Datto Windows Agent (DWA) Version 1.0 to 2.0: Release notes

Topic

This article contains software release notes for Legacy versions 2.0 and below of the Datto Windows Agent.

Environment

  • Datto Windows Agent 2.0 and below

Description

Release August 24, 2020

Agent Version 2.0.13

Bug Fixes

  • DWA 2.0.X is now prevented from auto-upgrading to any version that is unsupported by your Windows OS.

Release March 18, 2020

Agent Version 2.0.12

Improvements

  • The Datto Windows Agent now supports new tools that can be used by Datto Technical Support to manually update root certificates in the event that the Datto device is unable to do so automatically. See Root certificate expiration for details.

Release February 3, 2020

Agent Version 2.0.10

Hotfix

  • Fixed an issue that caused backups for Datto Windows Agent Version 2.0.9 to fail with, "Operation timed out after 0 milliseconds with 0 out of 0 bytes received"
  • Fixed an issue that could cause pairing operations to fail with the error, "The backup agent on this system is out of date and no longer supported," for Datto Windows Agent 2.0.9 installations

Release June 10, 2019

Agent Version 2.0.9

Bugfixes

  • Resolved an issue which could cause logging failure of certain errors related to volume discovery
  • Fixed an issue which could cause the agent software to be unable to pull new certs (2.0.X)
  • Resolved a scenario in which backups for systems protected by the Datto Windows Agent could fail with the error, "err: 33"
  • Resolved a scenario in which backups for systems protected by the Datto Windows Agent could fail with the error, "system time to local time failed"
  • Fixed an issue which caused the backup agent software to report Windows Server 2019 installations as Windows Server 2016 incorrectly

Improvements

  • Added logic to protect backup threads from getting hung on long-running VSS operations
  • Improved the agent installer to prevent the installation of Version 2.0 agent software over existing Version 2.1 installations
  • Improved Windows Update backup validation to avoid unnecessary differential merges

Release January 28, 2019

Agent Version 2.0.8.0

Bugfixes

  • Resolved an issue which prevented iSCSI fallback from functioning on DWA 2.0
  • Added logic to check for and prevent the installation of DWA version 2.0 on systems where the Direct to Cloud (DTC) agent is already present
  • Vulnerability Fixes
  • The API Key for CSR requests no longer appears in plaintext

Tech Work

  • Resolved an issue which could cause GetVolumeInformation calls to protected machines to fail with Error Code 0
  • Resolved an issue which could cause failed API calls to prevent Windows Server 2003 machines from sleeping

Release November 8, 2018

Agent Version 2.0.7.2

Bugfixes

  • Resolved an issue that could cause backups to exceed 100% of their estimated transfer size

Release October 31, 2018

Agent Version 2.0.7.1

Bugfixes

  • Resolved an issue that could cause backup failures under certain low memory conditions

Release October 25, 2018

Agent Version 2.0.7

Improvements

  • Adjusted logging thresholds for certain expected events
  • Agents should report the same fields as 1.1 to support backup of 4Kn drives

Vulnerability Fixes

  • This fix disallows device connections using low/medium strength cipher algorithms

Bugfixes

  • Resolved an issue that could cause backups to fail due to invalid sector reads for systems protected by version 2.0.5.1 of the Datto Windows Agent
  • Resolved an issue that could cause screenshot failures for systems protected by version 2.0.5.1 of the Datto Windows Agent
  • Resolved an issue which could cause "- /host response missing os_version expected by Siris" failures under certain circumstances
  • Resolved an issue that could cause automatic updates of the Datto Windows Agent to fail when only the build number changes
  • Resolved an issue which caused noisy and incorrect severity FBRE/CopyChunkRanges logs
  • Resolved an issue that caused screenshot verification to fail when the protected system's OS volume reported incorrectly to the device
  • Resolved an issue which prevented BMR autopartitioning from functioning for EFI systems running DWA 2.0.5.1
  • Resolved an issue which caused driver block size calculation to be incorrect and cause backups to fail on extremely large volumes
  • Resolved an issue where VSS failures to prepare for backup could cause an unnecessary diffmerge
  • Resolved an issue that could cause non-NTFS volumes to report to the device incorrectly
  • Resolved a scenario in which failure to delete old log files caused backups to fail
  • Resolved an issue which could cause the DattoCtrl file to be 10x larger than it should be for very large volumes

Release September 5, 2018

Agent Version 2.0.5.1

New Features

  • This enhancement adds full backup detection logic to the Datto Windows Agent engine to help prevent your appliance from filling up prematurely. Full backups will now only occur during the first snapshot of a protected volume or after an operator destroys the live dataset of a volume. Otherwise, your Datto device will stop the full backup, perform an automatic rollback, and initiate a differential merge.

Vulnerability Fixes

  • Resolved an issue which could enable DattoBackupAgentService to run an executable not enclosed in quotes.
  • Fixed a vulnerability where the agent would accept connections from devices using the insecure TLS 1.0 protocol; now, only device connections using TLS 1.1+ will be accepted.

Bugfixes

  • Improved iSCSI / Mercury connect logic to be more resilient by retrying when connections fail.
  • Resolved an issue that caused the first backup of a protected volume to be a differential merge instead of a full.
  • Resolved an issue which prevented the Datto Windows Agent uninstaller from removing services and caused it to leave artifacts behind.
  • Resolved an issue which caused a differential merge on reboot after disabling Windows updates on the protected system.
  • Corrected a formatting error for Datto Windows Agent events (EventLog) in Windows Event Viewer.
  • Fixed an issue which caused /pair endpoint in re-pair scenarios to return "null" response on success.
  • Fixed a typo in the Datto Windows Agent log output.
  • Fixed an issue which allowed protected machines to sleep while backing up.
  • Fixed a bug where non-4K block size volumes could fail to back up.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause incremental changeset data to fail to be rolled forward in cases of incremental backup failures or interruptions.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause curl requests to output unformatted JSON.
  • Fixed a bug where the agent revision version number was omitted from the full version string.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause iSCSI differential merge backups to behave like full backups.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause a small amount of memory to leak when making outbound curl requests.
  • Fixed a bug which could cause unnecessary differential merges when a backup failed before snapshot mode.

Improvements

  • Added logic to cancel a backup in progress if the Datto device requests to start a new backup.
  • Added boot time to the host command.
  • Added the current redistributable version to /host.
  • Added reporting to record whether a given backup was a full, differential merge, or incremental.
  • Added MercuryFTP support for Windows.
  • Lowered the severity of the "volume size divisibility" logging messages to debug-level.
  • Lowered the severity of the "read less" logging messages to debug level.
  • VSS backup failures will no longer trigger differential merges when falling back to DBD.
  • Improved Mercury V1 re-connection logic to be more resilient.

Release July 31, 2018

Agent Version 2.0.5

NOTE   This release is targeted explicitly at existing DWA 2.0.3 installations to address the issues listed below. Neither download.datto.com nor any other current DWA versions will be affected by this release. A schedule for wider deployment will be available in the future.

Improvement

  • As a protected agent, I want VSS backup failures not to trigger differential merges when falling back to DBD, so my backups are more efficient.
  • Improved Mercury V1 re-connection logic to be more resilient.

Vulnerability Fixes

  • Fixed a vulnerability where the agent would accept connections from devices using the insecure TLS 1.0 protocol - now only device connections using TLS 1.1+ will be accepted.

Bugfixes

  • Fixed a bug where non-4K block size volumes could fail to back up.
  • Fixed a bug where incremental changeset data would fail to be rolled forward in cases of incremental backup failures/interruptions.
  • Fixed a bug where curl requests would output unformatted JSON.
  • Fixed a bug where the agent revision version number was omitted from the full version string.
  • Fixed a bug where iSCSI diff-merge backups would behave like full backups.
  • Fixed a bug where a small amount of memory could leak when making outbound curl requests.
  • Unnecessary diff-merge when a backup fails before snapshot mode.
  • Lowered the severity of the "volume size divisibility" logging messages to debug-level.
  • Lowered the severity of the "read less" logging messages to debug-level

Release June 20, 2018

Agent Version 2.0.3

New Features

  • As a Partner using a Datto agent, I want to avoid receiving full backups and instead receive differential merges to avoid performing rollbacks or prematurely filling my device.

Vulnerability Fixes

  • Enabled compiler generation of instructions to mitigate certain Spectre variant 1 security vulnerabilities.

Bugfixes

  • Improved Iscsi/Mercury connect logic to be more resilient by retrying when connecting fails.
  • First backup is a diff, not a full.
  • Uninstaller fails to remove services, leaves artifacts.
  • Disabling Windows Updates causes diff-merge after reboot.
  • Formatting error for DWA events (EventLog) in Windows Event Viewer.
  • Pair endpoint in re-pair scenario returns "null" response on success.
  • Typo in DWA Agent Logs: "last backup failed, foricing diffmerge".

Improvements

  • Prevent machine from going to sleep while backing up.
  • At the start of each backup, log the agent version and driver version.
  • Never deny the SIRIS a new backup - automatically cancel a running backup if the SIRIS requests to start a new backup.
  • Add boot time to host command.
  • Add the current redistributable version to /host.
  • As a partner using a Datto agent, I would like to know if a given backup was a full, diff, or incremental.
  • AGENTS-13: Mercury FTP support for Windows.

Release December 27, 2017

Agent Version 1.1.0.0

  • Fixed an issue where disabling the Windows Update service caused a diffmerge after every system reboot
  • Fixed an issue where the DattoBackupAgentService ran an executable path not enclosed in quotes
  • Updates the agent pairing process and fixes DWA certificate validation as mitigation for CVE-2017-16673
  • Fixed an issue that could prevent 32-bit agent installs from updating correctly

NOTE  Complete mitigation of the issues resolved by this release requires that you update to the latest version of the Datto Windows Agent to version 1.1.0.0 after your device has updated to OS 3.68.

Release October 31, 2017

Agent Version 1.0.6.0

  • Fixed remote command execution vulnerability of non-allowlisted commands discovered in CVE-2017-16674
  • Fixed presence of newer versions of vc_redist causing the installation to fail
  • Prevent machine from going to sleep while a backup is in progress
  • Changed behavior to cancel current backup if another is requested
  • Schedule update to occur after a backup if a backup is in progress
  • DWA-168, Added logging for component versions

Release July 31, 2017

Agent Version 1.0.5.0

  • Fixed an issue that could cause agents to report corruption even when no corruption existed on the production machine
  • Added support for Windows 10 Creators Update

Release April 20, 2017

Agent Version 1.0.4.0 / Driver Version 1.10.0.0

  • Fixed Exchange logs failing to truncate
  • Fixed a small memory leak
  • Integrated use of a driver roll-forward capability to allow for immediate snapshot retry by preserving change tracking data; resolves snapshot failures with certain VSS snapshot errors, such as timeouts
  • Removed DWA snapshot devices from host response
  • Added an icon for DWA instead of using the default Windows icon
  • Retrieving VSS writer status post snapshot
  • Added initial use of updated driver error status implementation to allow for better driver error diagnosis

Release February 27, 2017

Agent Version 1.0.3.0 / Driver Version 1.9.0.0

  • DWA-67 - Hung disk devices - allow NTFS checks to quiesce
  • Fix for incorrect snapshot partition configuration
  • Fix for IO processing during an invalid CoW file state
  • Fix for trying to set a bit in the CoW bitmask when it is either beyond the bitmask length or the bitmask had been torn down
  • Added tracing support
  • Added more granular error handling (errcode, args)
  • Added support for roll forward. Can retain tracking data in case of snapshot failure
  • Added capabilities field in API host response
  • Added mercury1 to capabilities field
  • Optimized network-based diffmerge buffer comparison
  • Retrieval of VSS writer status (failure/success) during snapshot setup to allow for troubleshooting and diagnosis of potential VSS snapshot issues
  • Return errors in status response (code, params, message)
  • Added status response errors in capabilities
  • Allow only one instance of an installer
  • Control files (DattoCtrl/Snap files) deleted on uninstall
  • Cache system VSS writer information used in host response

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