NSS Volumes

[foggy]

Any suggestions on a safe way to zero the unused data?

Please find a suggestion here.

Another possible reason for that is if you've removed some VMs from a reversed incremental backup job previously. The only way to reduce the size of the VBK in this case is to recreate it from scratch without writing the blocks of the removed VMs (i.e. perform an active full backup).

[jschick]

I would just like to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH for this!

I downloaded the beta .ISO this morning, and successfully restored a single file off a backed up NSS volume this afternoon.

I only ran into one issue - the kernel on the .ISO requires a 64 bit CPU. On my first attempt I tried launching the FLR appliance on my oldest and least used VMWare host. I thought the process was hung until I looked at the console for the FLR appliance. The full error was:

This kernel requires an x86_64 CPU, but only detected an i686 CPU.
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU.

I powered off the FLR appliance and removed it from inventory, then stopped the job. I realized soon after that I probably should have stopped the job first.

After I got the first job cleaned up, and tried again on a host with real hardware, the restore worked like a charm.

[eheiger]

I couldn't agree more, Thank you!!!!!! We've been able to restore nss files and I'm really happy to not have to use the workaround. I'm sure you've made many of my fellow novell colleagues happy! We appreciate your commitment to the customer...it means a lot.

thanks again,
Ed

[foggy]

And thank you guys for keep pushing and for your valuable feedback. I believe I'm not totally wrong saying that this particular functionality is completely justified by this single topic and its participants. We always say that we prioritize all feature requests according to the value for the product and the need for the feature from our customers base, and ready to add any new capabilities as long as there is sufficient amount of requests.

[OrgDV]

For a long time i was looking for a todo, to backup nss files via veeam. I did it as described on the first pages of this threat with a lot of workaround.
Now, after a long time, i just searched for any updates in case of nss and veeam and found this threat again.
I read it again, i tested it and i am sooooo happy. It works fine!!!

Thx to veeam and all the people in this threat for the result.

Good job

[patrickreid]

Is this a documented feature of the new code?

[foggy]

Is this a documented feature of the new code?

Patrick, as it is stated above, Novell NSS FLR is currently in the public beta stage and you can take part in its testing. Thanks.

[waynewall]

Just wondering how everyone's initial testing is going? We are currently running Backup Exec and just came across this NSS beta. Have been testing it for about a week now and have found it to work great. Any word of Veeam releasing it? I want to purchase Veeam but would like that to be fully supported prior to purchasing.

[Gostev]

No issues have been reported so far, the feedback from beta has been overwhelmingly positive. Our QC has found a few bugs in the past weeks though, and those are being fixed. We are currently hoping to release Novell NSS FLR as a part of upcoming 7.0, if all goes well. Although since this is the last minute squeezed feature that was not originally planned for 7.0, it may potentially suffer from last minute feature cut if some major issues are found close to the release. In that case, it will be postponed to 7.1 or something. So while chances are good, I cannot give you 100% guarantee it will make it into 7.0.

[jasonsfa98]

I'll admit that I did not actually restore a file but it worked up to that point. When I get more time I will test more.

Very happy to see this. I was just about to implement an RYSNC setup to accomplish this but Veeam just kept my business.

Thanks,
J

[foggy]

Jason, thanks for the feedback. We are highly interested in the results of your testing, please find the time to share when it is completed.

[ChrisJ]

Tried the beta ISO and the NSS volume did indeed mount correctly. But now the reiserfs volumes doesn't mount anymore like they did before.
So when I need to restore NSS I will need to use the beta ISO and then switch back to the original ISO for everything else.

Anyone else having this issue?

[foggy]

Chris, have you already contacted support with this? (Please don't forget to include [nssbeta] in the issue description when opening a case.)

[ChrisJ]

Chris, have you already contacted support with this? (Please don't forget to include [nssbeta] in the issue description when opening a case.)

Nope, not yet. We just started using veeam and I haven't had time to do more then a little testing.

[nefes]

This situation is absolutely expected. ISO for NSS volumes does not support any file systems other than NSS. You need to go back to original appliance once you are done testing NSS restore.

[Gostev]

Correct. Beta ISO is NSS only.

[SDMatt]

Works for me...

I was able to restore a group of files from a Netware 6.5 SP7 guest on VMWare ESXi 5.0

It's nice that Veeam is supporting folks with a few legacy VMs while other vendors are dropping support.

[m.novelli]

Hi guys, con you confirm that this ISO is included in Veeam 7.0 ? My sales colligues are trying to sell Veeam to a customer running Novell 5.1 SP8

On the release notes for v7 I've found "NSS (Novell Storage Services). File-level recovery for NSS is now supported from VMware backups"

Many thanks

[veremin]

Hi, Marco. Yep, v7 file level restore supports the Novell NSS file system. Thanks.

[m.novelli]

Just run a quick demo for this customer but the FLR appliance fail to see NSS volumes with error: Cannot mount sda2: "Unknown filesystem"

When configuring the FLR appliance I've selected the check box "Restore from Novell Storage Services (NSS) file system"

[veremin]

Then, I'd suggest opening a ticket with our support team and letting them investigate it directly. Thanks.

[m.novelli]

Then, I'd suggest opening a ticket with our support team and letting them investigate it directly. Thanks.

Hi, I've opened the case 00452763

Marco

[luke_miller]

I have been testing out Veeam NSS restores on a SLES server with one of our partners. The file level recovery works just fine but on checking the Novell permissions on the restore we are not getting them on the file. Can anyone confirm if this is expected behaviour and if so is there a workaround for us to be able to restore the files with the Novel permissions as well?

[Vitaliy S.]

According to the latest feedback NSS permissions might not be preserved, need to check that with our technical support team.

[thosa]

Vitaly, did you get any feedback with regards to preserving NSS permissions?

[Vitaliy S.]

Seems like these permissions cannot be preserved without using proprietary Novell tools. Please check out the post from Tom Sightler on the SE forums for more info.

[Gostev]

Permissions cannot be preserved, as this requires directory services. However, we have purposely removed those from the NSS FLR helper appliance based on the testing results (they were not stable, and made the appliance boot time too long). Thanks!

[spgsit5upport]

And who cares about permissions? They are not like MS nightmare. Unless you do 100's of Gb restore with very granular permissions (which would be time consuming to re-create), it takes few seconds to have them back in place by hand.
Or you could create all sorts of scripts (ie using JRBUtils) that do it in a flash

Seb