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Crashplan Pro

CrashPlan Pro (previously referred to as Code42) is a backup solution for endpoints.  CrashPlan continuously backs up an end users' files and documents with no storage limitations.  Up to 4 devices on average can be backed up under the same license.  The data can be recovered via the CrashPlan agent installed on the machine or the CrashPlan website. 

Please see the tabs below for information about setting up CrashPlan Pro for your Penn IT Environment and about CrashPlan Pro functionality.

Initial Setup

ISC Client Care can assist you in the planning and setup of Crashplan for your school or center.  These are some of the primary decisions/options to consider when setting up a new instance of Crashplan.  Submit a ticket to ISC Client Care to get the planning discussion started.

  • Identify the IT users in your organization who will be administering the Crashplan accounts for your school or center. These people will be granted Org Admin access in the system.
  • Decide whether you want to use Single Sign-On (SSO) for logins.  The option to use PennKey SSO is available but requires that your users are using pennkey@upenn.edu as their usernames.   
  • Enter your budget codes in Crashplan for billing purposes.  Some schools are billing at the level of their school or center while others have created sub-orgs for organization and/or billing purposes.  To set up the budget code(s), go into the Crashplan console, open up the top level associated with the budget code, and then enter the budget code in the "Reference" section in the "External Reference" field.  If you have a more complicated situation, have a lot of different budget codes, or need assistance, contact ISC Client Care
  • Decide whether it makes sense for your org to push the deployment to end-users or set them up individually in the Crashplan system. Deployment options are here.  
  • Review the settings options and determine what fits for your organization. These changes can be made by your Org Admins.
  • By default, Crashplan is set to backup user profile data in the UserData (Windows) and Home Directory (macOS) locations. Global Exclusions to backed-up items can be set according to file name, extension or path via the Device Backup Defaults settings.
  • By default, the installation is at the system level. The installation script can be changed to install at a per-user level; this may be needed in cases where a machine has multiple users who need to have their data separated from each other. The limitation of the per-user installation method is that it will only back up the system when the user is logged in.
  • Crashplan does NOT support the backup of UNC paths.
  • Crashplan can be deployed via a push with a script or by setting up accounts manually. Because Deployment Profiles are only available at the Customer Cloud Admin level, ISC Client Care will need to generate deployment scripts and profiles for your organization based your environmental requirements. ISC staff are the only people with Customer Cloud Admin access, and no data will be visible to other schools or centers.
  • In Crashplan, a user’s email address serves as their username, but PennKey Single Sign-On (SSO) is also available. If you plan to use PennKey SSO, the email addresses for the usernames need to be pennkey@upenn.edu format; the email username CANNOT include the third-level domain (e.g. pennkey@isc.upenn.edu, pennkey@vet.upenn.edu, etc.).
  • One benefit of using an installation script is the inclusion of the Code42 server address in the agent. If you need to input the server address directly, it is clients.us2.crashplanpro.com.
  • Macintosh systems need to allow the CrashPlan app Full Disk Access in order to back up most protected user data, which may need to be done via a MDM product like Jamf.
  • Some schools may redeploy or reimage machines. Crashplan has provided documentation to address this scenario. 
  • If you are deploying Crashplan on a previously-enrolled device, all previous traces of Crashplan and User Data have to be removed to prevent conflicts.  For some, it might be easier to completely reimage the device prior to re-enrollment.  You can contact ISC Client Care if you need direction about your specific circumstances.