Rocky Linux now GA. Veeam support ??? (also AlmaLinux)

[aj_potc]

Why can't you use Veeam?

I've moved most of my servers to Rocky, and Veeam is still running fine on those, even if that particular flavor is not officially listed as a supported OS.

I hope that Veeam will announce support at some point. Unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of waiting -- just like all CentOS 8 users.

[PTide]

@aj_potc,

Just curious, why did you pick Rocky over Alma?

I read that Rocky and Alma are essentially the same thing, with the only difference that one updates slightly faster and is a community effort, whereas the other is technically owned by non-profit entity and delivers updates not as fast (reportedly).

Thanks!

[aj_potc]

I chose Rocky because it was started by one of the people involved in the original CentOS. I was around when CentOS was launched and remember how important it was for the community of Red Hat users, so I feel like a similar effort (for the second time) has a reasonable chance of succeeding.

I haven't experienced any delays in updates that I would call notable. However, I recall that CentOS sometimes did have a very long lag following certain RHEL updates, so they weren't exactly the golden standard on that.

I also can't claim to see much difference in the community aspect. I have approached the Rocky community a few times and found a lot of help and support. It was trivially easy to get into contact with very senior people on the project, and I found that really refreshing.

[aj_potc]

I should also mention that it's quite easy to move between Rocky and Alma, so if I were forced to switch, I'm not concerned that it would be a big deal. This is another reason that I don't worry SO much about which particular distro I'm using.

The most important point is the one you mentioned: they're essentially the same thing.

[Asahi]

Hi !

Recently, we have heard many people wanting to back up Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux on their physical machines.
It would be great if support is added in a future release of Veeam.

Thanks in advance!
Asahi

[efik123]

Why can't you use Veeam?

I've moved most of my servers to Rocky, and Veeam is still running fine on those, even if that particular flavor is not officially listed as a supported OS.

I hope that Veeam will announce support at some point. Unfortunately I didn't have the luxury of waiting -- just like all CentOS 8 users.

@aj_potc, can you please elaborate on how did you install the Veeam linux agent on rocky ?
when I tried to push it from the app it says that rocky is not supported.

Thanks in advance !

[HannesK]

Hello,
and welcome to the forums.

I remember myself changing the /etc/os-release file on a different RHEL-compatible distribution to something supported. Then the agent installs.

Best regards,
Hannes

[aj_potc]

Sure!

You can install it (and keep it updated) by adding Veeam's repo to your yum configuration.

Just follow these steps:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=50

The first step (where you download and install veeam-release) is the part that enables the repo. From there, you use yum to install the Veeam agent as listed in the setup steps.

Even though this is the way you would normally install a standalone agent, it works perfectly well as a managed agent, too. You just can't use the VBR to update or install the agent on new machines. However, if you use yum to keep your systems up to date, then the Veeam agent will be updated automatically along with other packages in your repos.

[d3nz]

+1 for Rocky Linux support by Veeam

[jstopinsek]

Hi!

It would be nice if Rocky Linux was officially supported by Veeam in a future release.
More and more servers are on Rocky Linux each day...

Thanks in advance!

[Thomas.T]

Hi,

it would be important that Rocky Linux is supported!

We are gradually migrating all servers from CentOS to Rocky Linux.

Thanks in advance!

[fajfel]

We are currently migrating our CentOS 8 servers to AlmaLinux, so we would like to see AlmaLinux as a supported OS for our Veeam infrastructure (Proxy Servers and Repository Servers ---including XFS reflink support---).

We have delayed the migration of our Proxy and Repository servers, but it would be nice to know the Veeam support road-map for RHEL 8 clones as CentOS 8 is about to reach its EOL.

+1
We are using CentOS 7 but according to EOL we would like to plan on which distro we should switch (Alma / Rocky Linux).

Best Regards,

[Ctek]

Vouching for Rocky as well, we are replacing our CentOSes with Rocky.

[Tom Lico]

We have recently switched to AlmaLinux. AlmaLinux 8 VM's can still be back-upped and restored. When we get to AlmaLinux 9, we're experiencing XFS mount fails during FLR restore. A full restore is working though.

+1 to hopefully be able to use this function soon.

[HannesK]

Hello,
the XFS issue can be solved by using an Alma Linux 9 or any other distribution with latest XFS as helper host. It's the same with XFS on RHEL 9

Best regards,
Hannes

[Robert G.]

Is full support planned for Alma/Rocky 8/9 with v12?

[Gostev]

No, it's not planned for V12.

[hayliz]

+1
We are in the process of switching from Centos to Alma Linux or Rocky. Is it on the road map?

[d3nz]

No, it's not planned for V12.

Hello!
Is it possible in future and when, or unlikely and we have to prepare for migration from free of charge RPM to free of charge DEB Linux distr?

[Gostev]

It's definitely a possibility depending on the level of adoption.

[mikeely]

@Gostev, we switched from Centos to Rocky, which should be as easy to support as pre-stream-debacle centos was. Definitely count us in for a request.

[mikeely]

If you're interested I have Case #05836924 and was told that while Rocky 9.1 isn't going to be supported, Oracle 9.1 is. To which I say: "HUH???"

First off (and most importantly) the two operating systems are the same other than branding. Supporting both of them isn't really harder than supporting one of them. And if the risk-averse types are getting too uptight about it, just cover yourselves with a disclaimer: "Rocky Linux is unsupported. It should work, but if you want support you have to use a supported distro." Bing, bang, move on and make your customers happy.

Second, why of all distros did you settle on Oracle? As anyone who has had the misfortune of dealing with that company knows, Oracle is shady. Yeah, sure, Oracle Linux is free and has been for a while. And will be, until they decide (and this is all my opinion here based on their history) that the install base is large enough, and then bang! It's no longer free, and if your C-levels aren't Very Online, they will have missed the announcement and won't know until the lawyers come knocking. If you don't believe this is possible, ask somebody who's done Java development for a long time how that worked out for them.

Seriously, if you're going to call Oracle's distro supported there is no good reason not to support the ones that aren't pushed out by a megacorp with a long and sordid history of abusing its customers. Please add support to Rocky and Alma.

[HannesK]

Hi Mike,
I merged your request, as it looks duplicate to the one above.

As Anton mentioned above: there is a possibility of supporting these distributions. That's what we can say for now. We are pretty busy getting V12 out of the door, so that's a topic for the future.

Thanks for your understanding,
Hannes

[mikeely]

Hi Hannes,

I get the focus on V12 and am looking forward to it. What I don't understand is why no effort was put into supporting Rocky (and Alma) as soon as the depths of the Centos Stream debacle became apparent. And seriously, the difference between Oracle (ugh, times infinity) Linux and Rocky Linux is a matter of different logos.

[Gostev]

The reason is no spare QA capacity to test the product against additional distros. Something has to go, before something else can be added to the test plans. I do believe @PTide has plans to drops some distros from supported soon based on their declining market share to accommodate some other instead.

[aj_potc]

It's good to hear this, Anton. I'm sure many of us who've chosen Rocky/Alma 8 are eager to be officially supported by Veeam again after more than a year left out in the cold due to the CentOS fiasco.

CentOS 8 has received no updates for over a year now, and although it's still listed as a supported OS version in your documentation, I would expect (and hope) very few of your clients are still using it. I don't know your policy on supporting EOL OSes, but if you drop support for CentOS 8, potentially this should free up some resources.

[mikeely]

This weekend brought another reminder of why people avoid doing business with Oracle and why we steer a wide berth around their Linux distro - it's only a matter of time, and then it will be a matter of millions of unbudgeted bills.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/27/ ... ing_change
Maybe @PTide could drop their Linux to free up bandwidth for Rocky/Alma.

[mrtomasz]

I use Rocky Linux 8 for a very long time with Veeam v11a and there was no issues at all, including running backup repo on it.

[aj_potc]

Rocky/Alma indeed works just fine with Veeam as long as you use a compatible RHEL kernel version. The problem comes when you need support.

Veeam's first tier of support will drop your case like a hot potato the moment they discover you're running an unsupported distro. I understand their reasoning, but it isn't pleasant, as the availability of Veeam support was one of the main reasons I chose them for my production systems.

[shane.hutter]

Hi everyone. My organisation is a heavy user of Veeam products, and we also have a lot of AlmaLinux servers, as we provide many servers running cPanel/WHM. Naturally, getting Veeam agent based backups working for us is a high priority for our team.

I'm not 100% sure that this is a solution to your issues, but this has worked for us, and we have published a public facing support article that may help get you up and running with Veeam agent backups on AlmaLinux 8.

https://docs.serversaustralia.com.au/do ... lmalinux-8

Hope this helps