Change of hardware causes registration dialog to appear

Magnus Box detects the current device based on a hardware ID.

The hardware ID may be changed in some situations:

• if you replace the motherboard or CPU; or
• if you upgrade the BIOS / UEFI, without preserving hardware IDs; or
• if you virtualize a physical server; or
• if you migrate a VM guest to a different VM host, without preserving hardware IDs; or
• if you install "sandboxing" software, or install certain PC security software that includes a "sandboxing" feature (e.g. Comodo Containment); or
• if you make certain specific modifications to the operating system.

In these situations, the device's hardware ID will change, and Magnus Box will recognize the PC as a new device.

Handling a changed device ID

If your device is recognized as a new device, you should register it again.

The original backup data is still preserved in the Storage Vault and will be deduplicated against any future backups from this device.

You can move the Protected Item settings from one device to another, by using the Copy/Paste buttons in the Magnus Box web interface on the user's page > Protected Items tab.

The old device should be revoked once the new device has been properly set up to prevent it from incurring a license charge, alternatively, removing all Protected Item's from the old device will also prevent the device from being charged.

The backup job log history will be preserved in the customer's account, but, it will be associated with the old device.

• Once you de-register the original device, it would show as "Unknown device (XXXXX...)" in the job history.
• The customer can still see these old jobs in the Magnus Box web interface.
• The customer can still see these old jobs in Magnus Box Backup if they use the filter option > "All devices".

Several machines show up as one device

The opposite can also happen: two or more machines show up in Magnus Box as the same device. They then share the same Protected Items and job schedule, which also causes problems with logging and reporting.

Magnus Box tells machines apart by a device ID, which it works out from a mix of hardware and software identifiers. The usual cause is VMs that were cloned from each other, so they have the same identifiers.

To fix it, change the identifiers on the affected machine so it gets its own device ID:

• Linux and macOS: the SSH host keys are one of the identifiers. Installing SSH, or regenerating the SSH host keys, changes the device ID.
• Windows: add a registry value that feeds into the device ID:
  1. Open Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
  2. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\backup-tool, creating the key if it doesn't exist.
  3. Create a String Value named DeviceIdentificationEntropy.
  4. Set its data to any random text.
  5. Restart the Magnus Box services (backup.delegate and backup.elevator).

The machine then registers as a new device. Set it up as described in Handling a changed device ID above.