Support case ID 02121603 - Improve Backup Copy Job on Linux

[vlarocca]

Hi Veeam Dev Team,

I already opened a case to the Veeam Support, support case ID 02121603, they asked me to write here to proceed with the feature request.
First of all, sorry for my poor English, I'll try to do my best to explain well what I need.

My company is Veeam's gold partner and so we have a lot of customer with Veeam B&R. During the last year I collected a lot of customer's requests, one of the most populars is: "how can I perform an off-site and rotating backup copy job in the cheapest way?".
In Italy, sometimes, backup seems like an optional and our customers can't invest in hardware dedicated for backup.
I tried to find a cheap solution using 2 USB disks attached on a Linux machine, testing this on my infrastructure.

I manage a VmWare infrastructure with several VMs, I perform my backup jobs on a Dell DR4000 appliance as backup repository and backup copy jobs on the linux machine with USB hard disk attached.
"Backupper" is the little linux machine that act like backup repository, I have 2 USB disk of 2TB each named "weekly1" and "weekly2" attached on.
This is the schema that I use, based on crontab and Veeam scheduling:

Monday, 3:00 PM, Backupper disable nfs share and unmount weekly1. After this, a collegue substitutes the attached hard drive with weekly2. She brings weekly1 to her home (a sort of "off-site backup").
Wednesday, 03:00 PM, Backupper mount weekly2 and enable nfs share.
Wednesday, 04:00 PM, Veeam starts his backup copy job to the Backupper with weekly2 mounted.
Thursday, 03:00 PM, Backupper disable nfs share and unmount weekly2. And the collegue substitutes the attached hard drive with weekly1. This time she brings weekly2 to her home.
Saturday, 03:00 PM, Backupper mount weekly1 and enable nfs share.
Saturday, 04:00 PM, Veeam starts his backup copy job to the Backupper with weekly1 mounted.
and so on.

In this way I have two-time-a-week backup copy job with an off-site backup with less than 300$ hardware.

Unfortunately this schema has various weak point.
Sometimes Backupper can fail to unmount and re-mount the disks, and a new vbk is created on the linux local disk and not on the USB hard drive.
To avoid this, I tried to give "chattr +i" command on the folder used for nfs share, in this way nothing can be create on the local disk but i receive a lot of error e-mail from Veeam server.

Because Veeam (please explain my why, is creazy) try to write and read in the nfs share out of the backup window and its impossible to do this without a mounted USB disk.
Other times something fails and I receive other errors

I also thinked to enable rotated drive option for the backup repository, but it will not resolve all my issue.
I really need to consolidate this backup copy job method and make it "rock solid".

So, the final question is:
"What do you think is the best way to perform 2 time-a-week backup copy job on 2 different USB hard drives using a little Linux machine as backup repository?"
In according to the Veeam Support we think is a feature request.

Other information:
root@Backupper:~# crontab -l
00 15 * * 1 /root/scripts/umount.sh
00 15 * * 3 /root/scripts/mount2.sh
00 15 * * 4 /root/scripts/umount.sh
00 15 * * 6 /root/scripts/mount1.sh

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1O-t ... zA4RHdZU2s
In this drive you can found configuration's Screenshots and logs

Thanks for support

[P.Tide]

Hi,

I'm not sure that I understand how you use the NFS share in your setup. I assume that you configured NFS share on the Linux server and placed that shared directory onto USB mount point, is that correct? Please elaborate.

Thank you

[vlarocca]

Yes PTide, correct

[P.Tide]

Ok, then please tell me how is the Linux server added to the backup server console? Is it added as Linux repository or you just mounted the NFS share on the backup server? If the latter then why don't you assign a repository role to the server?

Thanks

[vlarocca]

I've changed some things in the last week for testing reasons.
I previously used nfs to connect to Backupper, now I've created 2 backup repository that point on the same machine, different folders
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1O-t ... k1zSy1fWEk
USB disk weekly1 is monunted on /srvbck/weekly1
USB disk weekly2 is monunted on /srvbck/weekly2

Both repository are setted in this way
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1O-t ... kZ1QUw5RXc

Changing from NFS to this don't improve anything

P.S. I prefer to use NFS protocol for this backup copy job schema, in my experience is the faster protocol for this kind of backups. By the way feel free to suggest what you think is the best way to do this.

[P.Tide]

Hi,

First of all, I'd recommend you to not place primary backup chain onto deduplication storage for the sake of faster restores.

Secondly, Veeam datamover is started not on Dell appliance but on the gateway server (the one that you've specified when you were adding Dell as a shared folder repo). That is, the data flow goes via gateway server to the linux server. I suggest you to eliminate the excessive link and assign the role of a rotated media repository to the server that holds the gateway role and use USB sticks on it.

By the way - what's your VBR version?

Thanks

[vlarocca]

Thanks PTide

I understand the suggestion for deduplicated storage, but DR4000 provide a good performance and wasn't my choice to use it...

I want for sure to try rotated drive but in this way the risk to write on the internal disk of Backupper remains.
I founded only 2 method to prevent that:
-chattr +i on /srvbck folder
-Nfs share shutted on crontab, if Backupper fail to mount disk nfs share is not activated

Is a good solution in your opinion?
It not satisfies me at all, it seems too much intricate and breakable

Another thing, I cannot assign the gateway role to the Backupper because is a Linux machine, do you confirm that I need a Windows OS machine?

My Veeam version is 9.5.0.823_Update1

Thanks a lot

[P.Tide]

Is a good solution in your opinion?

It is workable, however your goal is supposed to be resolved by rotated drives feature that has been specifically designed for such use cases.

Another thing, I cannot assign the gateway role to the Backupper because is a Linux machine, do you confirm that I need a Windows OS machine?

So, your Dell appliance is added as a shared folder, right? You should have specified the gateway server manually, or pick an automatic selection. In the latter case it would be mount server associated with the backup repository. If the mount server is not accessible, VBR fails over to the backup server. What are your settings for the repository gateway?

Thanks

[vlarocca]

It is workable, however your goal is supposed to be resolved by rotated drives feature that has been specifically designed for such use cases.

Yes, rotated drives features would work fine with a Windows OS, the problem is to manage rotated drives on a Linux machine...I suppose that I need to make do with what I have

So, your Dell appliance is added as a shared folder, right? You should have specified the gateway server manually, or pick an automatic selection. In the latter case it would be mount server associated with the backup repository. If the mount server is not accessible, VBR fails over to the backup server. What are your settings for the repository gateway?

Thanks

Yes, my Dell appliance is addes as shared folder and the mount server is the Veeam server itself

Thanks