Changes compared to 24.5.1

Enhancements​

• Added more device filtering options when creating a Bulk Upgrade campaign in Comet Server web interface
• Added an option to specify a custom HELO/EHLO hostname when configuring SMTP or MX-Direct email delivery in the Comet Server web interface
• Added support for configuring IP rate limits in the Comet Server web interface
• Added support for configuring backup job bandwidth limits in different units such as KB/s, Kbit/s or Mbit/s from the Comet Server web interface
• Allowed retention passes to safely continue with a warning if Comet is unable to clean up deleted tombstoned file versions from an S3-compatible target
• Updated the MySQL Protected Item to prefer mariadb-dump over mysqldump on Linux devices
• Updated Microsoft 365 account listing to append “Disabled” attribute to user mailboxes for later informed inclusion at the UI level
• Reduced the memory usage when Constellation Role is deleting a very large bucket

Bug Fixes​

• Fixed an issue with Comet leaving temporary files in the Storage Vault if an error occurred when attempting a write when using Storage Role
• Fixed an issue with extra log messages appearing on Linux when locking or unlocking the Comet Backup desktop app user interface
• Fixed an issue with showing invalid restore options for non-Files and Folders backup jobs in the Comet Server web interface if the Protected Item had been deleted
• Fixed an issue with showing invalid restore options for some types of backup jobs in the Comet Backup desktop app
• Fixed an issue where Comet would not retry when cleaning up deleted tombstoned file versions from an S3-compatible target causing the job to fail
• Fixed an issue with OIDC-based authentication on the Comet Server when the tenant hostname, or request hostname, has mixed-case characters
• Fixed an issue with granular restore unable to open VMDKs from vSAN and snapshot extents for VMWare Protected Items
• Fixed an error in Microsoft 365 account listing caused when a personal site is missing an associated user
• Fixed an issue with backups being triggered on client upgrade when new the user profiles LastStartTime had not yet been set
• Fixed an issue causing the DenyConstellationRole permission to be respected by Constellation Role-related API endpoints even if the PreventEditServerSettings permission is not enabled
• Fixed an issue causing the DenyConstellationRole permission to be toggled on when the “Prevent viewing and editing server settings” checkbox is toggled on or off in the Comet Server web interface
• Fixed an issue with a slightly misleading error message when access to Constellation Role-related API endpoints is denied due to restricted admin permissions
• Fixed a cosmetic issue with truncating long page title text in the Comet Server web interface

Written by Callum Sinclair – Product Engineering Manager.

This article covers what’s new in our latest Quarterly release series from March 2024 to May 2024. Read the release notes here.

Comet 24.5.0 Enceladus​

We’re very pleased to announce our latest Quarterly release series – Comet 24.5 Enceladus. This is the the latest entry in our quarterly rollup series, that branches off from our main rolling Voyager development into a fixed target for you to qualify and build your service offering upon.

Enceladus is a moon of Saturn and is named after the giant Enceladus of Greek mythology. There are a few worlds that are thought to have liquid water oceans beneath their frozen shell, but Enceladus sprays its ocean out into space where spacecraft can sample it. From these samples, scientists have determined that Enceladus has most of the chemical ingredients needed for life, and likely has hydrothermal vents releasing hot, mineral-rich water into its ocean. Enceladus is about as wide as Arizona, and it also has the most reflective surface in our solar system. Because it reflects so much sunlight, the surface temperature is extremely cold, about minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 201 degrees Celsius).

For users coming from the previous 24.2 Mimas quarterly release series, Enceladus adds 6 new features and 38 enhancements. Some of the new features we are excited about are:

• Hyper-V Changed Block Tracking (CBT) support
• Impossible Cloud Storage Templates
• SMB Storage Vaults
• Comet Backup desktop app Protected Item wizard refresh
• Syncro integration
• Server Self Backup enabled by default

The full set of changes can be found in the release notes.

Webinar announcement​

If you’d prefer to watch rather than read, we’re hosting a webinar to discuss this new quarterly release and all the new changes. Please register before we go live on Tuesday 11 June (4pm EDT / 1pm PDT) to catch up on all the latest Comet news with Comet’s CTO, Mason – and as usual, there will be time for a live question-and-answer session at the end of the presentation.

As well as that, we have many more videos available on our YouTube channel, including guides on getting started with Comet, individual features, demonstrations with our technology partners, and webinars for previous quarterly software releases.

Microsoft Office 365 Protected Item Performance Improvements​

Over this month, we have made significant improvements to the backup performance of our Microsoft Office 365 Protected Item. These performance improvements mean the backup job completes faster, as well as reduces the amount of data we need to upload. We expect partners to see Microsoft Office 365 Protected Items finish up to 30 times faster.

Disk Image Drive Letter Selection​

When configuring a Disk Image Protected Item in the Comet Server web interface, it can be difficult to configure when the device is not currently connected to the Comet Server. To help partners configure a Disk Image Protected Item more easily, we have added a new option to select disks to protect by drive letter.

Bulk Upgrade CPU Limits​

Our Bulk Upgrade feature is a great way to keep Comet Backup desktop app installs up to date with the latest version that the Comet Server is running. However, for Comet Servers with many tenants using custom branding, a Bulk Upgrade campaign to upgrade older clients consumed significant CPU time building new client installers quickly.

In Comet 24.3.8 we added a new configuration option to limit the maximum number of CPU cores Comet can use during a Bulk Upgrade campaign. This is a fantastic improvement as it reduces the burden on system resources during a Comet Server upgrade. It also provides a more robust Bulk Upgrade campaign, as Comet Backup desktop app installs can be upgraded without overwhelming the Comet Server’s resources. For more information, you can check out our documentation here.

Windows System Backup Protected Item – Deprecation Notice​

Our Windows System Backup Protected Item is being deprecated. Before we added our Disk Image Protected Item, Windows System Backup Protected Item was a great way to backup and restore entire Windows disks. However, it required spool space (temporary storage) to be able to perform this backup. This means for a 500GB disk, Comet requires an additional 500GB of free space for this Protected Item to work.

Because of this limitation, and how difficult it is to setup, we have always recommended partners use our Disk Image Protected Item. To assist partners through this change, we have built a Windows System Backup to Disk Image conversion tool. For more information, you can see our documentation on the tool here.

We will be removing this Protected Item in November (Comet Release 24.11).

Changes compared to 24.5.0

Bug Fixes​

• Fixed a Comet Server crash that occurred when bulk upgrading Comet Backup clients remotely

Enceladus is the latest entry in our quarterly rollup series. It branches off from our main rolling Voyager development into a fixed target for our partners to qualify and build upon. 

Enceladus is a moon of Saturn and is named after the giant Enceladus of Greek mythology. There are a few worlds that are thought to have liquid water oceans beneath their frozen shell, but Enceladus sprays its ocean out into space where spacecraft can sample it. From these samples, scientists have determined that Enceladus has most of the chemical ingredients needed for life, and likely has hydrothermal vents releasing hot, mineral-rich water into its ocean. Enceladus is about as wide as Arizona, and it also has the most reflective surface in our solar system. Because it reflects so much sunlight, the surface temperature is extremely cold, about minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 201 degrees Celsius).

As for the software, Comet 24.5.0 Enceladus brings 6 new features and 38 enhancements, including Changed Block Tracking support for Hyper-V and adding Impossible Cloud as a Storage Template provider.

As always for a new quarterly release, there are two changelogs for 24.5.0 Enceladus depending on whether you are coming from the previous quarterly release or the previous Voyager release:

Changes compared to 24.2.3

New Features​

• Added a new restore option to only overwrite existing files if there is a difference in file content already written to the restore location
• Added a new permission for enabling/disabling the ability for an admin account to delete a Storage Vault
• Added new SMB Storage Vault type
• Added Impossible Cloud as a Storage Template provider
• Added new “Latest VM State (Changed Block Tracking)” option for Hyper-V for improved backup performance
• Added support for selecting Windows drives by drive letter when configuring a Disk Image Protected Item

Enhancements​

• Added informational headers to job logs that are exported to CSV (now renamed to Text) or Excel. Previously these headers were only included when exporting to Clipboard
• Added the ability to select which logs are exported from the Server Logs and Job Logs pages in the Comet Server web interface
• Removed Object Lock options from Storage Role in the Comet Server web interface and the Comet Server Service Manager
• Added a warning when starting the Comet Server starts if the Storage Role is detected to be using Object Lock
• Enabled Server Self-Backup by default for new Comet Server installations. This will not affect existing Comet Servers when they are upgraded
• Removed the File column on the Server Logs page on the Comet Server web interface
• Added a Last Message column to the Server Logs page on the Comet Server web interface
• Backup job logs now appear in the Console app on macOS
• Installing the Comet Client on Linux devices no longer echoes password characters to the terminal
• Improved the performance of the Comet Server when a large number of devices resume their live connection
• Added “Account Name” as an additional data column to the Devices page in the Comet Server web interface
• Improved the performance of browsing files and folders for granular restores
• Reduced the amount of data downloaded while browsing files and folders for granular restores
• Improved the performance of simulated granular restores
• Implemented restoration of metadata for files and folders restored during granular restore
• Improved the performance of granular restores when restoring directories containing few files
• Improved error handling when a file or folder fails to restore correctly in granular restores
• Refreshed the UI for the Protected Item wizard in the Comet Backup desktop app
• “After” tasks will now run even for jobs which have been cancelled
• Changed “Job History” on the Comet Server web interface to “Job Logs”
• Added an option to the IAM-Compatible Storage Template to choose between creating buckets or subfolders
• Added an option to the IAM-Compatible Storage Template to support Object Lock
• Added an option to the IAM-Compatible Storage Template to support creating buckets in non-default S3 regions
• Added “days” as a unit to the Object Lock settings field when configuring a Storage Vault with Object Lock in the Comet Server web interface
• Improved load performance of Server Logs page on the Comet Server web interface
• Added retrying for intermittent errors that occur when restoring data to UNC paths
• Added the ability to configure SQL timeouts for MSSQL restores
• Improved error message output for when a Hyper-V backup fails due to Hyper-V not being installed on the endpoint
• Added additional threading to single file downloads from Microsoft 365, and added retry logic for when the download URL has expired. Expired URLs can cause 401 errors.
• Added a label in the Comet Server web interface and the Comet Backup desktop app to distinguish if Protected Items are enforced via the policy
• Added the ability to convert Windows System Backup Protected Items to Disk Image Protected Items via the Users tab and Bulk Actions dropdown in the Comet Server web interface
• Improved Microsoft 365 Drive downloads by adding configurable account concurrency and adding concurrency to single file downloads
• Added configuration to the Comet Server to set the maximum number of CPU cores that are allowed to be used when generating new builds of the Comet Backup client software
• Added a new environment variable (COMETD_TMPDIR) to allow configuration of the temp directory used by the Comet Server when running in Linux

Changes compared to 24.3.9

Enhancements​

• Added Object Lock support to the Impossible Cloud Partner API Storage Template
• Added the ability to specify MIME types and content in custom remote bucket Storage Vault templates
• Improved Microsoft 365 account listing to handle uniqueness when multiple resources have the same display name
• Improved Microsoft 365 account listing to check and delist accounts that are not allowed to be accessed via Graph API

Bug Fixes​

• Fixed an issue on the Comet Server web interface causing contrast issues for download icons in dark mode

Changes compared to 24.3.8

Bug Fixes​

• Fixed an issue with backup jobs to the il-central-1 AWS region always failing
• Fixed an issue with the Constellation title in the Tenant dialog not showing in the Comet Server web interface
• Fixed an issue with the Comet Server web interface violating the strict CSP policy
• Fixed an issue causing a white background to show on some loading animations when using dark mode in the Comet Server web interface
• Fixed an issue with missing branding images in Comet Backup desktop app for Linux
• Fixed an issue with the message This Storage Vault was unlocked … appearing incorrectly when a backup job was experiencing network issues
• Fixed an issue causing alternate data streams on NTFS metadata files to cause errors during granular restores
• Fixed an issue with invalid filenames when switching from a custom-branded client installer to the pre-built Comet Backup-branded installer
• Fixed an issue with inconsistent validation between configuring custom client branding at the top-level versus for a Tenant’s settings