In Comet 25.6.3, significant changes have been made to Comet's Storage Gateway.
The first is, on startup Comet will now validate if Storage Gateway has been configured correctly. If not, an updated widget will appear on the Home screen noting that the storage configuration has failed. This means admins can see immediate feedback within Comet to check if a Storage Gateway is configured correctly.
The Storage Gateway settings has also been improved. Comet will now validate Storage Gateway settings before changing them to ensure that it's configured correctly.
First time users of a Comet Management Console will now see a Schedule an onboarding call button at the top of the Getting Started guide. This improvement aims to help first time users of Comet get assistance quicker.
Fixed an issue with installing the Comet Backup Desktop App for Apple Silicon that required Rosetta during installation. Rosetta is no longer required
Fixed an issue causing hash mismatch errors when configuring TOTP for a user account in the Comet Management Console
Fixed an issue with MS365 drive backups that caused an error when trying to show an API error
Fixed an issue where the 'Automatically create Storage Vaults for newly registered devices' option would be blocked by the policy option 'Prevent creating new Storage Vaults via Storage template
Fixed an issue with setting a default policy in the Comet Management Console web interface
Fixed an issue with the Comet Backup desktop app causing Protected Item configurations to duplicate in the editor window
Fixed an issue with using the Recovery Media or Linux Snapshot Driver install features on Linux if /tmp/ is a separately mounted filesystem
Fixed an issue that can cause duplicate emails with scheduled reports
Fixed an issue with the policy option 'If the last job encountered an error retry' set to 'Optional, default on' overriding the saved schedule values when viewed in the Backup Agent
Fixed an issue causing the Getting Started guide to reappear on subsequent page loads when dismissed before completion
Fixed a cosmetic issue in the Comet Management Console with the pop up message when unsuspending a user
Automatically Create New Storage Vaults Using Policies Protected Items
Since Comet 24.12.0, a new user setting has been available to choose if devices that share the same user account login should back up Protected Items to a shared Storage Vault or isolated Storage Vaults.
This has been extended to interact with Comet's Policy system to set Default Protected Items. A Default Protected Item is a great way to ensure Protected Items are automatically created when a new device is registered to a user.
Now, when the Policy setting under the Storage Vaults tab Automatically create Storage Vault for new devices is configured, new devices registered to a user will have a Default Protected Item created and will have a Storage Vault automatically provisioned and ready to back up.
To make the most out of the Default Protected Item feature you will need to set a Schedule when configuring the Default Protected Item.
When the Storage Vault for the Schedule is set to The Latest Storage Vault any new device registered to the user with this policy set will automatically have a Protected Item and new Storage Vault created and will back up data to this new Storage Vault based on the Schedule.
New And Improved Look For Snapshot And File Selection
As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the experience of using Comet, this release introduces a new and improved look for snapshot and file selection in the Comet Management Console, with a cleaner layout and more consistent behaviour. The new look can be found in the restore dialog when selecting snapshots and files to restore, as well as in the remote file picker when configuring Protected Items.
Fixed an issue with installing the Comet Backup Desktop App for Apple Silicon that required Rosetta during installation. Rosetta is no longer required
Fixed an issue causing hash mismatch errors when configuring TOTP for a user account in the Comet Management Console
Fixed an issue preventing automatically provisioned Storage Vaults being used for "Latest Vault" schedules in policy Protected Items for newly registered devices
First time users of a Comet Management Console will now see a Schedule an onboarding call button at the top of the Getting Started guide. This improvement aims to help first time users of Comet get assistance quicker.
Fixed an issue with MS365 drive backups that caused an error when trying to show an API error
Fixed an issue where the 'Automatically create Storage Vaults for newly registered devices' option would be blocked by the policy option 'Prevent creating new Storage Vaults via Storage template
Fixed an issue causing the Getting Started guide to reappear on subsequent page loads when dismissed before completion
Fixed a cosmetic issue when creating a Storage vault. The next button is disabled when the user is restricted to a single storage type and it's either local path or SFTP
In Comet 24.12.0, we made changes to the Users table in the Comet Management Console to support the new User Groups feature. Comet 25.6.0 brings the rest of the tables in the Comet Management Console in line with the Users table, improving consistency and adding a variety of small improvements such as faster table loads, better page navigation in large tables, and inline column filters.
Fixed an issue with double scroll bars on Job Log Report pages
Fixed an issue with missing Object Lock periods for some metadata files inside the Storage Vault location
Fixed an issue on the Comet Management Console new user dialog where System Default is selected as the Storage Vault Provisioning template by default. Now the system default is only selected if a default is set, otherwise the fist available non system default Storage Template is selected
Fixed an issue with the Comet Backup desktop app new schedule dialog where the Storage Vault list did not update after creating a new Storage Vault
Fixed an issue with the Comet Backup desktop app run backup wizard where the Storage Vault list did not update after creating a new Storage Vault
Fixed an issue with listing hosts during direct VMware restore when it is part of a cluster
Fixed an issue with direct VMware restore web dialog crashing if an error during listing occurs
Fixed an issue with AWS S3 causing BucketExists failure when a bucket is created using the AWS S3 storage template
Fixed an issue with "duplicate UUID" error messages when taking a Linux Disk Image backup of an XFS volume
Fixed an issue with the Comet Backup desktop app causing Protected Item configurations to duplicate in the editor window
Fixed an issue with setting a default policy in the Comet Management Console web interface
Fixed an issue with cross-tenant Remote Registration failing with a 403 Unauthorized error
Fixed an issue that caused a memory leak when using Cluster Manager with Wasabi targets
Fixed an issue with the Comet Backup desktop app failing to allow configuration of Disk Image Protected Items with some hardware configurations
Fixed an issue with using the Recovery Media or Linux Snapshot Driver install features on Linux if /tmp/ is a separately mounted filesystem
Fixed an issue with links in the "Number of users" column in the User Policies table in the Comet Management Console failing to filter the user list to users with the appropriate policy
Fixed an issue that can cause duplicate emails with scheduled reports
Fixed an issue with the policy option 'If the last job encountered an error retry' set to 'Optional, default on' overriding the saved schedule values when viewed in the Backup Agent
Fixed a cosmetic issue in the Comet Management Console with the pop up message when unsuspending a user
Hyperion 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.
This Quarterly release is named after Saturn's moon Hyperion. Fun fact: Hyperion is potato shaped and its deeply cratered surface resembles a sponge. Hyperion rotates chaotically, tumbling unpredictably through space as it orbits Saturn.
As for the software, Comet 25.5.0 Hyperion brings 3 new features and 9 enhancements, including automatic Storage Vault unlocking, automatically switching jobs to use on-disk indexes, a new option to backup everything in a Microsoft 365 domain, and more.
As always for a new quarterly release, there are two changelogs for 25.5.0 depending on whether you are coming from the previous quarterly release or the previous Voyager release:
NOTE: The Impossible Cloud eu-central-1 region has been deprecated. Existing Storage Vaults and Storage Templates using this region will remain configured.
As part of our efforts to improve the experience of using Comet, we have added functionality to automatically change Storage Vault access keys for some of our supported storage providers, allowing admins to manually unlock compatible Storage Vaults without the risk of data loss.
Vaults can also be automatically unlocked when specified criteria, configured in user policy settings, have been met.
The following Storage Vault types are currently supported:
It is now possible to cancel running jobs in bulk from the Job Logs page on a Comet Management Console. This is an effective way to stop all currently running backup jobs with one click.
Comet makes use of in-memory indexes to optimise backup and retention pass jobs to maintain a list of where the data is in the Storage Vault. For larger Storage Vaults, this can lead to a large amount of data held in memory. On devices that have a lower amount of RAM, this can cause a job to fail as there is not enough available memory to complete the job. Comet's solution is to store the indexes on-disk using temporary files instead. This is because devices can often have more free disk space than available RAM.
When a scheduled backup or retention pass requires more RAM than is available, Comet will now automatically switch to store the indexes using temporary files on disk.
Comet has added support for setting yearly schedules and retention rules - great for long term storage, archival, and compliance requirements.
Linux recovery environment ISO can now be built without Docker on Linux
Creating the Linux recovery environment ISO using Comet Backup on a Linux endpoint can now be done without requiring Docker to be installed. This simplifies the install requirements to build the Linux recovery environment and also reduces how long it takes to build the recovery environment.
Linux Disk Image snapshot driver now installs automatically
Comet uses a custom Linux kernel driver backupsnap61 to snapshot a block device during a Linux Disk Image Protected Item backup.
In previous releases, backupsnap61 had to be installed manually using the backupsnap61-install.sh script found in the Comet Backup install directory.
Without backupsnap61 installed, Comet can't guarantee it can get exclusive read access to a block device. This will appear as a warning in a Linux Disk Image backup job log.
Now, backupsnap61 is installed automatically by Comet to ensure a snapshot driver is always available before starting a Linux Disk Image backup.
VMware Protected Items configured using Changed Block Tracking can now fallback to a full backup
VMware Protected Items that have been configured to use the Latest VM state (Changed Block Tracking) mode will now fallback to performing a full VM backup when Comet detects that more than 50% of the disk has changed. This speeds up the backup peformance when large parts of the VM has been modified.
New option to back up everything in a Microsoft 365 domain
In previous versions of Comet, the "Select all except..." option for Microsoft 365 Protected Items was provided as an alternative way to select accounts, allowing for the automatic inclusion of new accounts and potential exclusion of others. User feedback was that the behaviour of this option was unintuitive, and so we have elected to remove this option in favour of a more intuitive alternative.
We are introducing the new "Back up everything" option for Microsoft 365 backups. This option provides a simple way to back up everything within a domain, including any accounts that are added later.
To back up everything with exceptions, users should instead create a group in Microsoft 365 and have the group auto-assign to new accounts. Users to be excluded can be removed from the group, and this group can then be selected in Comet.
Comet has made substantial performance improvements for retention passes on several storage types when large numbers of files become eligible for deletion.
Comet has updated the translations for 13 languages. These are Danish, German, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Croatian, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Europe), Russian, Polish and Thai.
Comet Backup Desktop App Windows Tray Icon "Show Interface" Changes
When the policy setting "Prevent opening the application interface" is enabled, clicking the "Show Interface" button from the Comet Backup desktop app tray icon on Windows will now open the login dialog prompt.
This change allows another user to log into Comet Backup. Previously, this button had no action.
NOTE: The Impossible Cloud eu-central-1 region has been deprecated. Existing Storage Vaults and Storage Templates using this region will remain configured.
