Veeam Agent for Linux unable to see imported backups

[MarktheSpark]

Hello All,

I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction to solve this as I can't figure it out, but I may be missing something really obvious as I've only been using Veeam for just over a year.

Our setup is perhaps unique but as the backup admin I don't have access to the Linux servers that I need to protect. I create a Protection Group for Pre-Installed Agents. I instruct the server admins to install the VAL and pass them the XML configuration file which they use to configure the VAL. The Linux server then appears in the protection group and I create a backup job for it. This all works perfectly.

We have an existing Windows based VBR instance but I am trying to migrate to a VSA based VBR instance. I can reconfigure VAL to point to the new VBR instance by creating a Protection Group for Pre-Installed Agents on the VSA VBR instance and passing the new XML to the server admins to run the following command:

veeamconfig mode setVbrSettings --cfg ./Pre-Installed-Agents.xml

This works perfectly and the server now appears in the new VSA VBR and I can create a backup job for it. This works perfectly.

However, I need to be able to restore from the backups on the Windows based VBR instance. I have successfully imported the backups to the repo on the new VSA VBR, they appear under Disk (Imported). However, when list available backup on the Linux server, it only shows those created on the VSA VBR, not those imported ones.

I see many people suggest simply right clicking on the imported backup and select restore. However, this process prompts me for credentials for the Linux server and as I stated earlier, I don't have any (obviously I do on my test servers but not on the production servers). So I need a way either to link these imported backups to the new chain that is being created by the new backup job, or a way to tell VAL to list these imported backups.

I have support case 08109391 open about this but thought I'd open it up to the forum as it's not an errors as such and more likely a quirk due to the constraints of my particular situation. But I can't be the only one that doesn't have access to the servers they need to protect.

Any advice gratefully received.

Mark

[rovshan.pashayev]

Hello Mark,

You can try following steps:

Step 1 — Generate a Recovery Token: Using the imported backup, generate a Recovery Token via the VBR console. How to generate a Recovery Token

Step 2 — Use the Recovery Token in a BMR session on the Linux machine: Boot the Linux machine into the Veeam Recovery Environment and use the Recovery Token to connect directly to the backup — no Linux credentials required. From there you can perform either:

File-level restore — browse and recover individual files
Volume-level restore — restore entire volumes from the backup chain

How to use Recovery Token in BMR session

[MarktheSpark]

Hi Rovshan,

Thank you for the suggestion. I had explored that option too but alas I'm not presented with the option to use a token for authentication when importing backups from a Veeam Backup Repository, I only get the option to use Login and Password

Again, I think this is a limitation of our setup.

Regards,

Mark

[rovshan.pashayev]

Hello,

If you are referring to a Veeam Agent for Linux limitation, that is why I mentioned the Bare Metal Recovery option.
Please check the User Guide here: https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agent ... tml?ver=13

[MarktheSpark]

Sorry, Rovshan,

I'd missed the BMR context. I'll give that a try.

Thank you.

Mark

[MarktheSpark]

OK,

Booted up from the BMR media, that works ok. But the option to create a recover token for the imported media is greyed out in the VBR console

Mark