Invalid path error when trying to create a Disk Storage device on a network share using an IP or DNS name address for the server name

Problem

When creating a Disk Storage Device (Backup-To-Disk) on a remote CIFS share using an IP address as the server name an error gets generated.

Error Message

Cause

This problem can occur because of two reasons:

1. The IP address associated with the device is not available anywhere in DNS.  A DNS lookup for the IP address failed causing the erroneous bad path error to be returned.  For example, the share name \\10.66.55.23\share and the device with IP address 10.66.55.23 was not referenced in DNS.
2. The Backup Exec services account does not have permissions on the share.

Solution

For Cause 1:

This problem can be resolved by either adding a DNS entry for the device, or adding a host file entry for the device on the media server.  The hosts file on a Windows server is located in C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

For Cause 2:

If the server hosting share is part of the same domain as Backup Exec server then assign permissions to Backup Exec services account on the Share. If the server is not part of the domain then create an account with same name and password as Backup Exec services account on the remote server and assign that account read/write permissions on the Share.