User Guide for Linux OS#
Overview#
This guide introduces how to install and configure the ADPS agent and how to properly use ADPS to back up and restore Linux OS.
The backup and restore features supported by ADPS include:
Backup sources
Linux OS partition
Backup types
Full backup, incremental backup
Backup targets
Standard storage pool, deduplication storage pool, local storage pool, tape library pool, object storage service pool, and LAN-free pool
Backup schedules
Immediate, one-time, hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.
Data processing
Data compression, data encryption, reconnection, speed limit, and handling sparse files
Restore types
File-level restore, OS-level recovery
Restore targets
Original host and different host
Planning and preparation#
Before you install the agent, check the following prerequisites:
You have already installed and configured other backup components, including the backup server and the storage server.
You have created a user with roles of operator and administrator on the ADPS console. Log in to the console with this user to back up and restore the resource.
Note
The administrator role can install and configure agents, activate licenses, and authorize users. The operator role can create backup/restore jobs and conduct copy data management (CDM).
Install and configure the agent#
To back up and restore Linux OS, first install the ADPS agent on the host where Linux OS resides.
Verify the compatibility#
Before you install the agent, ensure that the environment of the host where Linux OS resides is on the Aurreum Data Protection Suite’s compatibility lists.
ADPS supports the backup and restore of various Linux distributions, such as Debian, RedHat, and their derivatives. Supported Linux distributions include:
Red Hat 4/5/6/7/8/9
Ubuntu 12.04/14.04/16.04/18.04/20.04/22.04
SLES 9/10/11/12 SP1
openSUSE 10.3/11.4/15.5
Debian 6.0/7.0/7.5/7.6/7.8/8.0/9.0
Scientific Linux 4/5/6
AlmaLinux 8.5
Install the agent#
The ADPS agent can be installed on Linux. You can select the installation method according to your environment.
Linux#
For Linux OS, ADPS agent supports online and offline installation. We recommend online installation.
Online installation: ADPS provides
curlandwgetcommands for installation.Offline installation: See Offline installation in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Agent Installation Guide.
To install the agent online, do the following:
Log in to the ADPS console.
From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.
From the toolbar, click the Install agent icon. The Install agent window appears.
In the Install agent window, do the following:
(1) From the Select system list, select Linux.
(2) From the Component list, select OS. The
curlandwgetcommands appear in the window.(3) If you want to delete the downloaded package automatically after the installation, select the Delete installation package checkbox.
(4) If you enable Ignore SSL errors, the installation will ignore certificate errors and so on. If you disable the option, the installation will prompt you to enter Y/N to continue or discontinue the process when an error occurs.
Click the Copy icon to copy the
curlorwgetcommand.Log in to the Linux host as user root. Paste the command in the terminal and press Enter to start the installation. Example:
[root@centos7 ]# curl -o- "http://192.168.18.252:80/d2/update/script?modules=bmr&ignore_ssl_error=&access_key=7dc57757b7e675f2ec5495180f90ac70&rm=&tool=curl" | sh
Wait for the installation to complete.
Backup#
Backup types#
ADPS provides two common backup types for Linux OS.
Full backup
Backs up the disk partition data of the operating system.
Incremental backup
Backs up all data that has changed since the last backup with a full backup as the baseline.
Backup policies#
ADPS provides six backup schedule types: immediate, one-time, hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly.
Immediate: ADPS will immediately start the job after it is created.
One-time: ADPS will perform the job at the specified time once only.
Hourly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified hour/minute intervals within the time range according to the setting.
Daily: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified time and day intervals.
Weekly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified time and week intervals.
Monthly: ADPS will perform the job periodically at the specified dates and times.
You can set an appropriate backup policy based on your situation and requirements. Usually, we recommend the following common backup policy:
Perform a full backup once a week when the application traffic is relatively small (Example: on the weekend) to ensure that you have a recoverable point in time every week.
Perform an incremental backup every day when the application traffic is relatively small (Example: at 2 a.m.) to ensure that you have a recoverable point in time every day, which can save storage space and backup time.
Before you begin#
Before you back up and restore Linux OS, check the following:
Check storage pools
(1) From the menu, click Storage > Storage pool. The Storage pool page appears.
(2) Check whether the display area has any storage pools. If no, create a storage pool and authorize it for the current user. For details, see Add a storage pool in Aurreum Data Protection Suite Administrator’s Guide.
Log in to the instance#
Before you create a backup or restore job, log in to the Linux OS instance on the console. ADPS provides two authentication methods for Linux OS:
OS authentication
Use an operating system user to log in the resource.
Access key
You can use the access key of the current ADPS user to log in to the resource. This method is suitable for the following scenarios:
You cannot get the OS user’s username and password.
The user’s password changes frequently.
Note
Access key authentication is not enabled by default. To enable this feature, log in to the ADPS console, go to Settings, open the Security tab, and select the Access key login instance checkbox.
To get the access key, log in to the console, click Personal settings > Account settings on the upper right corner, find Access key on the Preferences tab, and click View.
To log in to the resource, do the following:
From the menu, click Resource > Resource. The Resource page appears.
From the host list, find the host where the Linux OS resides. If you have many hosts, use the search bar to find the host quickly. Click the host to expand its resource list.
Click Login beside the resource. The Login window appears.
In the Login window, select an authentication method according to your needs.
Select OS authentication, enter the Username and Password of the OS user, and click Login.
Select Access key, enter the access key of the current ADPS user, and click Login.
If your information is correct, you will be prompted that you have logged in to the resource successfully.
Create a backup job#
To create a backup job, do the following:
From the menu, click Backup. The backup job wizard appears.
At the Hosts and resources step, select the host where Linux OS resides and select the resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.
At the Backup source step, do the following:
(1) From the Backup type list, select a backup type.
(2) In the Backup source section, select the disk partitions that you want to back up.
At the Backup target step, select a storage pool. Click Next.
At the Backup schedule step, set the job schedule. For details, see Backup policies. Click Next.
Select Immediate. ADPS performs the job immediately after it is created.
Select One time and set the start time for the job.
Select Hourly. Set the start time, end time, and time interval for job execution. The unit can be hour(s) or minute(s).
Select Daily. Set the start time and enter the time interval for job execution. The unit is day(s).
Select Weekly. Set the start time, enter the time interval, and select the specific dates in a week for job execution. The unit is week.
Select Monthly. Set the start time and months for job execution. You can select the natural dates in one month or select the specific dates in one week.
At the Backup options step, set the common and advanced options according to your needs. For details, see Backup options. Click Next.
At the Finish step, set the job name and confirm the job information. Click Submit.
After the submission, you will be redirected to the Job page automatically. On this page, you can start, modify, and delete the job.
Backup options#
ADPS provides the following backup options for Linux OS:
Common options
Option |
Description |
Limitations |
|---|---|---|
Compression |
Fast is enabled by default. |
|
Handle sparse files |
The option is enabled by default. Sparse files will be handled during a backup job. |
Advanced options
Option |
Description |
Limitations |
|---|---|---|
Reconnection time |
The value ranges from 1 to 60 minutes. The job continues after the abnormal reset occurs in the network within the set time. |
|
Resumption buffer size |
Specifies the resumption buffer size. The default value is 10 MiB. The bigger the resumption buffer size is, the more physical storage will be consumed. However, a bigger resumption buffer size can prevent data loss when the throughput of the business system is high. |
|
Speed limit |
Limits data transfer speed or disk read/write speed for different time periods. The unit can be KiB/s, MiB/s, and GiB/s. |
|
Precondition |
Checked before the job starts. The job execution will be aborted and the job state will be idle when the precondition is invalid. |
|
Pre-/Post-script |
The pre-script is executed after the job starts and before the resource is backed up. The post-script is executed after the resource is backed up. |
Restore#
Restore types#
For different needs, ADPS provides several restore types for Linux OS, including OS-level recovery and file-level restore.
Create an OS-level recovery job#
Note
Before you creates an OS-level recovery job, please check:
The hard disk space of the restore target is greater than or equal to that of the source server.
If the source server has multiple hard disks, the restore target requires the same number of hard disks.
With LVM configuration, you can recover the Linux OS to a smaller volume group, but make sure that there is enough space to store the data.
The architectures currently supported by the OS-level recovery job are:
x86-64 architecture
i686 architecture
arm64 architecture
alpha architecture
mips64el architecture
To create an OS-level recovery job, do the following:
Use burning software to burn adps_bootable_recovery-version.x86_64.iso to a media such as CD or DVD.
Put the recovery media into the optical drive of your PC that executes the recovery job. To enter the OS-level recovery console, set the temporary system to boot from the recovery media, select the default item, and press “Enter”.
Note
To access the OS-level recovery console via the browser, enter the following IP address: http://IP/d2/agent/
Press “ALT + q” on the OS-level recovery console to enter the command line of the temporary system, where you can view the recovery logs and the IP address. You can also use ssh to remote access the IP address. The default username and password is root/root.
Use the command LC_ALL=en.US.UTF8 /opt/ADPS/adps/bin/recovery_ui -qws to back to the OS-level recovery console from the command line.
If two hosts are running at the same time after the recovery job, modify one of the host’s host_uuid to avoid conflicts caused by the same agent environment.
After the temporary system starts, you can see the OS-level recovery console. On the console, do the following:
(1) On the Basic page, select Language, Time zone, Time, and click Next. The Network configuration page appears.
(2) On the Network configuration page, there are two sections:
The top tab in the left section allows for the selection of the NIC (if the machine is equipped with multiple NICs). By default, the first NIC is enabled and the MAC address is automatically retrieved. If the NIC is enabled, the NIC status will display a green indicator. The adjacent toggle can be used to Enable or Disable the selected NIC.
If the MAC address is not automatically retrieved, in the right section, under the corresponding network type tab (IPv4, IPv6 Link-Local, IPv6 Global), the Method option should be changed to Manual. You can manually input the IP address, Netmask, Default gateway, Preferred DNS, and Alternate DNS. Then, click Modify to apply the changes.
(3) Click Next, the Restore source page appears. On this page, select a restore source: Backup server - password authentication, Backup server - API key authentication, and Local device.
Backup server - password authentication: Enter the Address of the backup server, Username and Password. The right section automatically displays relative backup sets. Select a backup set. Click Next.
Backup server - API Key authentication: Enter the Address of the backup server, Username and API key. Click OK. The right section automatically displays relative backup sets. Select a backup set. Click Next.
Local device: all disc devices connected to the server will be listed.
(4) On the Disk settings page, the disk is allocated automatically by default. You can also click Manual > Select destination disk to specify a disk path. Then click Next.
(5) On the Advanced settings page, the Ignore creation of BIOS boot partition option is not enabled by default. The BIOS boot partition is created by default on a BIOS-based computer when the device is GPT-partitioned. Then from the Select network list, select a network. Click Next.
(6) On the Summary page, check the job configurations. Click Next. You will see a progress bar for the recovery job.
(7) After the job is completed, click Reboot and eject the optical disc. Once the server is rebooted, you can enter the operating system.
Create a file-level restore job#
To create a file-level restore job, do the following:
From the menu, click Restore. The restore job wizard appears.
At the Hosts and resources step, select the host where Linux OS resides and select the resource. The wizard goes to the next step automatically.
At the Backup sets step, do the following:
(1) In the Restore source section, select a backup set point in time for the restore job.
(2) In the File section, select files, folders or disks that you want to restore.
(3) Click Next.
At the Restore target step, select a restore target. The wizard automatically goes to the next step. The restore target supports other instances on the original or a different host.
At the Restore schedule step, set the job schedule. Click Next.
Select Immediate. ADPS will perform the job immediately after its creation.
Select One time and set the start time for the job.
At the Restore options step, set the options according to your needs. See Restore options. Click Next.
At the Finish step, set the job name and confirm the job information. Click Submit.
After the submission, you will be redirected to the Job page. You can start, modify, and delete the job.
Restore options#
ADPS provides the following restore options for Linux OS:
Common options:
Option |
Description |
Limitations |
|---|---|---|
Restore partition information |
Enabling this option will restore the entire partition, including all files within the partition, to the default path. |
LVM partiton is not supported. |
Restore location |
The option appears when the Restore partition information option is enabled. To restore files on the root partition, we recommend selecting a new path. Restoring them to the original path may cause the job to fail. |
Advanced options:
Option |
Description |
Limitations |
|---|---|---|
Reconnection time |
The value ranges from 1 to 60 minutes. The job continues after the abnormal reset occurs in the network within the set time. |
|
Resumption buffer size |
Specifies the resumption buffer size. The default value is 10 MiB. The bigger the resumption buffer size is, the more physical storage will be consumed. However, a bigger resumption buffer size can prevent data loss when the throughput of the business system is high. |
|
Speed limit |
Limits data transfer speed or disk read/write speed for different time periods. The unit can be KiB/s, MiB/s, and GiB/s. |
|
Precondition |
Checked before the job starts. The job execution will be aborted and the job state will be idle when the precondition is invalid. |
|
Pre-/Post-script |
The pre-script is executed after the job starts and before the resource is restored. The post-script is executed after the resource is restored. |
Limitations#
Feature |
Limitations |
|---|---|
Backup |
Backing up the btrfs filesystem of the SUSE Linux Enterprise is not supported. |
File-level restore |
The Restore partition information function only supports the recovery of standard partitions, and does not support LVM partitions. |
OS-level recovery |
Do not support recovery from a LAN-free storage pool. |
Glossary#
Term |
Description |
|---|---|
fast compression |
A compression method that uses fast compression algorithms to compress data during the backup job. |