Overview

These are the PowerShell cmdlets for the MSONLINE module, which are used for backup, and are installed as part of the MARS Agent Installer.

Registering using the PS Az module

Note

A bug with generation of vault certificate is fixed in Az 3.5.0 release. Use Az 3.5.0 release version or greater to download a vault certificate.

In the latest Az module of PowerShell, due to underlying platform limitations, downloading the vault credentials requires a self-signed certificate. The following example shows how to provide a self-signed certificate and download the vault credentials.

$dt = $(Get-Date).ToString("M-d-yyyy")
$cert = New-SelfSignedCertificate -CertStoreLocation Cert:\CurrentUser\My -FriendlyName 'test-vaultcredentials' -subject "Windows Azure Tools" -KeyExportPolicy Exportable -NotAfter $(Get-Date).AddHours(48) -NotBefore $(Get-Date).AddHours(-24) -KeyProtection None -KeyUsage None -TextExtension @("2.5.29.37={text}1.3.6.1.5.5.7.3.2") -Provider "Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider v1.0"
$certficate = [convert]::ToBase64String($cert.Export([System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509ContentType]::Pfx))
$CredsFilename = Get-AzRecoveryServicesVaultSettingsFile -Backup -Vault $Vault -Path $CredsPath -Certificate $certficate

On the Windows Server or Windows client machine, run the Start-OBRegistration cmdlet to register the machine with the vault. This, and other cmdlets used for backup, are from the MSONLINE module, which the MARS AgentInstaller added as part of the installation process.

The Agent installer does not update the $Env:PSModulePath variable. This means module auto-load fails. To resolve this, you can do the following:

$Env:PSModulePath += ';C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent\bin\Modules'

Alternatively, you can manually load the module in your script as follows:

Import-Module -Name 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Azure Recovery Services Agent\bin\Modules\MSOnlineBackup'

Once you load the Online Backup cmdlets, you register the vault credentials:

Start-OBRegistration -VaultCredentials $CredsFilename.FilePath -Confirm:$false

CertThumbprint      : 7a2ef2caa2e74b6ed1222a5e89288ddad438df2
SubscriptionID      : ef4ab577-c2c0-43e4-af80-af49f485f3d1
ServiceResourceName : testvault
Region              : WestUS
Machine registration succeeded.

Important

Do not use relative paths to specify the vault credentials file. You must provide an absolute path as an input to the cmdlet.