505 version as this is the new version and the only one that supports cloning.

Thanks!

Jeff

system · 2015-05-28T20:39:51.000Z

Sigmon post:6:

Hi,

what are the device names in question? I see on that is showing that it has been reinstalled dd-fs-02 ?
Also, make sure the device(s) are running the 2.10.2505 version as this is the new version and the only one that supports cloning.

Thanks!

Jeff

Yes, that’s the machine which is the one in question. The problem only occurs with the fileservers which all have “-fs-” in their names. I will give the newest version a try, actually the installer I used yesterday was one I downloaded somewhat early April…

Repeated the Reinstallation Procedure with the newest version but this didn’t change anything did change things only in so far as that now the reinstalled machine says “everything OK” after the installation whereas yesterday those machines said “problems connecting”. in the Dashboard the machine still doesn’t show up or they “still fight” for “which one is the only one”… after all I will just leave it this way and wait or maybe later do some dirty workaround.

As long as viruses are found …

Regards

system · 2015-06-01T16:57:22.000Z

Hi,

Let me know if the devices do no seperate and show individually after a few hours (should happen within an hour as long as all the devices are on) .
If they don’t seperate let me know and we will take a closer look and maybe schedule a remote session or something to see if we can find the issue.

Thanks!

Jeff

system · 2015-06-03T02:31:45.000Z

Not to hijack this thread, but I’m having the same issue. In my case they are cloned virtual machines, but the names of the computers are different and they are located on different public IP addresses. I’ve been fighting this for days and just realized tonight that the Avast Dashboard thinks I’ve just been renaming the computers, so the last one I happened to reinstall wins the race of being in the Dashboard, but then others disappear. Waiting an hour or even more than a day hasn’t helped.

system · 2015-06-05T11:43:36.000Z

Just checked it today: Issue still persists. Servers were cloned and then sysprepped, cloning was done via Hyper-V Export-Import.

Regards,

Matthias

system · 2015-06-08T16:18:56.000Z

Hi Guys,

Can you give me the device names and Ip’s of the devices in question?

Thanks!

Jeff

system · 2015-08-27T15:32:57.000Z

I am having the same issue and I am on the latest version of Avast Business cloud.

I have about 12 PC that I am testing Avast business on.

The 12 PC’s are Imaged computer and syspreped.

is it an IP problem or cloned pc, I am not sure but when I have 12 PC’s and 5 days later I check back and see 90 it’s a problem.

let me know if there is any update on that.

system · 2015-08-31T00:07:50.000Z

I have deployed ABC on many of my company’s networks since it arose from BETA agree there are still a few teething issues. But overall an excellent product with very comprehensive protection.

To concur with you guys this is message generated by AVAST as even if an activated Endpoint’s system image backup is restored, a message / warning will show in the web portal list that activation is required again & after the ignore clone option is checked along with new activation made, the appropriate profile has to be chosen again. The Endpoint pre restore (Same SID) will still show as a machine on the network list as last being seen @ the rollback time until manually deleted. This occurs with both fixed dynamic IP’s.

For you guys that definitely have unique endpoint / server SID’s, NETBIOS names from a cloned image, I do not know of a solution other than the current ignore clone option being checked ATM.

Best regards to Jeff, Luke & team.

Mike

system · 2015-08-31T13:43:04.000Z

Hi Guys,

For this issue, use the support or live chat link in the portal so we can take a look at these issues on a case by case basis.

Thanks!

Jeff

system · 2015-10-07T09:32:39.000Z

I’ve been having this problem with two cloned VMs that won’t resolve. I’m using Oracle Virtualbox.

I had a chat session with Avast support yesterday and it was suggested to me that cloning was only self-resolving on physical machines and VMWare VMs.

They said they would do some testing to try and replicate my issue and that they believed that VirtualBox Hypervisor appears as the same hardware to the cloud via the bridged network adapter. To me this suggests that it might not be isolated to just cloned images.

Has anyone got any experiences to share using Oracle VirtualBox and Avast Business? For me it appears to work fine apart from the merged cloud device.

system · 2015-10-07T12:48:08.000Z

I might have answered my own question

Ignoring the fact Windows is imaged with sysprep, I did not use the VirtualBox clone feature to duplicate the VM guest and then move to another physical computer host. I was lead to believe you just needed to clone if running on the same physical host because the UUIDs would conflict without it. I just copied the VM files over and used “Add” to read the VM config back in.

Under normal circumstances this is not a major problem if MOVING the VM, but I intended to run both copies of the VM at the same time. I believe this might be what is getting me in strife (when software uses the hardware/SMBIOS UUID to identify the unique machine as I expect Avast is probably doing).

A more correct method would have been to use the Virtualbox clone feature, then move the newly created clone (which has a new hardware UUID generated automatically) to the new physical host. Alternatively I should be able to generate a new UUID and then use

vboxmanage modifyvm "myvmclone" --hardwareuuid <newuuid>

on the new VM make the SMBIOS environment unique, regardless of OS uniqueness.

Anyway I will try this out next week.

system · 2016-06-25T21:53:29.000Z

A month passed and avast not yet solved the problem. For me this is nonsense. Remember that Kaspersky and Trend work perfectly. >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

Announcements