Robocopy fails in Scheduled task with ERROR 1326 Logon failure

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My aim: To simply mirror a database backup directory onto another server

Approach: Use Robocopy statement contained in a scheduled task

robocopy "C:\MylocalDirBackup" "\\MY.IP\DatabaseBackupsShare"  /mir /z /log:"C:\MyLocalDIR\RobocopyTestLog.txt"

Environment:

  • Windows Server 2008R2
  • Scheduled task user "MylocalUser": Local adminon local machine
  • Network config: Both servers on workgroup

Tests:

  • navigate to share \MY.IP\DatabaseBackupsShare as "MylocalUser" - success, no prompt for credentials
  • Run robocopy command from command line when logged on as "MyLocalUser" - success

The Problem!: When running Robocopy command from a scheduled task the following error is raised:

2013/10/22 20:04:57 ERROR 1326 (0x0000052E) Accessing Destination Directory \\MY.IP\DatabaseBackupsShare\ Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password.

I found several other people who are having similar problems, and followed suggestions here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/scriptcenter/en-US/b591346e-3ed0-4ed1-9453-24851ebe1bb1/scheduling-robocopy-to-run-at-system-startup?forum=ITCG

Any help gratefully received. I thought this was going to be a quick task...

windows-server-2008
scheduled-task
batch
robocopy
asked on Server Fault Oct 22, 2013 by reticentKoala • edited Oct 22, 2013 by squillman

4 Answers

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When I was doing something similar, I was unable to get it to work without first mapping the drive.

Action 1 in Task Scheduler:

net use z: \\MY.IP\DatabaseBackupsShare mypass /user:myuser

Action 2 in Task Scheduler:

robocopy "C:\MylocalDirBackup" z:  /mir /z /log:"C:\MyLocalDIR\RobocopyTestLog.txt"

Because you're storing the password--ew--use an unprivileged account rather than an admin and give that account a strong password, the least possible privileges for the task, etc.

answered on Server Fault Oct 22, 2013 by Katherine Villyard
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I would post this as a comment/reply but I don't have enough rep to do that.

How exactly are you launching the scheduled task?

When I've done scheduled tasks with robocopy, I put the entire robocopy command in a .bat file, and then use that for the scheduled task. In other words, I'm NOT scheduling robocopy.exe and specifying runtime parameters - I'm just scheduling the .bat file. You can avoid a lot of syntax issues that way.

answered on Server Fault Oct 22, 2013 by jlehtinen
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are you specifying the account used in the scheduled task? Or are you using the local user? I am with @Katherine about not storing the credentials in the script. If you specify them in the task, you can tell it to use a privileged account. That way you aren't storing it in an easily access space and you can run with a different account for the script on login...

answered on Server Fault Oct 22, 2013 by MikeAWood
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After confirming that task scheduler was indeed using the account expected but still failing I have arrived at a solution using a pass through authentication approach.

  • I created a new local user account at the destination server - MyNewLocalUser
  • I created a new local user account at the host server MyNewLocalUser
  • Both have the same username and password
  • Changed the scheduled task to run under MyNewLocalUser

Robocopy runs successfully when the task is run under this new user.

answered on Server Fault Oct 23, 2013 by reticentKoala

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