Preventive Service Planning
Abstract
This document details the file indexing and restore requirements for IBM Spectrum Protect™ Plus V10.1.4.
Content
Review the following requirements for indexing and restoring files using IBM Spectrum Protect™ Plus.
This document is divided into linked sections for ease of navigation. Use the links below to jump to the section of the document that you require.
General
VMware requirements
Windows requirements
Linux requirements
General
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iSCSI disks that are directly mapped to the guest operating system will not be indexed. Supported volumes include VMDK or VHD volumes that are mounted through the configuration of the associated virtual machine.
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The amount of free space required for the metadata in the catalog depends on the total number of files in the environment. To catalog one million files, the catalog volume in the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance requires roughly 350 MB of free space per retained version. The space used by file indexing metadata is reclaimed when the corresponding backup instances expire.
VMware requirements
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In the virtual machine settings under Advanced Configuration, the disk.EnableUUID parameter must be present and set to true.
Windows requirements
| Supported operating systems |
|
|---|---|
| Supported file systems |
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| Supported disk storage types | Basic disks with
|
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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus supports only the operating systems available to your hypervisors. Review your hypervisor documentation for information about supported operating systems.
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File indexing and restore operations support SCSI disks in a Hyper-V environment. Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) disks are not supported. Note that Generation 1 virtual machines require IDE boot disks; however, if additional SCSI disks are available, file indexing and restore operations will be supported on those disks.
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Windows Remote Shell (WinRM) must be enabled.
Important: IBM Spectrum Protect Plus can protect and restore virtual machines with other file systems, but only the previously listed file systems are eligible for file indexing and restore. -
When file indexing is performed in a Windows environment, the following directories on the resource are skipped:
\Program Files
\Program Files (x86)
\Windows
\winnt
Note: Files within these directories are not added to the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus inventory and are not available for file recovery. -
Ensure that the latest version of VMware Tools is installed on VMware virtual machines, and Hyper-V Integration Services is installed on your Hyper-V virtual machines.
Space requirements
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The C:\ drive must have sufficient temporary space to save the file indexing results.
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When file systems are indexed, temporary metadata files are generated under the /tmp directory and then deleted as soon as the indexing is complete. The amount of free space required for the metadata depends on the total number of files present on the system. Ensure that there is approximately 350 MB of free space per 1 million files.
Connectivity requirements
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The host name of the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance should be resolvable from the Windows virtual machine.
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The IP address of the virtual machine selected for indexing must be visible to the vSphere client or Hyper-V Manager.
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The Windows virtual machine selected for indexing must allow outgoing connections to port 22 (SSH) on the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance.
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All firewalls must be configured to allow IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to connect to the server through WinRM.
Authentication and privilege requirements
The credentials specified for the virtual machine must include a user with the following privileges:
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The user identity must have the "Log on as a service" right, which is assigned through the Administrative Tools control panel on the local machine (Local Security Policy > Local Policies > User Rights Assignment > Log on as a service).
For more information about the "Log on as a service" right, see Add the Log on as a service Right to an Account. -
The default security policy uses the Windows NTLM protocol, and the user identity follows the default domain\Name format if the Hyper-V virtual machine is attached to a domain. The format <local administrator> is used if the user is a local administrator. Note that credentials must be established for the associated virtual machine through the Guest OS Username and Guest OS Password option within the associated backup job definition.
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The system login credential must have the permissions of the local administrator.
Kerberos requirements
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Kerberos-based authentication can be enabled through a configuration file on the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance. This setting will override the default Windows NTLM protocol. Note that Kerberos does not allow local user accounts to be used and is suitable only for environments in which all machines are on a single domain.
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For Kerberos-based authentication only, the user identity must be specified in the username@FQDN format. The specified user must be able to authenticate using the registered password to obtain a ticket-granting ticket (TGT) from the key distribution center (KDC) on the domain specified by the fully qualified domain name.
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Kerberos authentication also requires that the clock skew between the Domain Controller and the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus appliance is less than 5 minutes. Note that the default Windows NTLM protocol is not time dependent.
Linux requirements
| Supported operating systems |
|
|---|---|
| Supported file systems |
|
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A file system created on a newer kernel version may not be mountable on a system with an older kernel, in which case restoring files from the newer to the older system is not supported.
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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus supports only the operating systems available to your hypervisors. Review your hypervisor documentation for information about supported operating systems.
Note: IBM Spectrum Protect Plus can protect and restore virtual machines with other file systems, but only the previously listed file systems are eligible for file indexing and restore. -
When file indexing is performed in a Linux environment, the following directories on the resource are skipped:
/tmp
/usr/bin
/Drivers
/bin
/sbin -
Files in virtual file systems like /proc, /sys, and /dev are also skipped. Files within these directories are not added to the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus inventory and are not available for file recovery.
Space requirements
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The system disk must have sufficient temporary space to save the file indexing results.
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When file systems are indexed, temporary metadata files are generated under the /tmp directory and then deleted when the indexing is complete. The amount of free space required for the metadata depends on the total number of files present on the system. Ensure that there is approximately 350 MB of free space is available per 1 million files.
Software requirements
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Python version 2.6 (any level) or 2.7 (any level) must be installed.
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 6.x only: Ensure that the util-linux-ng package is up-to-date by running yum update util-linux-ng. Depending on your version or distribution, the package may be named util-linux.
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If data resides on LVM volumes, ensure that the LVM version is 2.0.2.118 or later. Run lvm version to check the version and run yum update lvm2 to update the package if necessary.
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If data resides on LVM volumes, the lvm2-lvmetad service must be disabled as it can interfere with the ability of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to mount and re-signature volume group snapshots/clones. To disable the service, complete the following steps:
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Run the following commands:
systemctl stop lvm2-lvmetad
systemctl disable lvm2-lvmetad -
Edit the/etc/lvm/lvm.conf and specify the following setting:
use_lvmetad = 0
For details of the lvmetad service, see The Metadata Daemon (lvmetad).
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If data resides on XFS file systems and the version of xfsprogs is between 3.2.0 and 4.1.9, the file restore can fail due to a known issue in xfsprogs that causes corruption of a clone/snapshot file system when its UUID is modified. To resolve this issue, update xfsprogs to version 4.2.0 or above. For more information, see Debian Bug report logs.
Connectivity requirements
- The SSH service must be running on port 22 on the server, and any firewalls must be configured to allow IBM Spectrum Protect Plus to connect to the server through SSH. The SFTP subsystem for SSH must also be enabled.
Authentication and Privilege Requirements
The credentials specified for the virtual machine must specify a user that has the following sudo privileges:
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The sudoers configuration must allow the user to run commands without a password.
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The !requiretty setting must be set.
The recommended approach is to create a dedicated IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Agent user with the following privileges. Sample configuration:
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Create user: useradd -m sppagent
Where sppagent specifies the IBM Spectrum Protect Plus Agent user. -
Set a password: passwd <sppagent>
Place the following lines at the end of your sudoers configuration file, typically /etc/sudoers. If your existing sudoers file is configured to import configurations from another directory (for example, /etc/sudoers.d), you can also place the lines in a new file in that directory:
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Defaults: sppagent !requiretty
sppagent ALL=(root) NOPASSWD:ALL
Related Information
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Document Information
Modified date:
27 June 2019
UID
ibm10881574