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BACKUP EXEC failing to backup zones from Solaris 10 global zone

primop
Level 3

Good morning.

We are running a solaris 10

Ralus agent--> ralus=5204.1270.SP4

Presently we are backing up all zones individually with agents on each zones.

We have no special needs to do so.

We are trying to backup all of the zones from the global zone and it fails at the /zones file system.

The user root is running the process so I am not sure why it's not able to backup the /zones file system.

This feels like permission problems not being allowed to backup those file from the global zone.

Is there something special I need to configure on the global zone.

 

Thanks

 

Primop

10 REPLIES 10

VJware
Level 6
Employee Accredited Certified

Verbatim from a KB may help you

Best Practices for having Backup Exec 12.x for Windows Servers and RALUS (Remote Agent for Linux \ Unix Servers) install and protect Solaris 10 servers with Zones

 

Details:

This document deals with the RALUS agent (Remote Agent for Linux Unix Servers), as there are no changes to the Backup Exec for Windows media server if Solaris zones are present.  While RALUS can be installed and made to work in various configurations with regards to Solaris 10 and zones, the following are considered "best practice".

RALUS should be installed into the default or GLOBAL zone.  Other zones can be setup to use a different and more restrictive "root" account.  By being installed to the GLOBAL zone. RALUS along with the true root account, would be able to backup any and all zones rather than be limited to a particular zone.  Backups and restores then could be done on a per zone basis or per the entire server.  Restores would also be possible as redirected across zones, if needed.

All other considerations for installing and use of RALUS, would be the same if zones were or were not present.  These would include type of backup, frequency, verification, accounts used to authenticate and run backups and restores and so forth.

There should only be one installation of RALUS on the server, and it should be in the GLOBAL zone.  With zones it is possible to have multiple installations of RALUS on a single server.  The problem with that is that the installation might be confused one for another when creating jobs, checking resources available and troubleshooting.  There would also be a risk of two installations trying to run at the same time accessing the same data, due to how certain mount points are configured.

The only time that RALUS should be considered for installation into a non-GLOBAL zone, would be if backup ability was to be limited to a slice or single zone within the server for some security reasons.  However, in this case RALUS using that zone's root account and not the true global root, would only see that particular zone.  Thus the concern would be, that is something were to happen with files in other zones or on the default (Global) system, they would not have been backed up.  After some time it might be assumed that as RALUS is installed on server XYZ (server name), that it is fully protected, when due to the zone, it in fact may not be.

primop
Level 3

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

So in essence I am looking for this best practice guide to configure the backups to run only from the global zone.

 

As I have mentioned Backups are running from the zones and the global zone  excluding the /zones files.

We have changed this.

We have stopped the agents on the zones and removed the exclusion of the /zones file system from the backups so the backup everything from the global zone without success.

 

The backups see the /zones file system from the backup server but it freezes at /zones/server1/root/dev/dtrace/provider.

 

Thanks

 

primop

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
Are you running BE 2010? If so, then Solaris is not supported

primop
Level 3

We are running BE 2012

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
BE stop supporting Solaris since BE 2010

primop
Level 3

Sorry we are running BE 2010.

Just double checked.

 

I am running the agent in debug mode on the global zone and will see.

My collegue is also running debug mode on the backup server (windows)

primop
Level 3

This is what I am seing in my solaris logs.

 

vx_stat_by_name: Getting stat of /zones/server1/root/dev/fd/18
   a Mon Mar 16 12:29:13 2015 :         SkipObject: f_type is 4, returning TRUE

 

 

Andrew_Madsen
Level 6
Partner

Zones are LOFS type of file systems. See if you have a setting that will allow you to backup LOFS. In NetBackup you also need to check the "Backup NFS mounts" check box. I am not sure what BE has.

By the way your subject line say Net Backup not Backup Exec.

primop
Level 3

Thanks for the reply Andrew.

 

Sorry we are using backup exec.

I don't see any of those options in backup exec.

This is what I have done so far.

 

-- Tools>Options > Linux/Unix

-- Selected the "Follow local mount points" and "Follow remote mount points"

-- Restarted the Backup exec services.

-- Tried backups and failed.

 

pkh
Moderator
Moderator
   VIP    Certified
As I said earlier BE 2010 does not support Solaris