Warning - The current system is not a EFI system

[poulpreben]

Hi all,

When backing up a few of our Linux servers, we get the following warning message:

"The current system is not a EFI system".

While the statement is correct, why is it flagged as a warning?

Thanks!

[PTide]

Hi Preben

One of the reasons you see that message is that the agent has detected EFI partition, but hasn't found EFI. Can you check if that's the case, please?

Thanks!

[poulpreben]

Seems like you are right. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Do you know why this is considered a problem? Does it cause any trouble during restore, or why is this condition flagged?

[PTide]

If EFI partition is included into a backup scope, the agent attempts to backup EFI entry as well. If you restore the system and its EFI partition from the backup to a EFI-capable hardware later, it won't boot without manual intervention. In your case, the agent does not find any entries that correspond to the EFI partition so it warns you that the system is not EFI.

Do you want to get rid of that message? What is the system by the way - is it just OS booted in a legacy mode, or it's the hardware that does not have EFI at all?

Thanks!

[poulpreben]

From a hardware perspective, it is a physical server which is EFI capable, but it was accidentally booted up in BIOS mode when it was initially deployed. I guess nobody noticed at the time.

The best solution would be to just schedule a maintenance window and ensure the system gets reconfigured for EFI. It should not be too difficult for most Linux systems, as GRUB is compatible with both MBR and EFI boot.

I will check with the customer again. Thank you for clarifying.

[PTide]

Is it a SUSE-based system by any chance? I'm asking because they reportedly might have some sort of a hybrid MBR.

Thanks

[poulpreben]

It does not seem to be related to SLES in this case. All the systems are reporting the following OS:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 x64 3.10.0

Thanks.

[stefanwey]

Hi

I get the same Message with an Ubuntu VM on Azure

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$ mount | grep efi
/dev/sda15 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro,discard)

$ uname -a
Linux [Servername] 4.15.0-1021-azure #21-Ubuntu SMP Fri Aug 10 10:02:38 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Does this have to be like that? is it recommended to change to UEFI?
(I think probably the Bare-Metal Restore will not work with that Message right?)

[PTide]

Hi,

BMR restore to a non-EFI system will work. However, if you decide to restore the backup to a EFI-based system, you'll have to configure EFI entries manually because what does not exist on your current system cannot be restored, right? : )

However, there is a thing about your config that I am really curious about - that vfat with /boot/efi, was there all the time, or you created it at some point?

Thanks!

[stefanwey]

Hi

Is BMR restore to Azure Stack already available? I would assume Azure/Azure Stack is an "non-EFI" system as it is an Generation 1 VM Type.


This is a new deployed VM form Azure Stack, beside form the Veeam Agent Installation there haven't ben made any changes.

Title
Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS
Description
Ubuntu Server 18.04 LTS amd64 20180808 Public Azure, 20180806 Azure Germany, 20180806 Azure China. Ubuntu Server is the world's most popular Linux for cloud environments. Updates and patches for Ubuntu 18.04 will be available until April 2023. Ubuntu Server is the perfect virtual machine (VM) platform for all workloads from web applications to NoSQL databases and Hadoop. For more information see Ubuntu on Azure and using Juju to deploy your workloads.

I assume it is the same Image as in:
https://azuremarketplace.microsoft.com/ ... b=Overview

Thanks

[PTide]

Is BMR restore to Azure Stack already available?

Not yet, but Direct restore to Azure is available via VBR console.

Thanks!

[stefanwey]

Just some Info:
Warning Message is not yet fixed in 9.5 U4 Beta2, waiting for the final U4 ...

Veeam Support - Case # 03292134

[PTide]

Hi,

The message is not related to VBR as it is generated on VAL. Regarding fixing it in VAL - I am not sure that it should be 'fixed', because nothing is broken in VAL in this regards. If EFI partition is included in the backup scope, but no EFI is detected for whatever reason (gone/never been there/other), then the warning will let you know that some human intervention might be required for restore to EFI system.

Thanks!

[pck_robert]

Hi all, I'm following up on this issue because it's happening to me on a newly set up system. I'm running the D2v2 machine configuration which supposedly does not support EFI boot, but the boot partition "/dev/sda15 /boot/efi" does exist in mounts.

Is that partition even used in these machines? When I run this command:

<pre>[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "EFI boot on HDD" || echo "Legacy boot on HDD" </pre>

It returns Legacy boot. So I'm wondering if maybe that entry can simply be commented out in /etc/fstab?

I'm just trying to get that warning to stop so my Veeam emails are all green.

Please let me know if anyone has figured out a way. Thanks!

Rob

[PTide]

Hi @pck_robert,

I PMed you a workaround

Thanks!

[init-s]

Hi @PTide,

can you PM me too?
I've the same "problem" on a OVH Public Cloud istance.

Thanks

[PTide]

@init-s

Hello,

Done.

For future readers:

You need to exclude EFI device from scanning:

1. Open /etc/veeam/veeam.ini
2. Find [backup] section
3. Add this string

ignoreDevices=/dev/<your EFI device> (for example, /dev/sda15)

4. restart veeamservice

[ASF_E_OBJECTTOOBIG]

Hi,

I came across the same error message when trying to create an initiail full backup of a Ubuntu 18.04 system:

Code: Select all

Backing up sdb 291.1 GB at 142.2 MB/s (53%)
Error: Session has failed unexpectedly.

However, the system in question does in fact not use an EFI partition:

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root@server:~# mount | grep efi
root@server:~#

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root@server:~# uname -a
Linux server 4.15.0-169-generic #177-Ubuntu SMP Thu Feb 3 10:50:38 UTC 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Code: Select all

root@server:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS
Release:	18.04
Codename:	bionic

I already tried creating a ticket via support (#05288878) but it was closed without any response due to high Support Team load. That's why I try asking here in the thread instead...

Can anyone help please?

[PTide]

Hi,

That is, the system is not EFI, and there are no EFI pertitions, yet the agent still errors out and says 'the system is not EFI' ?
Any other errors? Normally, the error that you observer should not fail backup sessions.

Thanks!

[ASF_E_OBJECTTOOBIG]

> Any other errors?

Unfortunately not, unless I'm looking at the wrong places.

> Normally, the error that you observer should not fail backup sessions

It does in fact abort the backup at around 53%.

[sg_sc]

I had the "The current system is not a EFI system" when i backed up my Hetzner cloud linux VM.
This is in fact a warning and does not abort the back-up.
I had a /dev/sda14 partition mounted at /boot/efi and my sda1 partition mounted at /.

Am I correct that because my system uses legacy boot, it uses boot files from /boot and not /boot/efi and thus the sda14 can be safely ignored using the instructions provided by PTide?

@ASF_E_OBJECTTOOBIG
There might be another reason for failing the back-up, since the EFI message is only a warning.

[PTide]

@ASF_E_OBJECTTOOBIG,

That's weird. Let me try to draw more attention to your support case (please make sure you have logs handy), stay tuned.

@sg_sc,

Right. If you are not planning to migrate the system to UEFI-based HW, then you can even remove EFI partition completely. Alternatively, you can use the workaround.

Thanks!

[Kooma]

Had the same issue on a ESXI host running ubuntu as a VM.

Simple fix under the vm settings -> VM options and Boot, change from BIOS to EFI and reboot.

Hope this helps!