Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3 Remote Agent Service Fails To Start With Error

Yesterday I was setting up Backup Exec 2010 R3 as part of disaster recovery solutions initiative for a client. Installing the media server was the easy part, but installing the remote agent on one of the servers proved to much more of a pain. Using the utility built into Backup Exec, I deployed the agent to the server. I then logged into the server to verify that the agent had indeed installed. I noticed a red "X" on the tray icon, so I investigated. Upon looking into the error it said that the service did not start so I opened the services MMC and tried to start it manually. The service started then stopped immediately with the error -

"The Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Systems service on Local Computer started and then stopped. Some services stop automatically if they have no work to do for example, the Performance Logs and Alerts service."

I also looked in the event logs and found an error with the event ID: 58117 - The application failed to listen on the NDMP TCP/IP port. Check the network configuration.

After digging around on the Internet I found a support document from Symantec that explained the issue. Backup Exec's remote agent requires port 10000 to operate. For those of you who may not know port 10000 is a very commonly used port. Because the administration site for the software running on this particular server was also running on port 10000 the service was failing to start and I was receiving that vague error message (Thanks Symantec!).

Solution to the issue -

Confirm that there is another application using port 10000 by first opening a command prompt: Goto Start -> Run -> Type "CMD" and press Enter
At the command prompt type:
NETSTAT -abno
Then press ENTER

This will give a list of all ports that are in use on the system along with the name of the process that is utilizing the port. The ports are listed in the format of IP

Address:Port.
Example:

127.0.0.1:10000 would indicate that a process is listening on port 10000.

Look through the list generated by the NETSTAT command in the Local Address column for any process displaying 10000 after the IP address.. If there is another process that is using the port 10000, one of the following must be done:
Change the port used by this application/process or remove it if not needed

OR

Change the NDMP port for the Backup Exec Remote Agent service by doing the following steps:

Edit the SERVICES file located in C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ using Notepad
Add an entry that reads like the following example (12000 is just an example port. Pick any available port that did not show as in use in the NETSTAT results):
ndmp 12000/tcp

At the end of the line press ENTER so that the cursor goes down to the next blank line. If the ENTER key is not pressed at the end of the NDMP line, the change will not take effect.
After making the change, save the file and restart the Backup Exec Remote Agent for Windows Servers service.

Before making any changes to ports on servers please make sure you consult your Domain Administrator or Network Administrator before changing any ports of programs as this could violate your companies Network Security Policy. Skybyte consulting provides information technology disaster recovery plans for small offices up to large enterprises.