Acronis Backup Version 11.
Copyright Statement Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2016. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore”, “Acronis Instant Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc.
Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis Backup ..............................................................................................9 1.1 What's new in Acronis Backup 11.7...........................................................................................9 1.2 Acronis Backup components .....................................................................................................9 1.2.1 1.2.2 1.2.3 Agent for Windows ...............................................................
.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.4 Scheduling ................................................................................................................................58 4.4.1 4.4.2 4.4.3 4.4.4 4.4.5 4.5 Daily schedule ................................................................................................................................................ 59 Weekly schedule ..................................................................................................................................
.4.1 5.4.2 5.5 Reverting a Windows system to its factory settings..............................................................122 5.6 Default recovery options .......................................................................................................122 5.6.1 5.6.2 5.6.3 5.6.4 5.6.5 5.6.6 5.6.7 5.6.8 Additional settings....................................................................................................................................... 123 E-mail notifications...........
8.4 Operations available in vaults................................................................................................160 8.4.1 8.4.2 8.4.3 8.4.4 Operations with archives ............................................................................................................................ 161 Operations with backups ............................................................................................................................ 161 Converting a backup to full.................
11.3.1 11.3.2 11.3.3 Recovering Exchange Server database files from a disk backup ............................................................. 205 Mounting Exchange Server databases ...................................................................................................... 205 Granular recovery of mailboxes ................................................................................................................. 206 11.4 Recovering Active Directory data .................................
13.6 Activating cloud backup subscriptions ..................................................................................250 13.6.1 13.6.2 Activating subscriptions in Acronis Backup ............................................................................................... 251 Reassigning an activated subscription ....................................................................................................... 251 13.7 Retrieving files from the cloud storage by using a web browser ..........
1 Introducing Acronis Backup 1.1 What's new in Acronis Backup 11.7 Licensing Support for the subscription licensing model. For more information, please refer to the Acronis Backup Licensing FAQ. Supported operating systems Support for Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4. Acronis Backup for Windows Server cannot be installed in Windows 2000. To back up machines that run this operating system, use v11.5. Acronis Backup v11.5 supports Windows 2000 SP4.
Disk backup Disk-level data protection is based on backing up either a disk or a volume file system as a whole, along with all the information necessary for the operating system to boot; or all the disk sectors using the sector-by-sector approach (raw mode). A backup that contains a copy of a disk or a volume in a packaged form is called a disk (volume) backup or a disk (volume) image. It is possible to recover disks or volumes as a whole from such backup, as well as individual folders or files.
The recovery functionality is available, but the backup functionality is not. To try the backup functionality, install the software in the operating system. Upgrading to the full mode After the trial period expires, the product GUI displays a notification requesting you to specify or obtain a license key. To specify a license key, click Help > Change License (p. 229). Specifying the key by running the setup program is not possible.
2 Getting started Step 1. Installation These brief installation instructions enable you to start using the product quickly. For the complete description of installation methods and procedures, please refer to the Installation documentation. Before installation, make sure that: Your hardware meets the system requirements. You have a license key for the product of your choice. You have the setup program. You can download it from the Acronis website.
Step 5. Recovery Recover (p. 100) To recover data, you need to select the backed-up data and the destination the data will be recovered to. As a result, a recovery task will be created. Recovery of a disk or volume over a volume locked by the operating system requires a reboot. After the recovery is completed, the recovered operating system goes online automatically.
Acronis Backup Management Console - Welcome screen Key elements of the console workspace Name Description Navigation pane Contains the Navigation tree. Lets you navigate to the different views. For details, see Navigation pane (p. 14). Main area Here you configure and monitor backup, recovery and other operations. The main area displays views and action pages (p. 15) depending on the items selected in the menu or Navigation tree. Menu bar Appears across the top of the program window.
How to change the panes' borders 1. Point to the pane's border. 2. When the pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, drag the pointer to move the border. 2.1.2 Main area, views and action pages The main area is a basic place where you work with the console. Here you create, edit and manage backup plans, recovery tasks and perform other operations. The main area displays different views and action pages according the items you select in the menu, or Navigation tree. 2.1.2.
Sorting, filtering and configuring table items The following is a guideline to sort, filter and configure table items in any view. To Do the following Sort items by any column Click a column's header to sort items in ascending order. Click it once again to sort items in descending order. Filter items by predefined column value In a field below the corresponding column's header, select the required value from the drop-down list.
Using controls and specifying settings Use active controls to specify a backup plan or recovery task settings and parameters. By default, such fields as credentials, options, comments, and some others are hidden. Most settings are configured by clicking the respective Show… links. Others are selected from the drop-down list, or typed manually in the page's fields. Action page - Controls Acronis Backup remembers the changes you made on the action pages.
If the option is enabled, the credentials for various locations that you enter during a console session are saved for use during later sessions. In Windows, the credentials are stored in the Windows Credential Manager. In Linux, the credentials are stored in a special encrypted file. If the option is disabled, the credentials are stored only until the console is closed. To clear the credentials cache for the current user account, click the Clear credentials cache button. 2.1.3.
The preset is: Enabled. To make a selection, select or clear the Notify when the management console is connected to a component of a different version check box. Request description when ejecting a tape This option defines whether to display a prompt for you to describe a tape when you eject it from a tape device by using Acronis Backup. For example, you may describe the physical location where the tape will be kept (recommended).
3 Understanding Acronis Backup This section attempts to give its readers a clear understanding of the product so that they can use the product in various circumstances without step-by-step instructions. 3.1 Owners This section explains the concept of a backup plan (task) owner and an archive owner. Plan (task) owner A local backup plan owner is the user who created or last modified the plan. Tasks, belonging to a backup plan, are owned by the backup plan owner.
Backup plan's credentials Any backup plan running on a machine runs on behalf of a user. In Windows By default, the plan runs under the agent service account, if created by a user having administrative privileges on the machine. If created by a regular user, such as a member of the Users group, the plan runs under this user's account. When creating a backup plan, you are only asked for credentials in specific cases.
3.3 User privileges on a managed machine When managing a machine running Windows, the scope of a user's management rights depends on the user's privileges on the machine. Regular users A regular user, such as a member of the Users group, has the following management rights: Perform file-level backup and recovery of the files that the user has permissions to access—but without using a file-level backup snapshot (p. 89). Create backup plans and tasks and manage them.
Service name Purpose Acronis Backing up and Managed recovering data Machine Service on the machine (Main service) Account used by the service Acronis Agent User (new account) or user-specified account Privileges added to the account User rights Log on as a service Adjust memory quotas for a process Replace a process level token Group membership Permissions on registry keys Backup BackupAndRecovery Operators Encryption (for any account) Global Administrators (for new account MMS only) Modify firmwar
3.5 Full, incremental and differential backups Acronis Backup provides the capability to use popular backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son and Tower of Hanoi, as well as to create custom backup schemes. All backup schemes are based on full, incremental and differential backup methods. The term "scheme" in fact denotes the algorithm of applying these methods plus the algorithm of the archive cleanup.
Differential backup A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup. You need access to the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup. A differential backup is most useful when: you are interested in saving only the most recent data state the data changes tend to be small as compared to the total data size.
Linux A volume backup stores all files and directories of the selected volume independent of their attributes, a boot record, and the file system super block. A disk backup stores all disk volumes as well as the zero track with the master boot record. With the sector-by-sector (raw mode) option enabled, a disk backup stores all the disk sectors. The sector-by-sector backup can be used for backing up disks with unrecognized or unsupported file systems and other proprietary data formats. 3.
simple/spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID 0+1, RAID-5) will not change. The target volume size has to be enough to accommodate the backup content. Recovery to disk group unallocated space When recovering a dynamic volume to disk group unallocated space, the software preserves the volume's original type and size. If the disk group configuration does not allow for the original volume type, the volume will be recovered as a simple or spanned volume.
Acronis Backup includes a handy disk management utility which enables you to perform the above operations both under the operating system and on bare metal. To find out more about Acronis Disk Director Lite, see the Disk management (p. 177) section. 3.8 Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks Acronis Backup can back up hard disks with a sector size of 4 KB (known as Advanced Format disks), as well as traditional hard disks that have 512-byte sectors.
Microsoft BitLocker Drive Encryption McAfee Endpoint Encryption PGP Whole Disk Encryption. To ensure reliable disk-level recovery, follow the common rules and software-specific recommendations. Common installation rule The strong recommendation is to install the encryption software before installing Acronis Backup. The way of using Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone must not be encrypted with disk-level encryption. This is the only way to use Acronis Secure Zone: 1.
The value may be "Information", "Warning", 'Error" and "Unknown". "Unknown" is sent only in the test message. Text description of the event Object identifier (OID): 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 Syntax: OctetString The value contains the text description of the event (it looks identical to messages published by Acronis Backup in its log). Example of varbind values: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0:Information 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.
The Windows To Go feature of Windows 8 is not supported. WinPE 4.0 and WinPE 5.0 Acronis Media Builder can create bootable media based on these versions of Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE). These bootable media support new features of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (see later in this section). They can boot on machines that use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). To create bootable media based on these versions of WinPE, you need Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK).
3.12 Support for UEFI-based machines Acronis Backup can back up and recover machines that use 64-bit Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in the same way as it does for machines that use BIOS for booting. This applies to both physical and virtual machines, no matter if the virtual machines are backed up at a hypervisor level or from inside a guest OS. Backup and recovery of devices that use 32-bit UEFI are not supported.
4 Backup 4.1 Back up now Use the Back up now feature to configure and run a one-time backup in a few simple steps. The backup process will start immediately after you perform the required steps and click OK. For a long-time backup strategy that includes schedules and conditions, timely deleting of backups or moving them to different locations, consider creating a backup plan. Configuring immediate backup is similar to creating a backup plan (p.
Select the mode the removable device will be used in (p. 148) If the specified location is an RDX drive or USB flash drive, select the device mode: Removable media or Fixed drive. Backup file naming, access credentials, archive comments To access these settings, click Show backup file naming, access credentials, archive comments. File naming (p.
[Optional] Enter a unique name for the backup plan. A conscious name lets you identify the plan among others. Backup options [Optional] Configure parameters of the backup operation, such as pre/post backup commands, maximum network bandwidth allocated for the backup stream or the backup archive compression level. If you do nothing in this section, the default values (p. 77) will be used. After any of the settings is changed against the default value, a new line that displays the newly set value appears.
A file-level backup is not sufficient for recovery of the operating system. Choose file backup if you plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example). This will reduce the archive size, thus saving storage space. In order to recover your operating system along with all the settings and applications, you have to perform a disk backup. 2. In the tree below the Data to back up section, select the items to back up by selecting check boxes next to the items.
Exclude all hidden files and folders Select this check box to skip files and folders that have the Hidden attribute (for file systems that are supported by Windows) or that start with a period (.) (for file systems in Linux such as Ext2 and Ext3). If a folder is hidden, all of its contents (including files that are not hidden) will be excluded. Exclude all system files and folders This option is effective only for file systems that are supported by Windows.
Exclusion examples Criterion Example Description Windows and Linux By name By mask (*) By mask (?) F.log Excludes all files named "F.log" F Excludes all folders named "F" *.log Excludes all files with the .log extension F* Excludes all files and folders with names starting with "F" (such as folders F, F1 and files F.log, F1.log) F???.log Excludes all .log files with names consisting of four symbols and starting with "F" Windows By file path C:\Finance\F.log Excludes the file named "F.
Backing up to an existing archive You can configure the backup plan to back up to an existing archive. To do so, select the archive in the archives table or type the archive name in the Name field. If the archive is protected with a password, the program will ask for it in the pop-up window. By selecting the existing archive, you are meddling in the area of another backup plan that uses the archive. This is not an issue if the other plan is discontinued.
Destination Details Network folders To back up data to a network folder, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine, and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them.
Simple – to schedule when and how often to backup data and specify retention rules. Tower of Hanoi – to use the Tower of Hanoi backup scheme. This scheme allows you to schedule when and how often to back up (sessions) and select the number of backup levels (up to 16). The data can be backed up more than once a day. By setting up the backup schedule and selecting backup levels, you automatically obtain the rollback period – the guaranteed number of sessions that you can go back at any time.
4.2.6.2 Grandfather-Father-Son scheme At a glance Daily ("Son"), weekly ("Father"), and monthly ("Grandfather") backups Custom day for weekly and monthly backups Custom retention periods for backups of each type Description Let us suppose that we want to set up a backup plan that will regularly produce a series of daily (D), weekly (W), and monthly (M) backups. Here is a natural way to do this: the following table shows a sample two-month period for such a plan.
Keep backups Specifies how long you want the backups to be stored in the archive. A term can be set in hours, days, weeks, months, or years. For monthly backups, you can also select Keep indefinitely if you want them to be saved forever. The default values for each backup type are as follows.
Limited storage If you do not want to arrange a vast amount of space to store a huge archive, you may set up a GFS scheme so as to make your backups more short-lived, at the same time ensuring that your information can be recovered in case of an accidental data loss.
Here, daily incremental backups will be created on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with weekly and monthly backups performed on Fridays. Note that, in order to choose Friday in the Weekly/monthly field, you need to first select it in the Back up on field. Such an archive would allow you to compare your financial documents as of the first and the last day of work, and have a five-year history of all documents, etc.
Parameter Meaning Clean up archive Specifies how to get rid of old backups: either to apply retention rules (p. 74) regularly or clean up the archive during a backup when the destination location runs out of space. By default, the retention rules are not specified, which means older backups will not be deleted automatically. Using retention rules Specify the retention rules and when to apply them. This setting is recommended for backup destinations such as shared folders.
Here, all parameters except Schedule in Full backup are left empty. All backups in the archive are kept indefinitely (no archive cleanup is performed). Full and incremental backup plus cleanup With the following scheme, the archive will consist of weekly full backups and daily incremental backups. We further require that a full backup begin only after all users have logged off.
By default, a backup is not deleted as long as it has dependent backups that must be kept. For example, if a full backup has become subject to deletion, but there are incremental or differential backups that depend on it, the deletion is postponed until all the dependent backups can be deleted as well. For more information, see Retention rules (p. 74). 4.2.6.
4 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 4 1 2 1 3 1 Backups of different levels have different types: Last-level (in this case, level 4) backups are full; Backups of intermediate levels (2, 3) are differential; First-level (1) backups are incremental. A cleanup mechanism ensures that only the most recent backups of each level are kept. Here is how the archive looks on day 8, a day before creating a new full backup.
1 4 2 1 3 2 4 1 5 3 6 1 7 2 8 1 9 4 10 1 11 2 12 1 13 3 14 1 The roll-back period shows how many days we are guaranteed to have even in the worst case. For a four-level scheme, it is four days. 4.2.6.5 Manual start With the Manual start scheme, you do not have to specify the backup schedule. You can run the backup plan from the Plans and Tasks view manually at any time afterwards. Specify the appropriate settings as follows.
not corrupted and can be successfully recovered, think of starting the validation right after backup creation. 2. What to validate – select either to validate the entire archive or the latest backup in the archive. Validation of the archive will validate all the archive’s backups and may take a long time and a lot of system resources. Validation of the latest backup may also take time, even if this backup is incremental or differential, and small in size.
To add a text label to a backup: 1. On the Create backup plan (p. 33) page, click Show plan's credentials, comments, label. 2. In Label, enter the text label or select it from the drop-down menu. Parameters specification Parameter Value Description acronisTag.label A user-defined label. The label can be set by a user when creating a backup plan. acronisTag.hostname Host name (FQDN) acronisTag.os.type Operating system acronisTag.os.servicepack 0, 1, 2...
4.2.10 Sequence of operations in a backup plan If a backup plan contains multiple operations, Acronis Backup performs them in the following order: 1. Cleanup (if configured Before backup) and validation (if cleanup has been performed and validation is configured to run After the retention rules are applied).
When you use simplified file naming The file name of the first (full) backup in the archive will consist of the archive name; for example: MyData.tib. The file names of subsequent (incremental or differential) backups will have an index. For example: MyData2.tib, MyData3.tib, and so on. This simple naming scheme enables you to create a portable image of a machine on a detachable media or move the backups to a different location by using a script.
You can place this variable anywhere in the archive name. You can use both lowercase and uppercase letters in this variable. Examples Example 1. Suppose that you perform incremental backups twice a day (at midnight and noon) for two days, starting on January 31, 2012. The archive name is MyArchive-[DATE], the date format is year-month-day. Here is the list of backup files after day two: MyArchive-[2012-01-31].tib (full, created on January 31 at midnight) MyArchive-[2012-01-31]2.
4.3.3.2 Example 2. Daily full backups with a date stamp Consider the following scenario: You want to perform a daily full backup of your machine. You want to move older backups to a remote location by using a script. In this scenario, create a backup plan with a daily schedule. When creating the backup plan, specify MyMachine-[DATE] as the archive name, select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box, and select Full as the backup type.
Select the Name backup files using the archive name... check box. Select Full as the backup type. Result. Each hard disk drive will contain one full backup. While one drive is attached to the machine, you can keep the other drive off-site for extra data protection. If you choose to back up to locally attached RDX drives or USB flash drives, the Name backup files using the archive name... check box does not appear. Instead, make sure that the removable device mode (p. 148) is set to Removable media.
You want the backups during working hours to be differential and to run every hour from 8:00 AM through 5:00 PM. You want to include a creation date in the name of each backup file. In this scenario, you need to create two backup plans as follows: a) When creating the first backup plan, specify ServerFiles[DATE] as the archive name, select the Name backup files using the archive name… check box, select Full as the backup type, and schedule the backups to run every day at 01:00:00 AM.
User logoff* (any user, current user, specify the user’s account) *Shutting down is not the same as logging off. The task will not run at a system shutdown. System startup System shutdown An event in Windows Event Log (specify the parameters of the event) Condition For backup operations only, you can specify a condition or multiple conditions in addition to the events. Once any of the events occurs, the scheduler checks the condition and runs the task if the condition is met.
In the During the day execute the task... area, select one of the following: Once at: <...> Set up the time at which the task will be run once. Every: <...> Set up how many times the task will be run during the specified time interval. For example, setting the task frequency to Every 1 hour From 10:00:00 AM Until 10:00:00 PM allows the task to be run 13 times from 10 AM to 10 PM during one day. From: <...> Until: <...> In the Effective... area, set the following settings: From: <...
To: 12/15/2009. On this date the task will be performed for the last time, but the task itself is still available in the Tasks view. Several daily schedules for one task There are some cases when you might need the task to be run several times a day, or even several times a day with different time intervals. For such cases, consider adding several schedules to a single task.
In the During the day execute the task... area, select one of the following: Once at: <...> Set up the time at which the task will be run once. Every: <...> Set up how many times the task will be run during the specified time interval. For example, setting the task frequency to Every 1 hour From 10:00:00 AM Until 10:00:00 PM allows the task to be run 13 times from 10 AM to 10 PM during one day. From: <...> Until: <...> In the Effective... area, set the following settings: From: <...
From: empty. If you have created the task, say on Monday at 11:30 AM, the task will be started on the same day at 9 PM. If the task was created, say on Friday after 9 PM, then it will be started for the first time on the nearest workday (Monday in our example) at 9 PM. End date: empty. The task will be restarted for an indefinite number of weeks. This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme.
4.4.3 Monthly schedule Monthly schedule is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems. To specify a monthly schedule In the Schedule area, select the appropriate parameter as follows: Months: <...> Select a certain month(s) you want to run the task in. Days: <...> Select specific days of the month to run the task on. You can also select the last day of the month, irrespective of its actual date. On: <...> <...> Select specific days of the weeks to run the task on.
Run the task on all workdays during the northern autumn seasons of 2009 and 2010. During a workday, the task is performed every 6 hours from 12 AM (midnight) until 6 PM. The schedule's parameters are set up as follows. 1. Months: September, October, November. 2. On: . 3. Every: 6 hours. From: 12:00:00 AM Until: 06:00:00 PM. 4. Effective: From: 08/30/2009. Actually the task will be started on the first workday of September.
3. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. 4. Effective: From: 11/01/2009. To: not set. 4.4.4 On Windows Event Log event This type of schedule is effective only in Windows operating systems. You can schedule a backup task to start when a certain Windows event has been recorded in one of the event logs such as the Application, Security, or System log.
Important: To ensure that such a task will complete despite the presence of bad blocks, you must make the task ignore bad blocks. To do this, in Backup options, go to Error handling, and then select the Ignore bad sectors check box. Pre-update backup in Vista Suppose that you want to create a backup plan that will automatically perform a backup of the system—for example, by backing up the volume where Windows is installed—every time that Windows is about to install updates.
The scheduler behavior in case the event occurs but the condition (or any of multiple conditions) is not met, is defined by the Task start conditions (p. 96) backup option. There, you can specify how important the conditions are for the backup strategy: conditions are obligatory - put the backup task run on hold until all the conditions are met. backup task start time matters - skip the backup task if the conditions are not met at the time when the task should be started.
Condition: Location's host is available Task start conditions: Skip the task execution. As a result, (1) If 9:00 PM comes and the location's host is available, the backup task starts right on time. (2) If 9:00 PM comes but the host is unavailable at the moment, the backup task will start on the next workday if the location's host is available. (3) If the location's host will never be available on workdays at 9:00 PM, the task never starts. 4.4.5.
If the task start conditions are Wait until the conditions are met and the Run the task anyway after check box is selected with, say, the 1 Hour waiting time, the task (scheduled to run at 3:00 PM) will start at 4:00 PM—the time when the waiting period ends. 4.4.5.4 Users logged off Applies to: Windows Enables to put a backup task run on hold until all users log off from Windows on the managed machine.
4.5 Replication and retention of backups When creating a backup plan (p. 33), you specify the primary location for the backups. In addition, you can do the following: Replicate (copy) each backup to a second location immediately after creation. Retain the backups according to the retention rules you specify, and then either move them to a second location or delete them. Similarly, you can copy or move backups from a second location to a third location and so on.
Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) (p. 42) Yes No Yes Tower of Hanoi (p. 48) Yes No Yes Custom (p. 45) Yes Yes Yes Initial seeding (p. 50) No No No Notes: Setting up both copying and moving backups from the same location is not possible. With simplified naming of backup files (p. 53), neither replication nor use of retention rules is available. 4.5.
Next, select the location where to replicate the backups. If allowed by the backup scheme, you can also specify when to automatically delete the backups from each of the locations. A backup is replicated to the next location as soon as it appears in the previous location. If earlier backups were not replicated (for example, the network connection was lost), the software also replicates all of the backups that appeared after the last successful replication. 4.5.
In Clean up archive, select Using retention rules. In the Retention Rules window (p. 74), specify the rules and select If the specified conditions are met: Move the oldest backups to another location. Click OK and then specify the location under Where to replicate/move backups. In Apply retention rules, specify when to apply the rules. You can choose to apply the retention rules before creating a backup, after creating a backup, on a schedule, or combine these options.
Retain the backup until all dependent backups become subject to deletion (movement) The outdated backup (marked with the icon) will be kept until all backups that depend on it also become outdated. Then, all the chain will be deleted at once during the regular cleanup. If you chose moving outdated backups to the next location, the backup will be copied there without delay. Only its deletion from the current location is postponed.
4.5.5.2 Example 2. Limiting the age and total size of stored backups Consider the following scenario: You want to perform a weekly full backup of your machine. You want to keep all backups that are younger than a month. You want to keep even older backups, as long as the total size of all backups stays below 200 GB. In this scenario, create a backup plan with the Custom scheme. When creating the backup plan, specify a weekly schedule for the full backup.
Replicating large amounts of data to the cloud storage If you are planning to back up 500 GB of data or more, you may want to send the first backup to the cloud storage on a physical hard drive. This option is provided by the Initial Seeding service (p. 240) which you can buy in addition to your cloud backup subscription. The Initial Seeding service might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here: http://kb.acronis.com/content/15118.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based) Disk backup File backup Disk backup File backup Dest: removable media Dest: removable media Dest: removable media Dest: removable media Reset archive bit - + - + Restart the machine automatically after backup is finished - - + + Archive protection (p. 80) + + + + + + - - + + - - HDD writing speed (p. 82) Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Network connection speed (p.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based) Disk backup File backup Disk backup File backup Preserve files’ security settings in archives - + - - In archives, store encrypted files in decrypted state - + - - Media components (p. 90) Dest: removable media - Dest: removable media + - - - - Multi-volume snapshot (p. 91) + + - - Pre/Post backup commands (p. 91) + + PE only PE only Pre/Post data capture commands (p.
Reset archive bit The option is effective only for file-level backup in Windows operating systems and in bootable media. The preset is: Disabled. In Windows operating systems, each file has the File is ready for archiving attribute, available by selecting File -> Properties -> General -> Advanced -> Archive and Index attributes.
AES 128 – the archive will be encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm with a 128-bit key AES 192 – the archive will be encrypted using the AES algorithm with a 192-bit key AES 256 – the archive will be encrypted using the AES algorithm with a 256-bit key. 5. Click OK. The AES cryptographic algorithm operates in the Cipher-block chaining (CBC) mode and uses a randomly generated key with a user-defined size of 128, 192 or 256 bits.
4.7.4.1 Backup priority This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems. The priority of a process running in a system determines the amount of CPU and system resources allocated to that process. Decreasing the backup priority will free more resources for other applications. Increasing the backup priority might speed up the backup process by requesting the operating system to allocate more resources like the CPU to the backup application.
By default the speed is set to maximum, i.e. the software uses all the network bandwidth it can get when transferring the backup data. Use this option to reserve a part of the network bandwidth for other network activities. The preset is: Maximum.
Example. Suppose that the primary location for a 3-GB backup is a hard disk, the second location is an FTP server, and the third location is a network share. In this case, the backup will be stored as a single file in the primary location, as two files in the second location, and as a single file again in the third location. Fixed size Enter the desired file size or select it from the drop-down list. The backup will then be split into multiple files of the specified size.
You can specify a local folder, a network folder, an FTP or SFTP server as a location to save the DRPs. DRP and post-backup commands Note that the DRP will not automatically change if post-backup commands in your backup plan copy or move the backups from the original location. The DRP points only to the locations specified in the backup plan. Adding information to a DRP template You can append additional information to a DRP template if you are well familiar with XML and HTML.
The subject can include ordinary text and one or more variables. In the received e-mail messages, each variable will be replaced by its value at the time of task execution. The following variables are supported: %description% For a machine running Windows, the %description% variable will be replaced by the text that is given in the Computer description field of the machine.
Re-attempt, if an error occurs The preset is: Enabled. Number of attempts: 30. Interval between attempts: 30 seconds. When a recoverable error occurs, the program re-attempts to perform the unsuccessful operation. You can set the time interval and the number of attempts. The attempts will be stopped as soon as the operation succeeds OR the specified number of attempts are performed, depending on which comes first.
Types of events to send – choose the types of events to be sent: All events, Errors and warnings, or Errors only. Server name/IP – type the name or IP address of the host running the SNMP management application, the messages will be sent to. Community – type the name of the SNMP community to which both the host running the SNMP management application and the sending machine belong. The typical community is "public". Click Send test message to check if the settings are correct.
4.7.12 File-level backup snapshot This option is effective only for file-level backup in Windows and Linux operating systems. This option defines whether to back up files one by one or by taking an instant data snapshot. Note: Files that are stored on network shares are always backed up one by one. The preset is: Create snapshot if it is possible. Select one of the following: Always create a snapshot The snapshot enables backing up of all files including files opened for exclusive access.
To completely eliminate this kind of problem, disable preserving file security settings in archives. The recovered files and folders will always inherit the permissions from the folder to which they are recovered or from the disk, if recovered to the root. Alternatively, you can disable recovery (p. 127) of the security settings, even if they are available in the archive. The result will be the same - the files will inherit the permissions from the parent folder.
The preset is: Disabled. Tip. You can back up Hyper-V virtual machines residing on a cluster shared volume by backing up the required files or the entire volume with file-level backup. Just power off the virtual machines to be sure that they are backed up in a consistent state. Example Let's assume that the C:\Data1\ folder is a mount point for the mounted volume. The volume contains folders Folder1 and Folder2. You create a backup plan for file-level backup of your data.
Selectively copy backups from an archive to another location. This option may be useful because the replication configured in a backup plan copies every backup of an archive to subsequent locations. Acronis Backup performs the replication after executing the post-backup command. For more information see "Sequence of operations in a backup plan" (p. 53). The program does not support interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause"). To specify pre/post commands 1.
4.7.17.2 Post-backup command To specify a command/executable file to be executed after the backup is completed 1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file. 2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will be executed. 3. In the Arguments field, specify the command execution arguments, if required. 4. Select the Fail the task if the command execution fails check box if successful execution of the command is critical for you.
4.7.18.1 Pre-data capture command To specify a command/batch file to be executed before data capture 1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file. The program does not support interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause".) 2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will be executed. 3. In the Arguments field specify the command’s execution arguments, if required. 4.
Result Preset Continue the backup after the Continue the backup command is only after the executed despite command is command successfully execution failure executed. Delete the or success. TIB file and temporary files and fail the task if the command execution fails. N/A Continue the backup concurrently with the command execution and irrespective of the command execution result. * A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero. 4.7.
The preset is not to restart a failed task. The program will try to execute the failed task again if you select the Restart a failed task check box and specify the number of attempts and the time interval between the attempts. The program stops trying as soon as an attempt completes successfully OR the specified number of attempts is performed, depending on which comes first. If the task fails because of a mistake in the backup plan, you can edit the plan while the task is in the Idle state.
Time diagram: Wait until conditions are met Skip the task execution Delaying a backup might be unacceptable, for example, when you need to back up data strictly at the specified time. Then it makes sense to skip the backup rather than wait for the conditions, especially if the events occur relatively often. 4.7.23 Volume Shadow Copy Service These options are effective only for Windows operating systems.
VSS will use any available software-based provider. If one is not found, VSS will try to use the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider, and Acronis VSS Provider in turn. Software - Acronis VSS Provider VSS will use Acronis VSS Provider. Software - System provider (selected by default) VSS will use the Microsoft Software Shadow Copy provider.
If you use Acronis Backup Agent for Exchange or third-party software for backing up the Exchange Server data. This is because the log truncation will interfere with the consecutive transaction log backups. If you use third-party software for backing up the SQL Server data. The reason for this is that the third-party software will take the resulting disk-level backup for its "own" full backup. As a result, the next differential backup of the SQL Server data will fail.
5 Recovery When it comes to data recovery, first consider the most functional method: connect the console to the managed machine running the operating system and create the recovery task. If the machine's operating system fails to start or you need to recover data to bare metal, boot the machine from the bootable media (p. 259) or using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 176) and configure recovery.
Where to recover This section appears after the required backup is selected and the type of data to recover is defined. The parameters you specify here depend on the type of data being recovered. Disks (p. 105) Volumes (p. 108) Files (p. 111) Acronis Active Restore (p. 117) Applies to: system disk or volume recovery. [Optional] Enable Acronis Active Restore if you need to bring a system online immediately after the recovery is started. Access credentials (p.
2. Selecting data The backed-up data can be selected using the Data view tab, or the Archive view tab. The Data view tab displays all the backed-up data by versions (the date and time of backup creation) within the selected archive location. The Archive view tab displays the backed-up data by the archives. Selecting data using the Data view Since the Data view tab shares the same functionality with the data catalog, selecting data on the Data view tab is performed in the same way as in the catalog.
Location Details Machine name Local machine Local folders If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the group and select the required folder. CD, DVD, BD If the archive is stored on optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD), expand the group, then select the required drive. First insert the last disc. Then insert the discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts.
4. Do any of the following: Select the data to recover in the catalog tree, or in the table to the right of the catalog tree. In the search string, type the information that helps to identify the required data items (this can be a machine name, a file or folder name, or a disk label) and then click Search. You can use the asterisks (*) and question marks (?) wildcards.
To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: Use the task credentials The software will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the Task parameters section. Use the following credentials The software will access the location using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the task account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault.
The selected disks will be recovered to the physical disks of the machine the console is connected to. On selecting this, you proceed to the regular disk mapping procedure described below. New virtual machine If Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed.
2. Click OK. All the data stored on the target disk will be replaced by the backed-up data, so be careful and watch out for non-backed-up data that you might need. NT signature The NT signature is a record that is kept in the MBR. It uniquely identifies the disk for the operating system. When recovering a disk containing a system volume, you can choose what to do with the NT signature of the target disk.
1. If the disk or volume is recovered to its original location, the mapping process reproduces the original disk/volume layout. The original location for a disk or volume means exactly the same disk or volume that has been backed up. A volume will not be considered original if its size, location or other physical parameters have been changed after backup. Changing the volume letter or label does not prevent the software from recognizing the volume. 2.
Existing virtual machine Available when the Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware is installed. On selecting this, you specify the virtualization server and the target virtual machine. Then you proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described below. Please be aware that the target machine will be powered off automatically before recovery. If you prefer to power it off manually, modify the VM power management option.
Be careful! To be on the safe side, it is advisable to assign unique names to the volumes. The Linux-style bootable media shows local disks and volumes as unmounted (sda1, sda2...). Changing volume properties Size and location When recovering a volume to a basic MBR disk, you can resize and relocate the volume by dragging it or its borders with a mouse or by entering corresponding values in the appropriate fields. Using this feature, you can redistribute the disk space between the volumes being recovered.
Volume (partition) alignment Acronis Backup automatically eliminates volume misalignment – a situation, when volume clusters are not aligned with disk sectors. The misalignment occurs when recovering volumes created with the Cylinder/Head/Sector (CHS) addressing scheme to a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) drive that has a 4-KB sector size. The CHS addressing scheme is used, for example, in all Windows operating systems earlier than Windows Vista.
Files and folders will be recovered to the same path(s) as they are in the backup. For example, if you have backed up all files and folders in C:\Documents\Finance\Reports\, the files will be recovered to the same path. If the folder does not exist, it will be created automatically. New location Files will be recovered to the location that you specify in the tree. The files and folders will be recovered without recreating a full path, unless you clear the Recover without full path check box.
By mask (*) By mask (?) 5.1.5 *.log Excludes all files with the .log extension F* Excludes all files and folders with names starting with "F" (such as folders F, F1 and files F.log, F1.log) F???.log Excludes all .log files with names consisting of four symbols and starting with "F" When to recover Select when to start the recovery task: Now - the recovery task will be started immediately after you click OK on the Recover data page.
In addition, the operating system itself is sensitive to the type of firmware. When performing a recovery to a machine that has a type of firmware that is different from the firmware of the original machine, Acronis Backup: Initializes the disk to which you are recovering the system volume either as an MBR disk or as a GPT disk, depending on the new firmware. Adjusts the Windows operating system so that it can start on the new firmware.
If the initialization may result in bootability loss, the software takes the partitioning style from the source volume ignoring the target disk size. In such cases, the software can select the MBR partitioning style for disks whose size is more than 2 TB; however, the disk space beyond 2 TB will not be available for use. If required, you can initialize the target disk manually by using the Disk management (p. 177) functionality.
The ability of the recovered system to boot up in different modes depends on the operating systems installed on the source disk. Operating systems can be convertible i.e. allow changing the boot mode from BIOS to UEFI and back, or non-convertible. For the list of convertible operating systems, see Recovering volumes (p. 114). When a source disk contains one or more operating systems and all of them are convertible, the boot mode can be automatically changed.
Original system Target hardware BIOS UEFI OS: nonconvertible UEFI The target disk will be initialized as the source one (GPT). The target machine must support UEFI. Additional steps 1. Turn on the UEFI mode in BIOS. 2. Boot from a bootable media, and perform the recovery. Recovery to large disks in BIOS After a recovery to a BIOS-based system, the target system disk is initialized as MBR.
Usage scenarios 1. The system uptime is one of the efficiency criteria. Examples: Client-oriented online services, Web-retailers, polling stations. 2. The system/storage space ratio is heavily biased toward storage. Some machines are being used as storage facilities, where the operating system claims a small space segment and all other disk space is committed to storage, such as movies, sounds or other multimedia files.
5.4 Bootability troubleshooting If a system was bootable at the time of backup, you expect that it will boot after recovery. However, the information the operating system stores and uses for booting up may become outdated during recovery, especially if you change volume sizes, locations or destination drives. Acronis Backup automatically updates Windows loaders after recovery. Other loaders might also be fixed, but there are cases when you have to re-activate the loaders.
Solution: Reactivate the boot loader. You might also need to fix the loader configuration file for the reason described in the previous item. The system loader points to the wrong volume This may happen when system or boot volumes are not recovered to their original location. Solution: Modification of the boot.ini or the boot\bcd files fixes this for Windows loaders. Acronis Backup does this automatically and so you are not likely to experience the problem.
The device on which the Linux kernel is located—typically, this is the boot partition or the root partition, such as root (hd0,0) in this example. The path to the kernel on that device and the root partition—in this example, the path is /vmlinuz-2.6.24.4 and the root partition is /dev/sda2. You can specify the root partition by label (such as root=LABEL=/), identifier (in the form root=UUID=some_uuid), or device name (such as root=/dev/sda2). The path to the initrd service on that device. 7.
5.5 Reverting a Windows system to its factory settings If your Windows operating system was deployed by using Acronis Backup for System Builders, you can revert the system to its factory settings. Reverting the system to the factory settings can be started from the management console or at boot time. The second method is useful if the operating system became unbootable for some reason. To start the operation from the management console, click Revert to factory settings in the Welcome screen.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based) Disk recovery File recovery Disk recovery File recovery Validate backup archive before recovery + + + + Restart the machine automatically if it is required for recovery + + - - Restart the machine automatically after recovery is finished - - + + Check file system after recovery + - + - Windows recovery - - - + Windows recovery - + + + - - Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) + + + +
Set current date and time for recovered files This option is effective only when recovering files. The preset is Enabled. This option defines whether to recover the files’ date and time from the archive or assign the files the current date and time. Validate backups before recovery The preset is Disabled. This option defines whether to validate a backup to ensure that the backup is not corrupted, before data is recovered from it.
When recovery completes successfully. %description% For a machine running Windows, the %description% variable will be replaced by the text that is given in the Computer description field of the machine. To specify this text, either go to Control panel > System or run the following command as an administrator: When recovery fails. When user interaction is required. 3. In the E-mail addresses field, type the destination e-mail address. You can enter several addresses separated by semicolons. 4.
Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) The preset is: Disabled. With the silent mode enabled, the program will automatically handle situations requiring user interaction where possible. If an operation cannot continue without user interaction, it will fail. Details of the operation, including errors, if any, can be found in the operation log. Re-attempt, if an error occurs The preset is: Enabled. Number of attempts: 30. Interval between attempts: 30 seconds.
Community – type the name of SNMP community to which both the host running SNMP management application and the sending machine belong. The typical community is "public". Click Send test message to check if the settings are correct. Do not send SNMP notifications – to disable sending the log events of the recovery operations to SNMP managers. 5.6.4.2 Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
This option is effective only when you select for backup a folder that is higher in the folder hierarchy than the mount point. If you select for recovery folders within the mount point or the mount point itself, the selected items will be recovered regardless of the Mount points option value. Please be aware that if the volume is not mounted at the moment of recovery, the data will be recovered directly to the folder that has been the mount point at the time of backing up. 5.6.
Result Preset Perform the recovery after the Perform the recovery command is only after the executed despite command is execution failure successfully executed. or success. Fail the task if the command execution failed. N/A Perform the recovery concurrently with the command execution and irrespective of the command execution result. * A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero. 5.6.7.
6 Conversion to a virtual machine Acronis Backup offers a number of ways of converting a disk backup into a virtual machine. This section helps you choose the method that best fits your needs and provides step-by-step instructions for conversion. 6.1 Conversion methods Depending on your needs, you can choose among the following conversion methods: a) Make the conversion a part of a backup plan When to use. If you want the backup and the conversion to be executed on a schedule.
During conversion which is part of a backup plan (p. 133), the software creates the virtual machine in addition to creating the backup. The virtual machine has the same configuration as the original machine. During recovery to the "New virtual machine" destination (p. 136), the software creates the virtual machine from a backup you already have. You can change the configuration of the virtual machine.
Conversion of logical volumes to basic ones may also prevent the system from booting up. For these reasons, if the machine uses a custom boot loader, you might need to configure the loader to point to the new devices and reactivate it. Configuring GRUB is normally not needed because Acronis Backup does this automatically. Should the need arise, use the procedure described in "How to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration" (p. 120).
Storage Choose the storage on the virtualization server or the folder to place the virtual machine files in. Resultant VMs Specify the name of the virtual machine. The default name is Backup_of_[Machine Name]. You can add more variables to the name.
You can choose the virtual machine type: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) or Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV). In the Storage step, you can select the virtual machine path. What is the machine's processing power? Conversion will take the selected machine's CPU resource. Multiple conversion tasks will be queued on that machine and it may take considerable time to complete them all.
If you choose to create the virtual machine on a virtualization server The first conversion creates a new virtual machine. Any subsequent conversion works as follows: If there has been a full backup since the last conversion, the virtual machine is re-created from scratch, as described earlier in this section. Otherwise, the existing virtual machine is updated to reflect changes since the last conversion.
6.2.3.1 Steps to perform To perform a recovery to a new virtual machine 1. Connect the console to the management server, to a machine where an agent is installed, or to a machine booted from a bootable media. 2. Click Recover to open the Recover data (p. 100) page. 3. Click Select data (p. 101). Use the Data view tab or the Archive view tab to select the disks or volumes to convert. 4. In Recover to, select New virtual machine. 5. Click Browse. In the VM/VS Selection (p.
deployed immediately after you click OK. Recovery will be performed by that agent. It will take a license. 3. Click OK to return to the Recover data page. To select the virtual machine type 1. Choose the Save the virtual machine as a set of files option. 2. In the left part of the window, select the virtual machine type. Use the right part of the window to review details on the selected virtual machine type.
Enter the name for the new virtual machine. If the backup was created by Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V, the software takes the name from the virtual machine configuration contained in the backup. Processors Initial setting: if not contained in the backup or if the backed-up setting is not supported by the virtualization server, it is the default server's setting. This is the number of processors of the new virtual machine. In most cases, it is set to one.
6.3.2 Steps to perform To perform a recovery to a manually created virtual machine 1. [Optional] When recovering Windows, prepare Windows drivers that correspond to the target virtualization platform. For machines running Linux, the necessary drivers are normally already present in the operating system. 2. Create a bootable media (p. 166) by using Acronis Bootable Media Builder. 3. Create a virtual machine by using your virtualization product’s native tools. 4.
7 Storing the backed up data 7.1 Vaults A vault is a location for storing backup archives. For ease of use and administration, a vault is associated with the archives' metadata. Referring to this metadata makes for fast and convenient operations with archives and backups stored in the vault. A vault can be organized on a local or networked drive or detachable media. There are no settings for limiting a vault size or number of backups in a vault.
7.1.1 Working with vaults This section briefly describes the main GUI elements of the selected vault, and suggests ways to work with them. Examining information on a vault Information about the selected vault is located at the top pane of the selected vault. Using the stacked bar, you can estimate the vault's load. The vault's load is the proportion of the vault's free space and occupied space. Free space is a space on the storage device where the vault is located.
personal vault available to all users that can log on the system. Personal vaults are created automatically when backing up any of the above locations. Personal vaults can be used by local backup plans or local tasks. Sharing a personal vault Multiple machines can refer to the same physical location; for example, to the same shared folder. However, each of the machines has its own shortcut in the Vaults tree.
To Do vault. Delete a vault Click Delete. The deleting operation actually removes only a shortcut to the folder from the Vaults view. The folder itself remains untouched. You have the option to keep or delete archives contained in the folder. Refresh vault table information Click Refresh. While you are reviewing the vault content, archives can be added to the vault, deleted or modified. Click Refresh to update the vault information with the most recent changes.
7.2 Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone is a secure partition that enables keeping backup archives on a managed machine disk space and therefore recovery of a disk to the same disk where the backup resides. Should the disk experience a physical failure, the zone and the archives located there will be lost. That's why Acronis Secure Zone should not be the only location where a backup is stored.
The Acronis Secure Zone cannot be organized on a dynamic disk. To allocate space for Acronis Secure Zone 1. Choose a hard disk (if several) on which to create the zone. The unallocated space and free space from all volumes of the first enumerated disk are selected by default. The program displays the total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone. 2. If you need to allocate more space for the zone, you can select volumes from which free space can be taken.
Acronis Secure Zone is always created at the end of the hard disk. When calculating the final layout of the volumes, the program will first use unallocated space at the end. If there is no or not enough unallocated space at the end of the disk, but there is unallocated space between volumes, the volumes will be moved to add more unallocated space to the end.
7.2.2.2 Decreasing Acronis Secure Zone To decrease Acronis Secure Zone 1. On the Manage Acronis Secure Zone page, click Decrease. 2. Select volumes that will receive the free space after the zone is decreased. If you select several volumes, the space will be distributed to each partition equally. If you do not select any volumes, the freed space becomes unallocated. 3. Specify the new size of the zone by: dragging the slider and selecting any size between the current and minimum values.
When you back up using the Back up now feature or under bootable media, the removable device is always used in the Removable media mode. The difference between the two modes is mostly related to retention and replication of backups. Functionality Fixed drive Removable media If there is insufficient space to continue backing up, the software will prompt you to... ...manually free up disk space. ...insert new media. You can set retention rules (p. 73) for backups stored on the device.
8 Operations with archives and backups 8.1 Validating archives and backups Validation is an operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup. Validation of a file backup imitates recovery of all files from the backup to a dummy destination. Validation of a disk or volume backup calculates a checksum for every data block saved in the backup. Both procedures are resource-intensive. Validation of an archive will validate all the archive's backups.
Credentials (p. 152) [Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have enough privileges to access it. When to validate Start validation (p. 152) Specify when and how often to perform validation. Task parameters Task name [Optional] Enter a unique name for the validation task. A conscious name lets you quickly identify the task among the others. Task's credentials (p. 153) [Optional] The validation task will run on behalf of the user who is creating the task.
To select a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them. To select a folder stored on NFS share, expand the NFS folders group and click the folder. To select FTP or SFTP server, expand the corresponding group and click the appropriate folder on the server.
Specify the appropriate parameters as follows: Date and time - the date and time when to start the task. The task will be started manually (do not schedule the task) - select this check box, if you wish to start the task manually later. On schedule - to schedule the task. To learn more about how to configure the scheduling parameters, please see the Scheduling (p. 58) section. 8.1.6 Task credentials Provide credentials for the account under which the task will run. To specify credentials 1.
Example. When backing up data to a remote location through an unstable or low-bandwidth network connection (such as backing up through WAN using VPN access), you may want to save the initial full backup to a detachable media. Then, send the media to the remote location. There, the backup will be exported from the media to the target storage. Subsequent incremental backups, which are usually much smaller, can be transferred over the network.
To access the Export page first select a validation object: an archive or a backup. 1. Select a vault. For this click the Vaults icon in the Navigation pane and select the vault expanding the vaults tree in the Vaults view or directly in the Navigation pane. 2. To select an archive, select a vault, and then in the Vault view select the Archive view tab and click the archive name. 3.
2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive. The table displays the names of the archives contained in each location you select. While you are reviewing the location content, archives can be added, deleted or modified by another user or by the program itself according to scheduled operations. Use the Refresh button to refresh the list of archives. 3. Click OK. 8.2.2 Backup selection To specify a backup(s) to export 1. At the top of the window, select the respective check box(es).
To export data to a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them. Note for Linux users: To specify a Common Internet File System (CIFS) network share which is mounted on a mount point such as /mnt/share, select this mount point instead of the network share itself.
The software will access the destination using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the task account does not have access permissions to the destination. Specify: User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain). Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK.
Select volumes to mount and configure the mount settings for every volume: assign a letter or enter the mount point, choose the read/write or read only access mode. When you complete all the required steps, click OK to mount the volumes. 8.3.1 Archive selection To select an archive 1.
2. Click OK. According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an eavesdropper using a packet sniffer. 8.3.4 Volume selection Select the volumes to mount and configure the mounting parameters for each of the selected volumes as follows: 1. Select the check box for each volume you need to mount. 2.
To perform operations with archives and backups 1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault whose archives you need to manage. 2. In the vault view, select the Archive view tab. This tab displays all archives stored in the selected vault. 3. Proceed as described in: 8.4.1 Operations with archives (p. 161) Operations with backups (p. 161) Operations with archives To perform any operation with an archive 1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault that contains archives. 2.
2. On the Archive view tab of the vault, select the archive. Then, expand the archive and click the backup to select it. If the archive is protected with a password, you will be asked to provide it. 3. Perform operations by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. These operations can also be accessed from the '[Backup name]' actions item of the main menu. The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with backups.
8.4.3 Converting a backup to full When the chain of incremental backups in an archive becomes long, conversion of an incremental backup to a full one increases the reliability of your archive. You may also want to convert a differential backup if there are incremental backups that depend on it. During the conversion, the selected incremental or differential backup is replaced with a full backup for the same point in time. The previous backups in the chain are not changed.
There should be enough space in the vault for temporary files created during consolidation. Backups resulting from consolidation always have maximum compression.
9 Bootable media Bootable media Bootable media is physical media (CD, DVD, USB flash drive or other removable media supported by a machine BIOS as a boot device) that boots on any PC-compatible machine and enables you to run Acronis Backup Agent either in a Linux-based environment or Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), without the help of an operating system.
Bootable media based on WinPE versions earlier than 4.0 cannot boot on machines that use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). When a machine is booted with a PE-based bootable media, you cannot select optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD) as a backup destination. 9.1 How to create bootable media Acronis offers a dedicated tool for creating bootable media, Acronis Bootable Media Builder. Bootable Media Builder does not require a license if installed together with an agent.
If you set, say, 10 sec. for the bootable agent, the agent will launch 10 seconds after the menu is displayed. This enables unattended onsite operation when booting from a PXE server or WDS/RIS. d. [Optional] Remote logon settings: User name and password to be entered on the console side at the connection to the agent. If you leave these boxes empty, the connection will be enabled without specifying credentials. e. [Optional] Network settings (p. 169): f.
Prompts for the video mode to be used by the bootable media's graphical user interface. Without the vga parameter, the video mode is detected automatically. vga=mode_number Specifies the video mode to be used by the bootable media's graphical user interface. The mode number is given by mode_number in the hexadecimal format—for example: vga=0x318 Screen resolution and the number of colors corresponding to a mode number may be different on different machines.
Uses PCI BIOS calls to get the interrupt routing table. You may want to use this parameter if the kernel is unable to allocate interrupt requests (IRQs) or discover secondary PCI buses on the motherboard. These calls might not work properly on some machines. But this may be the only way to get the interrupt routing table. 9.1.1.2 Network settings While creating Acronis bootable media, you have an option to pre-configure network connections that will be used by the bootable agent.
9.1.1.3 Network port While creating bootable media, you have an option to pre-configure the network port that the bootable agent listens for incoming connection. The choice is available between: the default port the currently used port the new port (enter the port number). If the port has not been pre-configured, the agent uses the default port number (9876.) This port is also used as default by the Acronis Backup Management Console. 9.1.
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=696DD665-9F76-4177-A811-39C26 D3B3B34&displaylang=en Automated Installation Kit (AIK) Supplement for Windows 7 SP1 (PE 3.1): http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5188 You can find system requirements for installation by following the above links. [Optional] Burn the WAIK to DVD or copy to a flash drive. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework from this kit (NETFXx86 or NETFXx64, depending on your hardware).
[Optional] To create a 64-bit bootable media, select the Create x64 media check box, if available. A 64-bit media is required to boot a machine that uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The software runs the appropriate script and proceeds to the next window. When adding the plug-in to the existing PE ISO: Select Use WinPE files located in the folder I specify. Click Add and specify the path to the necessary *.
To start working, click Manage this machine locally. Configuring network settings To change the network settings for a current session, click Configure network in the startup window. The Network Settings window that appears will allow you to configure network settings for each network interface card (NIC) of the machine. Changes made during a session will be lost after the machine reboots. Adding VLANs In the Network Settings window, you can add virtual local area networks (VLANs).
7. Tasks cannot be scheduled; in fact, tasks are not created at all. If you need to repeat the operation, configure it from scratch. 8. The log lifetime is limited to the current session. You can save the entire log or the filtered log entries to a file. 9.3.1 Setting up a display mode For a machine booted from media, a display video mode is detected automatically based on the hardware configuration (monitor and graphics card specifications).
6. Click OK. 9.4 List of commands and utilities available in Linux-based bootable media Linux-based bootable media contains the following commands and command line utilities, which you can use when running a command shell. To start the command shell, press CTRL+ALT+F2 while in the bootable media's management console.
hexdump ps hotplug raidautorun ifconfig readcd 9.5 zcat Acronis Startup Recovery Manager Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is a modification of the bootable agent (p. 259), residing on the system disk in Windows, or on the /boot partition in Linux and configured to start at boot time on pressing F11. It eliminates the need for a separate media or network connection to start the bootable rescue utility. Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is especially useful for mobile users.
10 Disk management Acronis Disk Director Lite is a tool for preparing a machine disk/volume configuration for recovering the volume images saved by the Acronis Backup software. Sometimes after the volume has been backed up and its image placed into a safe storage, the machine disk configuration might change due to a HDD replacement or hardware loss.
1. Back up the disk on which volumes will be created or managed. Having your most important data backed up to another hard disk, network share or removable media will allow you to work on disk volumes being reassured that your data is safe. 2. Test your disk to make sure it is fully functional and does not contain bad sectors or file system errors. 3. Do not perform any disk/volume operations while running other software that has low-level disk access.
10.5 "Disk management" view Acronis Disk Director Lite is controlled through the Disk management view of the console. The top part of the view contains a disks and volumes table enabling data sorting and columns customization and toolbar. The table presents the numbers of the disks, as well as assigned letter, label, type, capacity, free space size, used space size, file system, and status for each volume.
10.6.1 Disk initialization If you add any new disk to your machine, Acronis Disk Director Lite will notice the configuration change and scan the added disk to include it to the disk and volume list. If the disk is still not initialized or, possibly, has a file structure unknown to the machine system, that means that no programs can be installed on it and you will not be able to store any files there. Acronis Disk Director Lite will detect that the disk is unusable by the system and needs to be initialized.
10.6.2.1 Selecting source and target disks The program displays a list of partitioned disks and asks the user to select the source disk, from which data will be transferred to another disk. The next step is selection of a disk as target for the cloning operation. The program enables the user to select a disk if its size will be sufficient to hold all the data from the source disk without any loss.
You have the following two alternatives to retain system bootability on the target disk volume: 1. Copy NT signature – to provide the target disk with the source disk NT signature matched with the Registry keys also copied on the target disk. 2. Leave NT signature – to keep the old target disk signature and update the operating system according to the signature. If you need to copy the NT signature: 1. Select the Copy NT signature check box.
Dynamic disk conversion: MBR to GPT Acronis Disk Director Lite does not support direct MBR to GPT conversion for dynamic disks. However you can perform the following conversions to reach the goal using the program: 1. MBR disk conversion: dynamic to basic (p. 184) using the Convert to basic operation. 2. Basic disk conversion: MBR to GPT using the Convert to GPT operation. 3. GPT disk conversion: basic to dynamic (p. 183) using the Convert to dynamic operation. 10.6.
System disk conversion Acronis Disk Director Lite does not require an operating system reboot after basic to dynamic conversion of the disk, if: 1. There is a single Windows 2008/Vista operating system installed on the disk. 2. The machine runs this operating system.
safe conversion of a dynamic disk to basic when it contains volumes with data for simple and mirrored volumes in multiboot systems, bootability of a system that was offline during the operation 10.6.7 Changing disk status Changing disk status is effective for Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 operating systems and applies to the current disk layout (p. 178).
Store backups (images) of other volumes/disks on a special volume; Install a new operating system (or swap file) on a new volume; Add new hardware to a machine. In Acronis Disk Director Lite the tool for creating volumes is the Create volume Wizard. 10.7.1.1 Types of dynamic volumes Simple Volume A volume created from free space on a single physical disk. It can consist of one region on the disk or several regions, virtually united by the Logical Disk Manager (LDM).
and is able to overcome the physical disk size limitations with a higher than mirrored disk-to-volume size ratio. 10.7.1.2 Create volume wizard The Create volume wizard lets you create any type of volume (including system and active), select a file system, label, assign a letter, and also provides other disk management functions.
To create a RAID-5 volume: Select three destination disks to create the volume on. After you choose the disks, the wizard will calculate the maximum size of the resulting volume, depending on the size of the unallocated space on the disks you chose and the requirements of the volume type you have previously decided upon.
If you are creating a basic volume, which can be made into a system volume, this page will be different, giving you the opportunity to select the volume Type — Primary (Active Primary) or Logical. Typically Primary is selected to install an operating system to a volume. Select the Active (default) value if you want to install an operating system on this volume to boot at machine startup. If the Primary button is not selected, the Active option will be inactive.
10.7.3 Set active volume If you have several primary volumes, you must specify one to be the boot volume. For this, you can set a volume to become active. A disk can have only one active volume, so if you set a volume as active, the volume, which was active before, will be automatically unset. If you need to set a volume active: 1. Select a primary volume on a basic MBR disk to set as active. 2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Mark as active in the context menu.
an application volume, DATA — a data volume, etc., but it does not imply that only the type of data stated with the label could be stored on such a volume. In Windows, volume labels are shown in the Explorer disk and folder tree: LABEL1(C:), LABEL2(D:), LABEL3(E:), etc. LABEL1, LABEL2 and LABEL3 are volume labels. A volume label is shown in all application dialog boxes for opening and saving files. If you need to change a volume label: 1. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Change label. 2.
10.8 Pending operations All operations, which were prepared by the user in manual mode or with the aid of a wizard, are considered pending until the user issues the specific command for the changes to be made permanent. Until then, Acronis Disk Director Lite will only demonstrate the new volume structure that will result from the operations that have been planned to be performed on disks and volumes.
11 Protecting applications with disk-level backup This section describes how to use a disk-level backup to protect applications running on Windows servers. This information is valid for both physical and virtual machines, no matter if the virtual machines are backed up at a hypervisor level or from inside a guest OS.
If the application databases are located on a number of machines, back up all of the machines on the same schedule. For example, include all of the SQL servers belonging to a SharePoint farm in a centralized backup plan running on a fixed schedule. Use Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) should be used to ensure consistency of the database files in the backup.
option is effective on a physical machine and on a virtual machine where Agent for Windows is installed. Other available solutions include: 1. Truncating the logs manually or by using a script. For more information, see "Truncating transaction logs" (p. 198) 2. For Microsoft Exchange Server, using the dedicated Agent for Exchange. 3. For Microsoft SQL Server, using Agent for SQL. Application-specific recommendations See "Best practices when backing up application servers" (p. 201). 11.1.
Create Table ##temp ( DatabaseName sysname, Name sysname, physical_name nvarchar(500), size decimal (18,2), FreeSpace decimal (18,2) ) Exec sp_msforeachdb ' Use [?]; Insert Into ##temp (DatabaseName, Name, physical_name, Size, FreeSpace) Select DB_NAME() AS [DatabaseName], Name, physical_name, Cast(Cast(Round(cast(size as decimal) * 8.0/1024.0,2) as decimal(18,2)) as nvarchar) Size, Cast(Cast(Round(cast(size as decimal) * 8.0/1024.0,2) as decimal(18,2)) Cast(FILEPROPERTY(name, ''SpaceUsed'') * 8.0/1024.
Tracks how far Exchange has progressed in writing logged information to the database file. To find out the database file and log file paths, proceed as follows.
11.1.1.4 SharePoint database files SharePoint stores content, auxiliary SharePoint services' data and farm configuration in Microsoft SQL Server databases. To find database files in SharePoint 2010 or later 1. Open Central Administration site. 2. Select Upgrade and Migration > Review database status. You will see the SQL instance and database name for all of the databases. 3. Use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to identify the files of the necessary database.
Back up transaction logs by using the native backup engine of Microsoft SQL Server. A database can be recovered to any point in time by applying transaction logs after a recovery from a backup created by Acronis Backup. In both cases, transaction logs will be truncated automatically. To switch the database to the Simple Recovery Model 1. Run Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the instance. 2. Right-click the database, and then click Properties.
1. Dismount the database (in Exchange 2010) or all databases of the storage group (in Exchange 2003/2007). For more information, see: Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123903 Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123587.aspx Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124936(v=exchg.80) Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996179(v=exchg.65) 2.
2. In the mounted volumes, determine which logs have been committed to the database by using the Eseutil tool. The procedure is described in step 1 of "Log truncation of online databases" above. 3. In the respective online database or storage group, delete all the log files whose numbers are less than the number of the current log file in the backup. 4. Unmount the mounted volumes by using the umount command. 11.1.3 Best practices when backing up application servers 11.1.3.
The volumes where the Active Directory database and the transaction logs (p. 197) are located The volume with the SYSVOL folder. The default location of this folder is %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL. To determine the current location of this folder, examine the Sysvol value in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netlogon\Parameters Considerations for backup When setting up and performing Active Directory backup, make sure that: You perform a backup at least monthl
To bring a backed-up database back to production, recover the database files from a disk backup. For details, see "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 203). If you only need temporary access to the backed-up databases for data mining or data extraction, mount a disk backup and access the required data. For details, see "Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 203). 11.2.
5. 6. 7. 8. b. Select the volume(s) containing the SQL Server database files. For the instructions on how to find out the database paths, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 195). c. Choose the Read/write access mode. d. Specify drive letters that will be assigned to the mounted volumes. After the volumes are mounted, use instructions from the "Attaching SQL Server databases" (p. 204) section to attach the databases directly from the mounted volumes.
By using Acronis Backup, you can recover Exchange database files from a disk backup. To bring a database online, mount it. For details, see "Mounting Exchange Server databases" (p. 205). If you need to perform granular recovery of individual mailboxes or their items, mount the restored database either as a recovery database (RDB) in Exchange 2010, or to a recovery storage group (RSG) in Exchange 2003/2007. For details, see "Granular recovery of mailboxes" (p. 206). 11.3.
Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124040.aspx 11.3.3 Granular recovery of mailboxes RDB (RSG) is a special administrative database (storage group) in Exchange Server. It lets you extract data from the mounted mailbox database. The extracted data can be copied or merged to the existing mailboxes without disturbing user access to the current data. For more information about RDB and RSG, refer to the following articles: Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.
Steps to perform If the domain has other domain controllers, you can perform nonauthoritative restore of a lost domain controller in either of these ways: Recover a domain controller from a backup by using a bootable media. Ensure that there is no USN rollback problem (p. 209). Recreate a domain controller by installing the operating system and making the machine a new domain controller (by using the dcpromo.exe tool). Both operations are followed by automatic replication.
Re-creation of the domain controller is not an option. Even a backup with an expired tombstone lifetime can be used. You need to recover the volumes that store Active Directory database files (p. 197). If these volumes store other valuable data except Active Directory, copy this data to a different location before the recovery. To recover a domain controller when no other domain controllers are available 1. Ensure that the newest available backup is used for recovery.
5. 6. 7. 8. Details. This change is needed because the Acronis agent service on a domain controller runs under a domain user account, but domain user accounts are unavailable in Directory Services Restore Mode. Start Acronis Backup and recover the database files from the backup. If necessary, also recover the SYSVOL folder. Details. For paths to these files and folders, see "Active Directory backup" (p. 201).
A USN rollback is highly probable if any of the following is true: A domain controller was recovered partially: not all disks or volumes were recovered or only the Active Directory database was recovered. A domain controller was recovered from a backup created without VSS. For example, the backup was created by using bootable media or the Use VSS option (p. 97) was disabled or the VSS provider malfunctioned. The following information will help you avoid a USN rollback by taking a few simple steps.
6. Restart the domain controller in normal mode. 7. [Optional] After the domain controller restarts, open Event Viewer, expand Application and Services Logs, and then select the Directory Services log. In the Directory Services log, look for a recent entry for Event ID 1109. If you find this entry, double-click it to ensure that the InvocationID attribute has changed. This means that the Active Directory database has been updated. 8.
In SharePoint 2010 or later: Mount-SPContentDatabase -DatabaseServer -WebApplication In SharePoint 2007: stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url -databasename -databaseserver Recovering a content database by using Agent for Windows This method allows you to recover a database from a disk-level backup of a machine running SQL Server. To recover a content database to the original SQL server 1.
11.5.2 Recovering configuration and service databases Configuration and service databases must be synchronized with other databases. Hence, it is recommended to recover configuration and service databases either along with content databases or to the latest point in time (if content databases do not need recovery). The configuration database contains hostnames of the farm's servers. Therefore, you can recover the configuration database only to the original SharePoint farm.
e. To stop a service, click Stop in the Action column of the relevant service. f. Click OK to stop the service. 2. Recover the database files as described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 203). 3. Start the services associated with the database, similarly to step 1. 11.5.3 Recovering individual items Use one of the following three methods of recovering individual SharePoint items: Using Acronis SharePoint Explorer.
3. Detach the database and unmount the previously mounted volume as described in steps 7-8 of "Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 203).
12 Administering a managed machine This section describes the views that are available through the navigation tree of the console connected to a managed machine and explains how to work with each view. This section also covers supplementary operations that can be performed on a managed machine, such as changing a license, adjusting Machine options, and collecting system information. 12.1 Backup plans and tasks The Backup plans and tasks view keeps you informed of data protection on a given machine.
To Do View details of a plan/task Click Details. In the respective Plan Details (p. 225) or Task Details (p. 226) window, review the plan or task details. View plan's/task's log Click Log. You will be taken to the Log (p. 226) view containing the list of the log entries grouped by the plan/task-related activities. Run a plan/task Backup plan 1. Click Run. 2. In the drop-down list, select the plan's task you need run.
To Do Edit a plan/task Click Edit. Backup plan editing is performed in the same way as creation (p. 33), except for the following limitations: It is not always possible to use all scheme options, when editing a backup plan if the created archive is not empty (i.e. contains backups). 1. It is not possible to change the scheme to Grandfather-Father-Son or Tower of Hanoi. 2. If the Tower of Hanoi scheme is used, it is not possible to change the number of levels.
State 2 Running How it is determined At least one task is running. How to handle No action is required. Otherwise, see 3. 3 Waiting At least one task is waiting. Otherwise, see 4. Waiting for condition. This situation is quite normal, but delaying a backup for too long is risky. The solution may be to set the maximum delay (p. 96) after which the task will start anyway or force the condition (tell the user to log off, enable the required network connection.
Running A task changes to the Running state when the event specified by the schedule occurs AND all the conditions set in the backup plan are met AND no other task that locks the necessary resources is running. In this case, nothing prevents the task from running. Waiting A task changes to the Waiting state when the task is about to start, but another task using the same resources is already running. In particular, more than one backup tasks cannot run simultaneously on a machine.
Export the backup plans before reinstalling the agent and import them after reinstalling. Deploying of a backup plan to multiple machines You want to use the same backup plan on multiple machines. Export this plan from one of the machines and deploy it as a file (p. 223) to the other machines.
To change the encrypted password 1. In the command line, run the acronis_encrypt utility: acronis_encrypt UserPassword#1 (here UserPassword#1 is the password you want to encrypt). 2. The utility outputs a string, for example "XXXYYYZZZ888". 3. Copy this string and paste it into the tag as follows: XXXYYYZZZ888 The acronis_encrypt utility is available on any machine where Acronis Backup Management Console or Acronis Backup command-line utility (acrocmd) is installed.
1. Add the tag with "disks" or "files" value, depending on the type of the template you need. 2. Add the tag. 3. Inside the tag, add the with the required template. The template must correspond to the directly specified item. For example, if the specified item has the "disks" value, you can use the [SYSTEM], [BOOT] and [Fixed Volumes] templates; but you cannot use the [All Files] or [All Profiles Folder] templates.
folder, the agent imports the backup plan from that file. If you change (or delete) an .xml file in the dedicated folder, the agent automatically changes (or deletes) the appropriate backup plan. Editing the export file A backup plan imported in such way cannot be edited through the graphical user interface. You can edit the export file (p. 221) with a text editor either before or after the deployment.
12.1.5 Backup plan details The Backup plan details window (also duplicated on the Information panel) aggregates all information on the selected backup plan. The respective message will appear at the top of the tabs, if execution of the plan requires user interaction. The message contains a brief description of the problem and action buttons that let you select the appropriate action or stop the plan.
Name - name of the archive. Location - name of the vault or path to the folder, where the archive is stored. Archive comments - comments on the archive (if provided). 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th location - names of the locations to which the archive was copied or moved (if specified in the backup plan). Settings The Settings tab displays the following information: Backup scheme - the selected backup scheme and all its settings with schedules.
To Do Select multiple log entries non-contiguous: hold down CTRL and click the log entries one by one contiguous: select a single log entry, then hold down SHIFT and click another log entry. All the log entries between the first and last selections will be selected too. View a log entry’s details 1. Select a log entry. 2. Do one of the following: Double click the selection. Click Details. The log entry's details will be displayed.
Code - It can be blank or the program error code if the event type is error. Error code is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem. Module - It can be blank or the number of the program module where the event has occurred. It is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem. Owner - The user name of the backup plan owner (p. 20). Message - The event text description.
12.4 Changing a license By changing the license, you switch a product from trial mode to full mode or switch to a different product. The following table summarizes the available options. Switching a license Why you may need it Trial > Full After trying the product, you decided to buy a license. Full > Full, different product You want to upgrade from Acronis Backup to Acronis Backup Advanced in order to use the centralized management capability.
12.6 Adjusting machine options The machine options define the general behavior of all Acronis Backup agents operating on the managed machine, and so the options are considered machine-specific. To access the machine options, connect the console to the managed machine and then select Options > Machine options from the top menu. 12.6.1 Additional settings Specify what to do if the machine is about to be shut down while a task is running This option is effective only for Windows operating systems.
When enabled, you can specify the keeping period for the accepted alerts. The accepted alerts older than this period will be deleted from the table automatically. Automatically move inactive alerts to "Accepted alerts" This option defines whether to accept all the alerts that become inactive and move them to the Accepted alerts table automatically. The preset is: Disabled. When enabled, you can specify the alert types to apply this option to. 12.6.3.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS encryption types are available for selection. c. Some Internet service providers require authentication on the incoming mail server before being allowed to send something. If this is your case, select the Log on to incoming mail server check box to enable a POP server and to set up its settings: Incoming mail server (POP) – enter the name of the POP server. Port – set the port of the POP server.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media. The option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to send the log events to the specified Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent. You can override the settings set here, exclusively for the events that occur during backup or during recovery, in the Default backup and recovery options.
Linux To receive SNMP messages on a machine running Linux, the net-snmp (for RHEL and SUSE) or the snmpd (for Debian) package has to be installed. SNMP can be configured using the snmpconf command. The default configuration files are located in the /etc/snmp directory: /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP SNMP agent /etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP trap daemon. 12.6.5.3 Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems.
When the option is enabled, the program compares the actual log size with the maximum size after every 100 log entries. Once the maximum log size is exceeded, the program deletes the oldest log entries. You can select the amount of log entries to retain. The default 95% setting will keep most of the log. With the minimum 1% setting, the log will be nearly cleared. This parameter can also be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. 12.6.
13 Cloud backup This section provides details about using the Acronis Cloud Backup service. This service enables you to back up your data to Acronis Cloud Storage. Acronis Cloud Backup might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate To configure backup to the cloud storage or recovery from the storage, follow the regular steps described in the corresponding sections: Creating a backup plan (p.
Example You might want to use the following backup strategy for a file server. Back up the critical files twice a day on a schedule. Set the retention rule "Delete backups older than" 7 days. This means that after every backup the software will check for backups older than 7 days and delete them automatically. Run backup of the server's system volume manually as required. For example, after the operating system updates. Manually delete the backups that you do not need. 13.1.
Before installing the product on a system that does not use RPM Package Manager, such as an Ubuntu system, you need to install this manager manually; for example, by running the following command (as the root user): apt-get install rpm Workstation operating systems Windows XP Professional SP2+ (x86, x64) Windows Vista – all editions except for Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium (x86, x64) Windows 7 – all editions except for the Starter and Home editions (x86, x64) Windows 8/8.
Recovering disks or files by using Acronis Backup GUI or command line interface. This method enables you to use a wide range of Acronis Backup functionality. Retrieving files (p. 252) from file-level backups by using a web browser. To do this, you only need a machine with Internet access. 13.1.6.3 Is the cloud storage available under Acronis bootable media? Recovery from Acronis Cloud Storage is available but backup to the storage is not. 13.1.6.
13.1.7 Initial Seeding FAQ This section explains what Initial Seeding is, why you would want to use it and provides some usage details. 13.1.7.1 What is Initial Seeding? Initial Seeding is an extra service that lets you save an initial full backup locally and then send it to Acronis on a hard disk drive. Acronis uploads the backup to the cloud storage. After that, you can add incremental backups to this full backup, either manually or on a schedule.
registration section. The registered license appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab on your account management webpage. A license purchased from the Acronis online store appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab immediately after the payment is processed. 13.1.7.8 How do I perform initial seeding? Preparing 1. Ensure that you have activated an Acronis Cloud Backup subscription on the machine where you will do initial seeding (skip this step if you have a volume subscription). 2.
13.1.7.9 How to package a hard drive for shipment? It is very important that your hard drive be packaged carefully. Careful packaging will protect your drive from any damage during shipment. Hard drive types Acronis accepts hard disk drives of the following interface types: SATA, eSATA, and USB connected drives. ATA, IDE, and SCSI drives are not accepted. Packaging If possible, use the original packaging. Otherwise, packaging materials can be obtained at any shipping outlet or stationary store.
DO NOT use Styrofoam peanuts for packing as they do not provide enough protection. DO NOT send your media in jiffy bags Step 4 Using the website of the shipping company that you chose, prepare and print two prepaid shipping labels: 1. Shipping label for sending your hard drive. This label is placed on the top of the box. You should send your package to one of the Acronis data centers.
Step 5 Securely seal the box with a sturdy tape. Then, stick the shipping label for sending your hard drive to the top of the box, so the label does not wrap around the edge of the package. 13.1.7.10 How do I track an Initial Seeding order status? On the Acronis website, the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab shows you the status of all your orders. In addition, you will receive e-mail notifications about the most important events. Available – The license is available for using on any machine.
specified). If a prepaid shipping label was not provided with the media, the media will be discarded. [Occasional] The order is on hold – Your order was placed on hold due to technical difficulties processing the order. Acronis is working on resolving these issues. [Occasional] The order has been cancelled – The order had been cancelled before the media was shipped, so returning the media is not required. [Occasional] The order has been cancelled.
13.1.8.7 How to buy a Large Scale Recovery license? You can buy a Large Scale Recovery license from an Acronis partner or from the Acronis online store. Having purchased a license from an Acronis partner, you receive a confirmation e-mail with a registration code. Log in to your Acronis account and enter the registration code in the product registration section. The registered license appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab on your account management webpage.
13.1.9.1 How do I access my account management webpage? Go to http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate and log in to your account (create one if you are not registered). To access this webpage from Acronis Backup: 1. On the Actions menu, click Back up now or Create backup plan. 2. Click Location, and then click Buy or manage your subscriptions. 3. Log in to your account (create one if you are not registered). 13.1.9.
A subscription for virtual machines (now deprecated) can be renewed to a server subscription or to a volume subscription. Volume subscriptions To renew a volume subscription, go to the account management webpage, click Renew next to the volume subscription, and then follow the on-screen instructions. The new expiration date will appear in the Expires column. If the new subscription has the same storage quota as the old one, the subscription periods will be added together.
13.1.9.8 Can I cancel my subscription? Just wait until the subscription expires. Refunds are not available for the cloud backup subscriptions. 13.2 Where do I start? Go to http://www.acronis.com/en-us/my/cloud-backup/corporate and log in to your account (create one if you are not registered). This is your account management webpage. Here you can get a trial subscription, locate an Acronis partner or buy subscriptions online.
account (create one if you are not registered yet). A trial subscription will be automatically created and assigned to the machine. 13.4 Configuring proxy settings If the machine connects to the Internet through a proxy server, configure Acronis Backup to use the proxy server. 1. 2. 3. 4. Start Acronis Backup. On the Options menu, click Machine options. Click Cloud backup proxy. Enter the proxy server settings. For detailed information (p.
to select the country where all or most of the machines you want to back up to the cloud storage are located. Otherwise, the data may unnecessarily travel a long way. Later, you will not be able to change the data center even if you change the country in your profile. To access your profile, go to the Acronis website, log in to your account, and then click Personal Profile. 13.6.1 Activating subscriptions in Acronis Backup To activate a subscription 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Start Acronis Backup.
Depending on your settings, this backup will be either full or incremental. But its size is not likely to be less than a full backup size. Therefore, it is not practical to reassign a subscription to a machine whose first backup was done as an initial seeding. You will need to either redo the initial seeding (which requires a new license) or to transfer the sizeable backup over the Internet. All earlier created backups remain intact. You can delete them manually if necessary.
To retrieve files from the cloud storage: 1. Go to the account management webpage (p. 247) and click Recover files from Acronis Cloud. You will see the list of the machines backed up by using the specified account. The list of machines that share a volume subscription appears when you select this subscription. 2. Click the name of the machine whose data you want to retrieve. The software displays both file-level and disk-level archives of this machine's data. Note for users of the Initial Seeding (p.
Setting up regular conversion of backups to a virtual machine Operations with backups: Validating a backup* Exporting a backup Mounting a backup Replicating or moving backups from the cloud storage Converting an incremental backup to full Operation with archives (an archive is a set of backups): Validating an archive Exporting an archive These limitations also apply to backing up data using Initial Seeding and to recovering data using Large Scale Recovery.
Increase storage quota Replace a subscription with another one that has a greater storage quota. The remaining subscription period is reduced in proportion to the capacity increase. Initial Seeding An extra service that enables you to save an initial full backup locally and then send it to Acronis on a hard disk drive. Acronis uploads the backup to the cloud storage. After that, you can add incremental backups to this full backup, either manually or on a schedule.
Subscription period The period during which the subscription remains activated. You can back up and recover the machine during this period. Recovery is possible for extra 30 days after this period ends. Unassign a subscription Make an assigned subscription available again. You can unassign a subscription as long as it is not activated.
14 Glossary A Acronis Active Restore The Acronis proprietary technology that brings a system online immediately after the system recovery is started. The system boots from the backup (p. 262) and the machine becomes operational and ready to provide necessary services. The data required to serve incoming requests is recovered with the highest priority; everything else is recovered in the background.
Activity An action performed by Acronis Backup for achievement of some user goal. Examples: backing up, recovery, exporting a backup, cataloging a vault. An activity may be initiated by a user or by the software itself. Execution of a task (p. 269) always causes one or more activities. Agent (Acronis Backup Agent) An application that performs data backup and recovery and enables other management operations on the machine (p. 266), such as task management and operations with hard disks.
the backup archive (p. 258) name and location [optionally] additional operations to perform with the backups (replication (p. 268), validation (p. 269), conversion to a virtual machine) the backup options (p. 258). the backup scheme (p. 259). This includes the backup schedule and [optionally] the retention rules (p.
access and back up the data that has survived in a corrupted system deploy an operating system on bare metal create basic or dynamic volumes (p. 264) on bare metal back up sector-by-sector a disk that has an unsupported file system back up offline any data that cannot be backed up online because of restricted access, being permanently locked by the running applications or for any other reason. Built-in group A group of machines permanently located on a management server (p. 267).
Centralized vault A networked location allotted by the management server (p. 267) administrator to serve as storage for the backup archives (p. 258). A centralized vault can be managed by a storage node (p. 268) or be unmanaged. The total number and size of archives stored in a centralized vault are limited by the storage size only. As soon as the management server administrator creates a centralized vault, the vault name and path to the vault are distributed to all machines registered (p.
The centralized catalog available on the management server (p. 267) contains all data stored on its storage nodes (p. 268). Physically, data catalog is stored in catalog files. Every vault uses its own set of catalog files which normally are located directly in the vault. If this is not possible, such as for tape storages, the catalog files are stored in the managed machine's or storage node's local folder.
Disk backup (Image) A backup (p. 258) that contains a sector-based copy of a disk or a volume in a packaged form. Normally, only sectors that contain data are copied. Acronis Backup provides an option to take a raw image, that is, copy all the disk sectors, which enables imaging of unsupported file systems. Disk group A number of dynamic disks (p. 263) that store the common configuration data in their LDM databases and therefore can be managed as a whole.
Disk 1 MBR LDM database Disk 2 Protec-t GPT ive MBR Microsoft Reserved Partition (MSR) LDM database 1 MB GPT LDM Metadata partition 1 MB Dynamic disks organized on MBR (Disk 1) and GPT (Disk 2) disks. For more information about dynamic disks please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base articles: Disk Management (Windows XP Professional Resource Kit) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457110.
E Encrypted archive A backup archive (p. 258) encrypted according to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). When the encryption option and a password for the archive are set in the backup options (p. 258), each backup belonging to the archive is encrypted by the agent (p. 258) before saving the backup to its destination. Encrypted vault A managed vault (p. 266) to which anything written is encrypted and anything read is decrypted transparently by the storage node (p.
Indexing An activity (p. 258) performed by a storage node (p. 268) after a backup (p. 258) has been saved to a deduplicating vault (p. 262). During indexing, the storage node performs the following operations: Moves data blocks from the backup to a special file within the vault. This file is called the deduplication data store.
Managed vault A centralized vault (p. 260) managed by a storage node (p. 268). Archives (p. 258) in a managed vault can be accessed as follows: bsp://node_address/vault_name/archive_name/ Physically, managed vaults can reside on a network share, SAN, NAS, on a hard drive local to the storage node or on a tape library locally attached to the storage node. The storage node performs cleanup (p. 261) and validation (p. 269) for each archive stored in the managed vault.
Registered machine A machine (p. 266) managed by a management server (p. 267). A machine can be registered on only one management server at a time. A machine becomes registered as a result of the registration (p. 268) procedure. Registration A procedure that adds a managed machine (p. 266) to a management server (p. 267). Registration sets up a trust relationship between the agent (p. 258) residing on the machine and the server.
relieve managed machines (p. 266) of unnecessary CPU load by performing cleanup (p. 261), validation (p. 269) and other operations with backup archives (p. 258) which otherwise would be performed by agents (p. 258) drastically reduce backup traffic and storage space taken by the archives (p. 258) by using deduplication (p. 262) prevent access to the backup archives, even in case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by a malefactor, by using encrypted vaults (p. 265).
Virtual machine On Acronis Backup Management Server (p. 267), a machine (p. 266) is considered virtual if it can be backed up from the virtualization host without installing an agent (p. 258) on the machine. Such machine appears in the Virtual machines section. If an agent is installed into the guest system, the machine appears in the Machines with agents section.
