Roadmap for Veeam B&R on linux?

[tgx]

So I guess the last question is...which distro/distros or will this be a 'Veeam Linux' appliance/custom OS situation?

[Gostev]

But let's not use this thread for questions about random future capabilities going forward please. It doesn't work well to dump everything into the single thread anyway + best to wait until the first beta before discussing any specifics.

Folks, pretty please!! Many questions simply don't have answers yet, it's a 2025 release!

[mikeely]

It occurs to me that this would be an ideal thread to pin one post and then lock. We have our answer and it is good.

[pmichelli]

VBR on Linux is good news, especially in combination with upcoming proxmox support.



Why would you ever put your backup server inside your domain?
Just leave it standalone and compromising a domain admin is no longer sufficient for deleting the backups. In practical experience, this seems fairly successful at fending off untargeted or 'low-effort' ransomware attacks.

Yes, attackers can still catch an admin logging into the backup server with Mimikatz or similar, or find badly secured documentation / passwords inside the domain and other ingress points, but that's also true for Linux - at that point, only offline or immutable backups will save you.

My backup servers are in a workgroup in a very isolated vLAN. I was only making the comment for the people who don't do any security, leave Veeam on a flat network and then wonder why the attackers deleted their backup data (this happened to a company I used to work for because they chose not to listen and harden in favor of accessibility)

[Nodnarb]

Good news, indeed! We're a very heavy Windows shop but being able to run the Veeam server on Linux certainly has benefits and is something I'd be interested in migrating to. Next big question, do we still need to run the Veeam client on Windows or is there a big change coming there, too? Let the speculation begin!

[Gostev]

Originally yes, for full functionality you will still need to run the Veeam client on Windows even if your backup server is running on Linux. There's also no doubt our next-gen UI will be web-based, it will just be a longer journey to get it to fully featured state due to the sheer number of wizards, dialogs and UI features to port.

In fact, anyone who worked with VMware for a long time and thus has been through the same transition from Windows to Web vSphere client there, you already know exactly what to expect from Veeam as we intend to take the exact same approach of transitioning our UI to web.

[MelanieTanaka]

Thankfully without Flash since Flash is dead

[Sinuhete]

+1 for me.

After the big problem that occurred this July with Windows and Crowdstrike, we are beginning to see a agnostic tendency in many scenarios with the clear direction of ​​abstracting and ignore any Windows technology in backup systems (if possible, of course...). Linux could and seems to be one (or the only one?) of the great possibilities...

Thanks 4 all!

[tgx]

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I've been in this business a long, long time and I have yet to have a vendor
make good on the 'it will on run on Linux' tag line. It may run but the caveat list will probably be lengthy. If not,
Veeam will have another industry first.

I have two different systems running right now that made that claim over 20 years ago that are still managed by
Windows apps. The web based portions of the original Windows client that are ported don't do much more than job management and reporting
with epic lag (which seems like 'just an inconvenience' but in reality leads to mistakes).

All the heavy lifting and 'specialty' functions are still Windows centric. As wretched as Windows is, it's still the
elephant in the room. I wish Veeam all the success in the world at pushing it out. I just hope it doesn't end up like most other
vendor products where you end up doing things in two different interfaces because they simply couldn't get all the features ported.

[mkretzer]

@tgx to be honest i thought the same when Veeam first announced XFS and proxy support on Linux. Still, these two things instantly were better in the first release on Linux than the Windows counterpart. And i believe Veeam now has quite some experience after developing agents for Linux as well.
Sure, it will have bugs but there is hope for a good product after a few versions...

[tyler.jurgens]

I know VMware is often a swear word these days, but they also successfully took their Windows based vCenter and moved it to a Linux based vCenter. The largest challenge they had was a complete UI redesign at the same time, causing many of us to cling onto the old C# client until they pried it from us kicking and screaming.

Now, the HTML client they have works fairly well. It may have taken a while but its there. The UI change was challenging, however, the actual move to Linux was relatively smooth.

[dimaslan]

My only anxiety would be that whenever you encounter an issue it'll be just unknown when you'll resolve it. Just between an hour and eternity.
Also, most organizations have not only their own means of managing the servers (msp agents and such) but also security agents, 2FA, etc.
If one's using those among the most well-known ones, you 're bound to have them available for Linux, too.
Still, too many unknowns and also engineers' expertise on Linux is so far less than for Windows.
Still a lot of merit being able to not spend pricey Windows licenses on backup servers. Not sure how much better security will be.

[mikeely]

Or you could, you know, hire experienced Linux admins.

[PTide]

Most likely none of you will have to figure out how to fix something on your own

Cheers

[tgx]

I think you will find your "Windows' administrators probably run Linux at home
or in some other capacity. The pool of capable admins is bigger than you think.
I've been administrating Linux servers since the late 90's. It is a lot different for
sure as it's more of a moving target but fixes for issues come quicker and rebooting
'just because' to regain performance or return the system to sanity isn't really a thing.

Having said that, backup systems on Linux have almost always been problematic.
No idea what the technical why's are, but I have a feeling that Veeam will bring a lot
to the table to improve that experience. Personally, I am looking forward to trying it out.

[PTide]

That's a good point that the pool of people who know how to approach Linux is probably bigger than many people expect.

However, I am pretty sure that even experienced admins would prefer to use the software without having to worry about the undelying OS at all. They need the holes, not the drill

Thanks!

[tgx]

So your team never worries about MS updates?

[Gostev]

Of course not... our IT team worries about those, so we don't have to! And we love it, because this lets us focus on what really matters (using development software to improve our products).

[tgx]

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but I've been in this business a long, long time and I have yet to have a vendor
make good on the 'it will on run on Linux' tag line. It may run but the caveat list will probably be lengthy. If not,
Veeam will have another industry first.

I have two different systems running right now that made that claim over 20 years ago that are still managed by
Windows apps. The web based portions of the original Windows client that are ported don't do much more than job management and reporting
with epic lag (which seems like 'just an inconvenience' but in reality leads to mistakes).

All the heavy lifting and 'specialty' functions are still Windows centric. As wretched as Windows is, it's still the
elephant in the room. I wish Veeam all the success in the world at pushing it out. I just hope it doesn't end up like most other
vendor products where you end up doing things in two different interfaces because they simply couldn't get all the features ported.

Not really the person to say I told you so but...Veeam 13 login screen:

"Download Windows-based console for full experience"

If I have to download a Windows client, I will never use the web client. Those are just facts. Not trying to be an a** though I imagine it
sounds that way. I'd rather Veeam not waste time maintaining a web console. I have software that is written by other huge mutli-nationals with quite
capable programmers that are in the same boat and have been for 20 years sitting around maintaining two discrete interfaces because they cannot migrate some feature
to web. In my opinion it doesn't make sense to write and maintain a limited use shim and securing it. There may be some sort of remote access case where web client
is good enough but I doubt it. Personally I wouldn't bother.

I run Linux on my desktop full time and have since 2001. Believe me I would love a web client that does everything.
I have a Windows VM for no other purpose than to run console software that won't work wholly anywhere else. Perhaps Veeam
could certify the Windows client to run under WINE? That to me would be a better investment that recreating the wheel with a web
interface that is never wholly going to replace the Windows client.

I apologize if this sounds rude but it's just an honest appraisal.

[Gostev]

As V13 What's New document explains, the current web UI is a preview. We will move fast with additional functionality and it is certainly not in my plans to waste resources maintaining two discrete interfaces for 20 years so we will discontinue Windows-based console once the web client is feature complete, hopefully as soon as V14.

Further, programmers who cannot migrate some feature to web should not be called "capable" imho?

[tgx]

Here is my view on it. Programs that start off Windows based tend to stay Windows based in some capacity.
Once the feature set it made, for whatever reason, it is impossible to replicate on another platform
without something like WINE. I am not saying it cannot be done but I have never seen it happen
in my 30 years of IT work. Maybe someone else knows of some software that managed it without
starting over and redesigning the entire product. That I have seen, but I'm not going to say it ended up
a better product.

I do have three different apps I use regularly that tried to do web interfaces. I don't think they thought they
would be where they are at either. One vendor tried to port to Java. It ended up 2/3 functional but
still required a Windows console for 'advanced' features.

Maybe a flatpack app of the console software for Linux if the web interface becomes problematic?

[Gostev]

Really "never" seen? What about VMware vSphere for example, which went from fully Windows to fully web based UI.

It's not a rocket science really, web UIs are much easier to develop and maintain, and at least in case of Veeam the speed of web UI development is incomparable to classic UI (much faster).

And that is before AI, which should be really helpful when you already have the classic UI built and it does not need to "fantasize it", only convert it. Our first conversion experiments are very promising actually, they are what made me start talking about V14 as an aggressive target.

[mikeely]

It's not a rocket science really, web UIs are much easier to develop and maintain

This is hardly a new understanding. When I was in college (a depressingly long time ago) our Databases class group project centered on a functional demo and while most of the groups went with the suggested Visual Basic frontend, our group got permission from the professor to use a web frontend for our application because we all felt it was much simpler and less likely to result in errors.
Sure enough, on demonstration day the presentations were riddled with DLL hell and other forms of "works on my box" problems, and when our demo went up the only things we had to handwave over were the inadequacies in our design
Honestly I've wondered why Veeam has stuck with the thick client for as long as it has.

[Gostev]

Just some strong opinions of people who were calling the shots at the time.