Acronis® Backup & Recovery ™ 10 Advanced Workstation User's Guide
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000-2009. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis, Inc. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Windows and MS-DOS are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks and copyrights referred to are the property of their respective owners.
Table of Contents 1. Introducing Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 ........................................................... 7 1.1. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 overview ............................................................................ 7 1.2. Getting started .................................................................................................................... 8 1.2.1. 1.3. 1.3.1. 1.3.2. 1.3.3. 1.3.4. 1.3.5. Using the management console .........................................
3.1.4. 3.1.5. 3.2. 3.2.1. 3.2.2. 3.3. 3.3.1. 3.3.2. 3.4. 3.4.1. 3.4.2. 4. Number of tasks ..................................................................................................................................... 83 Fonts ....................................................................................................................................................... 84 Management server options ............................................................................................
6.2.7. 6.2.8. 6.2.9. 6.2.10. 6.3. 6.3.1. 6.3.2. 6.3.3. 6.3.4. 6.3.5. 6.3.6. 6.3.7. 6.3.8. 6.3.9. 6.3.10. 6.3.11. 6.3.12. 6.4. 6.4.1. 6.4.2. 6.4.3. 6.4.4. 6.4.5. 6.4.6. 6.5. 6.5.1. 6.5.2. 6.5.3. 6.5.4. Archive .................................................................................................................................................. 198 Access credentials for archive location ...............................................................................................
7.1.4. 7.1.5. 7.1.6. 7.1.7. 7.2. 7.2.1. 7.2.2. 7.2.3. 7.2.4. 7.2.5. 7.2.6. 7.2.7. 7.2.8. Storage nodes....................................................................................................................................... 296 Tasks ..................................................................................................................................................... 300 Log ........................................................................................................
1. Introducing Acronis® Backup & Recovery™ 10 1.1. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 overview Based on Acronis’ patented disk imaging and bare metal restore technologies, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 succeeds Acronis True Image Echo as the next generation disaster recovery solution.
operations • Enterprise level of security Controlling user rights to perform operations and access backups Running services with minimal user rights Restricted remote access to a backup agent Secure communication between the product components Using third-party certificates for authentication of the components Data encryption options for both data transmission and storage Backup of remote machines to a centralized storage node behind firewalls. 1.2. Getting started Direct management 1.
The simplified way of centralized management • Backup Using the Back up control, select the machine which you want to back up and then create a backup plan (p. 340) on the machine. You can create backup plans on multiple machines in turn. • Recovery Using the Recover control, select the machine where the data recovery is required and create a recovery task on the machine. You can create recovery tasks on multiple machines in turn.
• Creating a backup policy rather than backup plans Set up a centralized backup policy and apply it to the All machines group. This way you will deploy backup plans on each machine with a single action. Select Actions > Create backup policy from the top menu and then refer to the context help. • Grouping the machines registered on the management server Group the registered machines by appropriate parameters, create several policies and apply each policy to the appropriate group of machines.
Key elements of the console workspace Name Description Navigation pane Contains the Navigation tree and the Shortcuts bar and lets you navigate to the different views (see the Navigation pane (p. 11) section.) Actions and tools pane Contains bars with a set of actions that can be performed and tools (see the Actions and Tools pane (p. 12) section). Main area The main place of working, where you create, edit and manage backup plans, policies, tasks and perform other operations.
Views for a management server When the console is connected to a management server, the following views are available in the navigation tree. • [Management server name]. Root of the tree also called a Welcome view. Displays the name of the management server the console is currently connected to. Use this view for quick access to the main operations, available on the management server. o Dashboard.
Bars '[Item's name]' actions Contains a set of actions that can be performed on the items selected in any of the navigation views. Clicking the action opens the respective action page (p. 15). Items of different navigation views have their own set of actions. The bar's name changes in accordance with the item you select.
Tools Contains a list of the Acronis tools. Always the same across all the program views. All the tools can also be accessed in the Tools menu. "Tools" bar Help Contains a list of help topics. Different views and action pages of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provided with lists of specific help topics. 1.2.1.3. Operations with panes How to expand/minimize panes By default, the Navigation pane appears expanded and the Actions and Tools - minimized.
"Tasks" view Common way of working with views Generally, every view contains a table of items, a table toolbar with buttons, and the Information panel. • • Use filtering and sorting capabilities to search the table for the item in question • • In the Information panel (collapsed by default), view the item's details In the table, select the desired item Perform actions on the selected item.
Action page - Create backup plan Using controls and specifying settings The action pages offer two ways of representation: basic and advanced. The basic representation hides such fields as credentials, comments, etc. When the advanced representation is enabled, all the available fields are displayed. You can switch between the views by selecting the Advanced view check box at the top of the action page. Most settings are configured by clicking the respective Change… links to the right.
Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 includes three types of components. Components for a managed machine (agents) These are applications that perform data backup, recovery and other operations on the machines managed with Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Agents require a license to perform operations on each managed machine. Agents have multiple features, or add-ons, that enable additional functionality and so might require additional licenses.
operational machine will be placed in the folder you select. You can start the machine using the respective virtualization software or prepare the machine files for further usage. Disk management Agent for Windows includes Acronis Disk Director Lite - a handy disk management utility.
1.3.4.1. Management Server Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server is the central server that drives data protection within the enterprise network. The management server provides the administrator with: • • a single entry point to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 infrastructure an easy way to protect data on numerous machines (p. 347) using backup policies (p. 340) and grouping • enterprise-wide monitoring functionality • • the ability to create centralized vaults (p.
Setting up the storage infrastructure Install the storage nodes, add them to the management server (the procedure is similar to the managed machine registration (p. 349)) and create centralized vaults (p. 342). When creating a centralized vault, specify the path to the vault, the storage node that will manage the vault, and the management operations to be performed on the vault.
The network booting: • Eliminates the need to have a technician onsite to install the bootable media (p. 341) into the system that has to be booted • During group operations, reduces the time required for booting multiple machines as compared to using physical bootable media. 1.3.4.4. License Server The server enables you to manage licenses of Acronis products and install the components that require licenses. For more information about Acronis License Server please see "Using Acronis License Server".
• • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, Windows Server 2003/2008/ x64 Editions Windows Vista all Editions except for Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows • Windows Professional 2000 SP4/ Professional XP SP2 • • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition/Home Edition Windows Vista all Editions Remote connection to the agent installed on Windows Home editions is not possible. 1.5.
(i) supply code corrections to you to correct Software malfunctions in order to bring such Software into substantial conformity with the published operating specifications for the most current version of the Software unless your unauthorized modifications prohibit or hamper such corrections or cause the malfunction; or (ii) supply code corrections to correct insubstantial problems at the next general release of the Software.
2. Understanding Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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. 2.1. Basic concepts Please familiarize yourself with the basic notions used in the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 graphical user interface and documentation. Advanced users are welcome to use this section as a step-by-step quick start guide. The details can be found in the context help.
The following diagram illustrates the notions discussed above. For more definitions please refer to the Glossary. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Backup using bootable media You can boot the machine using the bootable media, configure the backup operation in the same way as a simple backup plan and execute the operation. This will help you extract files and logical volumes from a system that failed to boot, take an image of the offline system or back up sector-by-sector an unsupported file system. Recovery under operating system When it comes to data recovery, you create a recovery task on the managed machine.
The following diagram illustrates data recovery under the operating system (online). No backup can proceed on the machine while the recovery operation is taking place. If required, you can connect the console to another machine and configure a recovery operation on that machine. This ability (remote parallel recovery) first appeared in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10; the previous Acronis products do not provide it.
If the machine fails to boot or you need to recover data to bare metal, you boot the machine using the bootable media and configure the recovery operation in the same way as the recovery task. The following diagram illustrates the recovery using the bootable media. 2.2. Full, incremental and differential backups Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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.
It is widely accepted that a full backup is the slowest to do but the fastest to restore. With Acronis technologies, recovery from an incremental backup may be not slower than recovery from a full one. A full backup is most useful when: • • you need to roll back the system to its initial state this initial state does not change often, so there is no need for regular backup.
specifications of the devices, the backup/recovery options you set, to name a few. Practice is the best guide to selecting the optimal backup scheme. Parameter Full backup Differential backup Incremental backup Storage space Maximal Medium Minimal Creation time Maximal Medium Minimal Recovery time Minimal Medium Maximal 2.3. 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.
Tasks that do not belong to a backup plan, such as the recovery task, are owned by the user who has created or last modified the task. Managing a plan (task) owned by another user Having Administrator privileges on the machine, a user can modify tasks and local backup plans owned by any user registered in the operating system. When a user opens a plan or task for editing, which is owned by another user, all passwords set in the task are cleared. This prevents the "modify settings, leave passwords" trick.
scheduled task start time. That's why the Acronis scheduler needs the explicitly specified credentials to be able to start the task. 2.5. GFS backup scheme This section covers implementation of the Grandfather-Father-Son (GFS) backup scheme in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. With this backup scheme you are not allowed to back up more often than once a day.
The total schedule. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly This step forms the daily, weekly and monthly cycles in the schedule. Select a day of the week from the days selected in the previous step. Each 1st, 2nd and 3rd backup created on this day of the week will be considered as a weekly backup. Each 4th backup created on this day of the week will be considered as a monthly backup. Backups created on the other days will be considered as daily backups.
backup and delete all daily backups that are older than you specify. Keep backups: Weekly This step defines the retention rule for weekly backups. The cleanup task will run after each weekly backup and delete all weekly backups that are older than you specify. The weekly backups' retention period cannot be less than the daily backups' retention period. It is usually set several times longer. Keep backups: Monthly This step defines the retention rule for monthly backups.
An ideal archive created according to the GFS scheme. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Keep daily backups: 7 days Keep weekly backups: 2 weeks Keep monthly backups: 6 months Starting from the third week, weekly backups will be regularly deleted. After 6 months, monthly backups will start to be deleted. The diagram for weekly and monthly backups will look similar to the week-based timescale.
An archive created according to the GFS scheme by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Schedule: Workdays at 8:00 PM Weekly/Monthly: Friday Keep daily backups: 7 days Keep weekly backups: 2 weeks Keep monthly backups: 6 months 2.6. Tower of Hanoi backup scheme The need to have frequent backups always conflicts with the cost of keeping such backups for a long time. The Tower of Hanoi (ToH) backup scheme is a useful compromise.
For example, if there are five rings labeled A, B, C, D, and E in the puzzle, the solution gives the following order of moves: The Tower of Hanoi backup scheme is based on the same patterns. It operates with Sessions instead of Moves and with Backup levels instead of Rings. Commonly an N-level scheme pattern contains (Nth power of two) sessions. So, the five-level Tower of Hanoi backup scheme cycles the pattern that consists of 16 sessions (moves from 1 to 16 in the above figure).
• • • • differential backups on all intermediate levels (B, C and D for five-level pattern) the pattern starts with a full backup since the very first backup cannot be incremental the scheme forces every backup level to keep only the most recent backup, other backups from the level have to be deleted; however backup deletion is postponed in cases where the backup is a base for another incremental or differential one an old backup on a level is kept until a new backup has been successfully created on the le
to this interval and deletes all backups created before that moment. None of the backups created after this moment will be deleted. 2. Keep the archive size within This is the maximum size of the archive. Every time a retention rule is applied, the program compares the actual archive size with the value you set and deletes the oldest backups to keep the archive size within this value. The diagram below shows the archive content before and after the deletion.
Combination of rules 1 and 2 You can limit both the backups’ lifetime and the archive size. The diagram below illustrates the resulting rule. Example Delete backups older than = 3 Months Keep the archive size within = 200GB Never delete backups younger than = 10 Days • Every time the retention rules are applied, the program will delete all backups created more than 3 months (or more exactly, 90 days) ago.
This mode ensures that after each cleanup the archive size and the backups’ age are within the bounds you specify. The consolidation, however, may take a lot of time and system resources. And you still need some extra space in the vault for temporary files created during consolidation. What you need to know about consolidation Please be aware that consolidation is just a method of deletion but not an alternative to deletion.
Command line examples trueimagecmd /create /partition:DYN1,DYN2 /asz This will back up DYN1 and DYN2 volumes to the Acronis Secure Zone. trueimagecmd /create /harddisk:DYN /asz This will back up all dynamic volumes in the system to the Acronis Secure Zone. The boot code on basic GPT volumes is not backed up or recovered. Recovering dynamic volumes A dynamic volume can be recovered • • over any type of existing volume • to unallocated space of a basic disk.
Backed up (source): Recovered to: Dynamic volume Dynamic volume Basic MBR volume Basic GPT volume Dynamic volume Dynamic volume Dynamic volume Type as of the target Type as of the target Type as of the target Dynamic volume Dynamic volume N/A Type as of the source Simple Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Basic GPT volume Unallocated space (basic MBR disk) Basic MBR volume Basic MBR volume Basic MBR
Backup archives created using different ways of access to tape have different formats. A tape written by a storage node cannot be read by an agent. Linux-based and PE-based bootable media allow for backup and recovery using both local access and access through the storage node. Backups created using the bootable media can be recovered with the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent running in the operating system. 2.9.1.
2.9.2. Using a single tape drive A tape drive that is locally attached to a managed machine can be used by local backup plans as a storage device. The functionality of a locally attached autoloader or tape library is limited to the ordinary tape drive. This means that the program can only work with the currently mounted tape and you have to mount tapes manually.
2.10. Proprietary Acronis technologies This section describes the proprietary technologies inherited by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 from Acronis True Image Echo and Acronis True Image 9.1 product families. 2.10.1. 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.
For more information about operations available in Acronis Secure Zone, see the Personal vaults (p. 154) section. Upgrade from Acronis True Image Echo When upgrading from Acronis True Image Echo to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, Acronis Secure Zone will keep the archives created with Echo. The zone will appear in the list of personal vaults and the old archives will be available for recovery. To upgrade the activated Acronis Startup Recovery Manager, deactivate it and activate again.
handles differences in devices that are critical for the operating system start-up, such as storage controllers, motherboard or chipset. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore purpose A system can be easily recovered from a disk backup (image) onto the same system or to identical hardware. However, if you change a motherboard or use another processor version—a likely possibility in case of hardware failure—the recovered system could be unbootable.
Universal Restore and Microsoft Sysprep Universal Restore is not a system preparation tool. You can apply it to any Windows image created by Acronis products, including images of systems prepared with Microsoft System Preparation Tool (Sysprep). The following is an example of using both tools on the same system.
How it works When configuring a recovery operation, you select disks or volumes to recover from a backup. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 scans the selected disks or volumes in the backup. If this scan finds a supported operating system, the Acronis Active Restore option becomes available. If you do not enable the option, the system recovery will proceed in the usual way and the machine will become operational after the recovery is completed.
want the result to be predictable. When recovering a multi-boot system, choose only one system volume and boot volume at a time. 5. Once the system recovery is started, the operating system boots from the backup. The Acronis Active Restore icon appears in the system tray. The machine becomes operational and ready to provide necessary services. The immediate user sees the drive tree and icons and can open files or launch applications even though they were not yet recovered.
Since you connect the console to the management server rather than to each machine and perform all management operations through the central management unit, this way of management is called centralized management (p. 342). Centralized management does not rule out the direct management (p. 344) of each machine. You can connect the console to each machine and perform any direct management operation.
You have to protect each server as a whole, the users' data on the workstations, and the virtual machines. You want to be able to track the health of the data protection, be sure that the backup archives do not store duplicated information and that the obsolete backups are deleted from the storage in a timely manner. These goals can be achieved by regular backup of the desired data items to a centralized vault with deduplication. Setting up the Acronis infrastructure 1.
5. Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node [ASN] on one of the Windows servers (9). The storage node enables you to organize the infrastructure for storing backup archives and to use the deduplication functionality. The node can be installed together with the management server if the host is capable enough. When installing the storage node, register it on the management server in the same way as you register the agents.
3. Apply the policy to the S_1 group. Make sure that the policy has been successfully deployed to each of the servers. The policy deployment state has to change from Deploying to Deployed and its status has to be OK. To see the resulting backup plans on each of the servers: a. navigate to the All machines group or the S_1 group b. select the server c. select the Backup plans and tasks tab on the Information pane.
2.11.2.3. Protecting the virtual machines Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for ESX provides the flexibility to protect virtual machines in multiple ways: • Connect the console to the virtual appliance (Agent for ESX) and create a backup plan that will back up all or some of the virtual machines. • Connect the console to the virtual appliance (Agent for ESX) and create an individual backup plan for each machine. The plan will back up the volumes you specify.
Deploying a policy transfers the established correspondence to the machines. Physically, a bundle of tasks is created on each machine according to the configuration provided by the policy. Revoking a policy is the reverse action to the aggregate of applying and deploying. Revoking removes the correspondence between the policy and one or more machines and then removes the tasks from the machines.
The same policy on a group and on a machine 1. The same policy can be applied to a group and to a machine. Nothing changes on the machine at the second application of the same policy, but the server remembers that the policy has been applied twice. 2. A policy, revoked from the group, remains on the machine. 3. A policy, revoked from the machine, remains on the group and therefore on the machine. 4. To completely revoke the policy from the machine, revoke it from both the group and the machine. 2.11.4.2.
2.11.4.3. Inheritance of policies Policy inheritance can be easily understood if we assume that a machine can be a member of only one group besides the All machines group. Let's start from this simplified approach. In the diagram below, the container stands for a group; the two-color circle stands for a machine with two applied policies; the three-color circle stands for a machine with three applied policies and so on. Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
Besides the All machines group, we have the custom G1 group in the root and the custom G2 group, which is G1's child. The "green" policy, applied to the All machines group, is inherited by all machines. The "orange" policy, applied to G1, is inherited by the G1 members and all its child groups, both immediate and indirect. The "blue" policy, applied to G2, is inherited only by the G2 members since G2 does not have child groups. The "violet" policy is applied straight to machine #4.
#4 #5 or #6 "green" Inherited All machines -> #4 "orange" Inherited G1 -> G2 -> #4 "blue" Inherited G2 -> #4 "violet" Applied directly "green" Inherited All machines -> #5 or #6 "orange" Inherited G1 -> G2 -> #5 or #6 "blue" Inherited G2 -> #5 or #6 2.11.5. Backup policy's state and statuses Centralized management presumes that the administrator can monitor the health of the entire product infrastructure using a few easily understandable parameters.
the changes are transferred to the machine and the agent deletes the backup plan from it, the policy state on the machine is Revoking. You may change grouping conditions or the machine may change its properties so that the machine leaves one group and is included into another. This may result in revoking one policy and deploying another policy. In this case, the first policy's state on the machine will be Revoking and the second policy's state will be Deploying.
The backup tasks will start on schedule as specified by the policy and produce a similar result until all data items appear on the machine or the policy is edited to exclude the non-existent data items. Examples Assume, the selection rule states that the policy has to back up volumes D: and F:. The policy is applied to both Linux and Windows machines. Once the first backup is started, the policy gets the Error status on the Linux machines and on the Windows machines that do not have such volumes.
deployment completes on one of the machines while it continues on the other, the state will be "Deploying, Deployed". When the deployment completes on both machines, the state will be "Deployed". 2.11.5.4. Policy status on a group To see this parameter, select Machines in the tree, then select the group, and then select the Backup policies tab on the Information pane. This status is defined as the most severe status of the policy on the machines included in the group and its child groups.
For example, if a managed vault where deduplication is enabled contains two copies of the same file—whether in the same archive or in different archives—the file is stored only once, and a link to that file is stored instead of the second file. Deduplication may also reduce network load: if, during a backup, a file or a disk block is found to be a duplicate of an already stored one, its content is not transferred over the network.
• When backing up in the full backup mode similar data from different sources. Such is the case when you back up operating systems and applications deployed from a single source over the network. If you back up, say, 100 similar systems to a deduplicating vault, the archives in total will occupy less space as compared to backup to a normal vault.
disk space (say, 1 GB); the files that are specific to each machine occupy the other 50% (another 1 GB). In a deduplicating vault, the size of the first machine's backup in this case will be 2 GB, and that of the second machine will be 1 GB. In a non-deduplicating vault, the backups would occupy 4 GB in total. As a result, the deduplication ratio is 4:3, or about 1.33:1. Similarly, in case of three machines, the ratio becomes 1.5:1; for four machines, it is 1.6:1.
By default, the compacting task runs every Sunday night at 03:00. You can re-schedule the task as described in Operations with storage nodes (p. 297), under "Change the compacting task schedule". You can also manually start or stop the task from the Tasks view. 2.11.6.5.
2.11.7. Privileges for centralized management This section describes the users' privileges that are required to manage a machine locally and remotely, to manage a machine registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, and to access and manage Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. 2.11.7.1. Types of connection to a managed machine There are two types of connection to a managed machine: local connection and remote connection.
Note: On a remote machine running Windows Vista with enabled User Account Control (UAC)—and which is not part of a domain—only members of the Administrators group can back up data. To overcome the restriction, include the machine into a domain or disable UAC on the machine (by default, UAC is enabled). For information about Acronis security groups and their default members, see Acronis security groups (p. 70). 2.11.7.4.
On a domain controller If a machine is a domain controller in an Active Directory domain, the names and default contents of Acronis security groups are different: • Instead of Acronis Remote Users and Acronis Centralized Admins, the groups are named DCNAME $ Acronis Remote Users and DCNAME $ Acronis Centralized Admins respectively; here, DCNAME stands for the NetBIOS name of the domain controller. Each dollar sign is surrounded by a single space on either side.
When creating the accounts, follow these guidelines: • For users whom you want to act as storage node administrators, add their accounts to the Administrators group. • For other users, add their user accounts to the Users group. Additional right of machine administrators A user who is a member of the Administrators group on a machine can view and manage any archives created from that machine in a managed vault—regardless of the type of that user's account on the storage node.
Component name Service name Necessary user rights Default user account Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent Acronis Managed Machine Service Log on as a service Acronis Agent User Back up files and directories Log on locally Restore files and directories Shut down the system Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server Acronis Management Server Log on as a service AMS User Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node Acronis Storage Server Log on as a service ASN User These users are also grant
• Encrypted communication provides secure transfer of information between any two components—for example, between Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node—by encrypting the data being transferred. For instructions on how to set up secure authentication and data encryption settings, see Configuring communication options (p. 74). For instructions on how to manage SSL certificates used for secure authentication, see SSL certificates (p. 79).
When applied to a single machine, the Administrative Template defines the communication settings for all the components on the machine; when applied to a domain or an organizational unit, it defines the communication settings for all the components on the machines in that domain or organizational unit. To configure communication settings 1. Click Start, then click Run, and then type gpedit.msc 2.
Not configured The component will use the default settings, which is to use encryption if possible and to trust self-signed SSL certificates (see the following option). Enabled Encryption is enabled. In Encryption, select one of the following: Enabled Data transfer will be encrypted if encryption is enabled on the server application, otherwise it will be unencrypted. Disabled Encryption is disabled; any connection to a server application which requires encryption will not be established.
following option). Enabled Encryption is enabled. In Encryption, select one of the following: Enabled Data transfer will be encrypted if encryption is enabled on the client application, otherwise it will be unencrypted. Disabled Encryption is disabled; any connection to a client application which requires encryption will not be established. Required Data transfer will be performed only if encryption is enabled on the client application (see "Client Encryption options"); it will be encrypted.
Configuring the port in the operating system Windows To be able to change the ports' numbers, load and configure the Administrative Template, provided by Acronis, as described in Configuring communication settings (p. 74), under "Remote Agent ports". Linux Specify the port in the /etc/Acronis/Policies/Agent.config file. Restart the Acronis_agent daemon.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374177.aspx 2.11.8.6. SSL certificates Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates for secure authentication. SSL certificates for the components can be one of the two types: • Self-signed certificates, such as certificates automatically generated during the installation of an Acronis component.
To open the list of a machine's certificates 1. Click Start, then click Run, and then type: mmc 2. In the console, on the File menu, click Add/Remove Snap-in. 3. In the Add/Remove Snap-in dialog box, click Add. 4. In the Add Standalone Snap-in dialog box, double-click Certificates. 5. Click Computer account, and then click Next. 6. Click Local computer, and then click Finish. Tip: Alternatively, you can manage the list of certificates of a remote machine.
(Note quotation marks; substitute the sample thumbprint shown here with that of your certificate.) Copyright © Acronis, Inc.
3. Options This section covers Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 options that can be configured using Graphical User Interface. The content of this section is applicable to both stand-alone and advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 3.1. Console options The console options define the way information is represented in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. To access the console options, select Options > Console options from the top menu. 3.1.1.
The option defines whether to display the pop-up messages about task run results: successful completion, failure or success with warnings. When displaying of pop-up messages is disabled, you can review the task execution states and results in the Tasks view. The preset is: Enabled for all results. To make a setting for each result (successful completion, failure or success with warnings) individually, select or clear the respective check box. 3.1.3.
3.1.5. Fonts This option is effective when the console is connected to a managed machine or to the management server. The option defines the fonts to be used in the Graphical User Interface of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. The Menu setting affects the drop-down and context menus. The Application setting affects the other GUI elements. The preset is: System Default font for both the menus and the application interface items.
3.2.2.1. Windows event log This option defines whether the management server has to record its own log events in the Application Event Log of Windows (to see this log, run eventvwr.exe or select Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer). You can filter the events to be recorded. The preset is: Disabled. To enable this option, select the Log events check box.
3.3. Machine options The machine options define the general behavior of all Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 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. 3.3.1. Machine management This option defines whether the machine has to be managed centrally by the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server.
3.3.2.1. 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 defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to log events in the Application Event Log of Windows (to see this log, run eventvwr.exe or select Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer). You can filter the events to be logged.
1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 - string containing the text description of the event (it looks identical to messages published by Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 in its log). The preset is: Disabled. To set up sending SNMP messages 1. Select the Send messages to SNMP server check box. 2. Specify the appropriate options as follows: o Types of events to send – choose the types of events: All events, Errors and warnings, or Errors only.
3.4. Default backup and recovery options 3.4.1. Default backup options Each Acronis agent has its own default backup options. Once an agent is installed, the default options have pre-defined values, which are referred to as presets in the documentation. When creating a backup plan, you can either use a default option, or override the default option with the custom value that will be specific for this plan only.
Backup performance: Backup priority (p. 99) + + - - HDD writing speed (p. 99) Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Dest: HDD Network connection speed (p. 100) Dest: network share Dest: network share Dest: network share Dest: network share Fast incremental/differential backup (p. 103) + - + - Backup splitting (p. 103) + + + + Preserve files’ security settings in archives - + - - In archives, store encrypted files in decrypted state - + - - Media components (p.
Reset archive bit - + - + Reboot after the backup - - + + Create full backups as synthetic backups + + + + E-mail (p. 100) + + - - Win Pop-up (p. 101) + + - - Windows events log (p. 102) + + - - SNMP (p. 102) + + - - Notifications: Event tracing: 3.4.1.1. Archive protection This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media. This option is effective for both disk-level and file-level backup. The preset is: Disabled.
3.4.1.2. Source files exclusion This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media. This option is effective for disk-level backup of NTFS and FAT file systems only. This option is effective for file-level backup of all supported file systems. The option defines which files and folders to skip during the backup process and thus exclude from the list of backed-up items. The preset is: Exclude files matching the following criteria: *.tmp, *.~, *.bak.
.tmp files. In this case, all .tmp files in the folder MyFolder will be skipped during the backup process, but the file MyFile.tmp will not be skipped. 3.4.1.3. Pre/Post commands This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and PE-based bootable media. The option enables you to define the commands to be automatically executed before and after the backup procedure. The following scheme illustrates when pre/post commands are executed.
Check box Selection Fail the task if the command execution fails Selected Cleared Selected Cleared Do not back up until the command execution is complete Selected Selected Cleared Cleared Result Preset Perform the backup only after the command is successfully executed. Fail the task if the command execution fails. Perform the backup after the command is executed despite execution failure or success.
<-----------------------------Pre-backup command Pre-data capture command Backup Data capture ----------------------------> Post-data capture command Post-backup command If the Volume Shadow Copy Service (p. 97) option is enabled, the commands' execution and the Microsoft VSS actions will be sequenced as follows: "Before data capture” commands -> VSS Suspend -> Data capture -> VSS Resume -> "After data capture" commands.
execution is complete Result Preset Perform the data capture only after the command is successfully executed. Fail the task if the command execution fails. Perform the data capture after the command is executed despite execution failure or success. N/A Perform the data capture concurrently with the command and irrespective of the command execution result. Post-data capture command To specify a command/batch file to be executed after data capture 1.
3.4.1.5. 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.
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provides an infrastructure for backing up data on running systems by ensuring coordination between applications updating the data on the disks and backup applications. Examples of VSS-aware database servers are Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server. Enable the Volume Shadow Copy Service option if any of your databases or applications are compatible with VSS. The VSS will notify the VSS-aware applications that the backup is about to start.
• Maximum – the data will be compressed as much as possible. The backup duration will be maximal. You may want to select maximum compression when backing up to removable media to reduce the number of blank disks required. 3.4.1.9. Backup performance Use this group of options to specify the amount of network and system resources to allocate to the backup process. Backup performance options might have a more or less noticeable effect on the speed of the backup process.
• Click Writing speed stated as a percentage of the maximum speed of the destination hard disk, and then drag the slider or select a percentage in the box • Click Writing speed stated in kilobytes per second, and then enter the writing speed in kilobytes per second. Network connection speed This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media.
When backup completes successfully – to send a notification when the backup task has completed successfully o When backup fails – to send a notification when the backup task has failed The When user interaction is required check box is always selected. o 4. For the e-mail message to include the log entries related to the backup, select the Add full log to the notification check box. 5.
2. In the Machine name field, enter the name of the machine to which notifications will be sent. Multiple names are not supported.
The option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to send the log events of the backup operations to the specified Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 provides the following Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) objects to SNMP management applications: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0 - string identifying the type of event (Information, Warning, Error) 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.
The option defines how a backup can be split. The preset is: Automatic. The following settings are available. Automatic With this setting, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will act as follows. • When backing up to a hard disk: A single backup file will be created if the destination disk's file system allows the estimated file size. The backup will automatically be split into several files if the destination disk's file system does not allow the estimated file size.
Preserve file security settings in archives This option defines whether to back up NTFS permissions for files along with the files. The preset is: Enabled. When the option is enabled, files and folders are saved in the archive with the original permissions to read, write or execute the files for each user or user group. If you recover a secured file/folder on a machine without the user account specified in the permissions, you may not be able to read or modify this file.
changing disk label. Adding this component to the media will enable you to prepare the disk configuration on a machine before recovering the data. 3.4.1.16. Error handling These options are effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media. These options enable you to specify how to handle errors that might occur during backup. Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) The preset is: Disabled.
When dual destination is enabled, the agent will automatically copy each backup being created locally to the secondary destination such as a network share. Once the backup to the primary destination is completed, the agent compares the updated archive contents to the secondary archive contents, and copies to the secondary destination all backups that are missing there along with the new backup.
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. 3.4.1.19. Task failure handling This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
In addition, the program can try to execute the failed task again. 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.
If the console is connected to the management server The Use a separate tape set option has more precise definitions. So for the backup policy to be created you can use a separate tape set for all machines or for each single machine. The A single tape set for all machines option is selected by default. Generally this option ensures more efficient usage of tapes, than the A separate tape set for each single machine option.
When starting backup to a non-empty tape in a locally attached tape device, the program will warn that you are about to lose data on the tape. To disable this warning, select this check box. Dismount media after backup has finished This option is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is effective when backing up to a removable media (CD, DVD, tape or floppy disk.) The preset is: Disabled.
When the option is enabled, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will restart the machine after the backup process is completed. For example, if the machine boots from a hard disk drive by default and you select this check box, the machine will be restarted and the operating system will start as soon as the bootable agent has finished creating the backup.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PEbased) Disk recovery File recovery Disk recovery (also from a disk backup) File recovery (also from a disk backup) Pre/Post recovery commands (p. 114) + + PE only PE only Recovery priority (p.
3.4.2.1. Pre/Post commands This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and PE-based bootable media. The option enables you to define the commands to be automatically executed before and after the data recovery. Example of how you can use the pre/post commands: • launch the Checkdisk command in order to find and fix logical file system errors, physical errors or bad sectors to be started before the recovery starts or after the recovery ends.
Result Preset Perform the recovery only after the command is successfully executed. Fail the task if the command execution failed. Perform the recovery after the command is executed despite execution failure or success. N/A Perform the recovery concurrently with the command execution and irrespective of the command execution result. Post-recovery command To specify a command/executable file to be executed after the recovery is completed 1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file.
• Low – to minimize resources taken by the recovery process, leaving more resources to other processes running on the machine • Normal – to run the recovery process with normal speed, allocating resources on a par with other processes • High – to maximize the recovery process speed by taking resources from the other processes. 3.4.2.3. File-level security This option is effective only for recovery from file-level backup of Windows files.
o o o o From - type the e-mail address of the user from whom the message will be sent. If you leave this field empty, messages will be constructed as if they are from the destination address. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS encryption types are available for selection. Some Internet service providers require authentication on the incoming mail server before being allowed to send something.
4. Click Send Test WinPopup Message to check if the settings are correct. 3.4.2.5. Event tracing It is possible to duplicate log events of the recovery operations, performed on the managed machine, in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers. Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
To select whether to send the recovery operations events to the SNMP managers: Choose one of the following: • Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For more information refer to Machine options (p. 86). • Send SNMP notifications individually for recovery operation events – to send the events of the recovery operations to the specified SNMP managers.
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 backup 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.
3.4.2.8. VM power management These options are effective for virtual machines residing on the virtualization servers. These options are available only if any Acronis agent for virtual machines is installed on the virtualization server. Power off target virtual machines when starting recovery The preset is: On. Recovery to an existing virtual machine is not possible if the machine is online, and so the machine is powered off automatically as soon as the recovery task starts.
4. 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, detachable media or a tape device attached to the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node. There are no settings for limiting a vault size or number of backups in a vault.
A vault is called personal if it was created using direct connection of the console to a managed machine. Personal vaults are specific for each managed machine. Way of working with the "Vaults" view Vaults (on the navigation pane) - top element of the vaults tree. Click this item to display groups of centralized and personal vaults. Centralized. This group is available when the console is connected to a managed machine or to a management server.
Accessing managed vaults To be able to back up to a managed vault, a user must have an account on the machine where the storage node is installed. The scope of a user's privileges in a vault depends on the user's rights on the storage node. A user who is a member of the Users group can view and manage his/her own archives. Members of the Administrators group can view and manage any archive stored on the storage node.
• • [for managed vaults only] deduplication (p. 64) state (On, Off) [for managed vaults only] encryption state (Yes, No) Vault content The Vault content section contains the archives table and toolbar. The archives table displays archives and backups that are stored in the vault. Use the archives toolbar to perform actions on the selected archives and backups. The list of backups is expanded by clicking the "plus" sign to the left of the archive's name.
2 Click Edit. Depending on the vault you select (managed or unmanaged), the respective Edit page will be opened: Validate a vault • The Edit managed vault page lets you change the encryption password (if the vault is encrypted) and Comments field. • The Edit unmanaged vault page lets you edit the Comments field only. 1 Select the vault. 2 Click Validate. You will be taken to the Validation (p. 230) page with an already pre-selected vault as a source.
4.1.2.1. Creating a managed centralized vault To create a managed centralized vault, perform the following steps Vault Name Specify a unique name for the vault. Creation of two centralized vaults with the same name is prohibited. Comments [Optional] Enter the distinctive description of the vault being created. Type Select the Managed type. Storage node Select the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node that will manage the vault. You may need to enter access credentials for the storage node. Path (p.
o o o o o on the hard drives local to the storage node on a network share on a Storage Area Network (SAN) on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) on a tape library locally attached to the storage node. To create a new folder for the vault in the selected location, click Create folder. 2. Click OK. A vault can be created in an empty folder only. We do not recommend creating a deduplicating managed vault on a FAT32 volume.
The encryption key is then encrypted with AES-256 using a SHA-256 hash of the password as a key. The password itself is not stored anywhere on the disk; the password hash is used for verification purposes. With this two-level security, the archives are protected from any unauthorized access, but recovering a lost password is not possible. 4.1.2.2. Creating an unmanaged centralized vault To create an unmanaged centralized vault, perform the following steps. Vault Name Specify a unique name for the vault.
archives in the vault, creates and fills up the database corresponding to the vault, and starts managing the vault. When deleting a managed vault, you have the option to retain archives contained in the vault. The location resulting from such deletion can also be attached to the same or another storage node. Personal or centralized unmanaged vaults cannot be attached. To attach a managed vault to a storage node, perform the following steps.
accessing the media. It is possible to view the content of a backup archive located on a tape through the console, even if a tape library is turned off, due to content information stored in the database. To create an incremental or differential backup of data, the program uses the database instead of loading, mounting, rewinding and reading a tape with the full data backup. However, a tape should be read, for example, to validate (p. 351) a backup or to recover data from a backup.
4.1.3.3. Limitations Limitations of tape library usage are the following: 1. The consolidation (p. 343) operation is not possible for archives located on tapes. Deletion of a single separate backup is impossible from a tape. It is possible to delete all the backups stored on a tape. However, after this operation all the incremental and differential backups, stored on other tapes and based on the deleted backups, cannot be used for data recovery.
Recovery 10. The storage node will locate all tapes written in “Acronis” format into the Acronis pool at the Inventory (p. 136) operation. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components don’t use the Unrecognized pool. To utilize a tape from this pool forcibly, move the tape to the Free pool using the Removable storage snap-in (Control panel > Administrative tools > Computer management > Removable storage > Media pools).
Tape library as a managed vault To enable data protection operations using a tape library you have to create a managed vault on the tape library. You can create a vault from the Centralized vaults view of the console. See the Creating a managed centralized vault (p. 127) section for more information. But the simplest way is to create a vault from the Storage Nodes view. In addition to that select the storage node, the tape library is attached to, and then click Create vault.
Actions with archives on tapes in a library The following are common functions for archive data management for a backup archive selected in the Centralized vaults view of the console, when the current vault is a tape library: Validate, Delete, Delete all archives. Deletion in the storage node database is performed without access to tapes. A backup archive deleted from a tape library vault can be restored after the deletion by the Rescan (p.
Keep in mind that a data recovery operation may require access to a number of tapes.
Perform the procedure every time you load new tapes into tape library slots. Rescan As stated above the storage node keeps information about tapes and their contents in a dedicated database. The Rescan task reads information about the content of user-selected tapes and updates the database. The task can take a long-time so it is only initiated manually. You should select each slot with a tape you want to rescan before the task launch.
4.1.3.7. Tape options These options are effective when the backup destination is a managed vault located on a tape library. Tape options enable you to specify how the backup tasks will distribute backups among the tapes. Some combinations of tape options might degrade usage efficiency of both the whole tape library and each tape. If you are not forced to modify these options by some specific needs, leave them unchanged. An archive can occupy several tapes.
• For each full backup The preset is: Disabled. When this option is enabled, each full backup will be written onto a free tape. The tape will be loaded to a drive especially for this operation. If the Use a separate tape set option is enabled, only incremental and differential backups of the same data will be appended to the tape. • For each differential backup The preset is: Disabled. When this option is enabled, each differential backup will be written onto a free tape.
If your backup archive must provide recovery with daily resolution for the last several days, weekly resolution for the last several weeks and monthly resolution for any time in the past, the most preferred scheme for you is the Grandfather-Father-Son scheme. If the main goal is to provide data protection for the longest period with the minimal number of used tapes permanently loaded into a small tape library (e.g. autoloader), the best solution is to probably choose the Tower of Hanoi scheme.
Legend for the case example figures Any daily/incremental backup (16 GB) is shown in the figures as a green rectangle: . . Weekly/differential backups (40 GB) are displayed as a blue rectangle: Any full monthly backup (320 GB) is drawn in orange: . A whole tape (400 GB) is drawn as a gray rectangle: . Using the Grandfather-Father-Son tape rotation scheme Tape rotation for the GFS backup scheme is substantially defined by the tape options specified for the backup policy/plan to be created.
• • • the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is cleared the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is cleared the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is cleared. Imagine the first backup operation is scheduled on Friday 1st of January. On that day at 11:00 PM the first full backup (320 Gb on the tape whose size is 400 Gb) is created.
Keep in mind, that the Cleanup task is launched after each backup operation for the GFS scheme. This task deletes all the outdated backups. The next figure shows dark-gray rectangles instead of the backups deleted up to the current time. Physically the deleted backups are still on the tapes; however information about the backups is deleted from the storage node database.
The next figure shows the actual usage of the tapes with free space instead of the deleted backups on the first Friday of the following year. At the time the differential backup (blue rectangle) is written onto tape 24. The full backup stored on tape 01 is deleted after the next full backup is created onto both tapes 23 and 24 on Friday of the 52nd week. As all backups of tape 01 have been deleted, the tape is considered as free and can be reused.
GFS Example 2 Suppose, the backup plan has the following tape options: • the Use a separate tape set option is selected • the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is selected • the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is cleared • the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is cleared. The example has only one difference from the previous one. That is selection of the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option.
As the GFS backup scheme forces automatic deletion of the outdated backups, on the first Friday of the second year the tapes keep only the backups displayed in the next figure. This figure demonstrates that the GFS Example 2 tape rotation scheme is more suitable for the case than GFS Example 1.
These options define the tape rotation scheme that is classical for GFS. The figure shows the beginning of the rotation scheme that uses 8 tapes for daily backups, 6 tapes for weekly backups and 13 tapes for monthly backups (since there are 13 four-week cycles in a year) for the analyzed case. And one tape is required for the next backup. In total this rotation scheme, combined with the options requires 28 tapes.
16 weekly sessions so it ensures the roll-back period equal 112 days. Tape rotation for the second case includes 128 daily sessions, i.e. it allows the roll-back period equal 128 days. Each additional level doubles not only the number of sessions but also the oldest backup age. Let’s return to the analyzed case described in the Case to analyze section, and suppose the ToH settings are the following: • • Schedule: Start the task every 1 day at 11:00 PM. Repeat once.
The figure below shows the tapes’ usage for the ToH scheme combined with the above mentioned tape options. The recurring part of the scheme contains sixteen backup sessions. The figure displays the backup archive state at the moment when the 17th session is finished. As the Tower of Hanoi backup scheme forces presence of only one backup on each level, all the outdated backups are deleted automatically. In the next figure the deleted backups are drawn as dark-gray rectangles.
• • the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is cleared the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is cleared. The only difference between ToH Example 2 and ToH Example 1 is that the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is selected. The first figure shows the tapes’ usage for the ToH scheme combined with the above mentioned tape options. The recurring part of the scheme contains sixteen backup sessions.
• • • the Always use a free tape: For each full backup option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each incremental backup option is selected the Always use a free tape: For each differential backup option is selected. The figure shows tape rotation for the ToH scheme with these options. Maximal number of tapes used in the rotation is seven that is more than in classical five-level ToH scheme. Two additional tapes used for: 1.
• • • average size of incremental backups • • • tape rotation scheme ( frequency of backups, retention rules) average size of differential backups compression level specified for backing up the data tape-append options requirements to support off-site tape cartridge archives. There is no common formula to calculate a number of tapes required in all possible combinations of above listed considerations. But the general way to get a number of tapes for a case includes the following steps: 1.
Tape planning: Example 2 Imagine the case with the following features: • • full backup size is F_GB • • • average size of differential backups is D_GB average size of incremental backups is I_GB compression level provides CL average reduction coefficient selected tape rotation scheme is Custom with the following settings: o full backup - every 10 days o differential backup - every 2 days o incremental backup - every 1 day, every 6 hours o retention rules: delete backups older than 5 days • tape optio
you need to do is to perform the inventory (p. 136) procedure for the managed vault on the library where the tapes were placed to. 2. If you move tapes to a tape library managed by another storage node, you should rescan (p. 137) each relocated tape to provide the storage node with information about backups contained on the tape.
Metadata The .meta folder is created during backup in every personal vault. This folder contains additional information about archives and backups stored in the vault, such as archive owners or the machine name. If you accidentally delete the .meta folder, it will be automatically recreated next time you access the vault. But some information like owner names and machine names may be lost. 4.2.1.
Bars of the "Actions and tools" pane • [Vault Name] The Actions bar is available when clicking the vault in the vaults tree. Duplicates actions of the vault's toolbar. • [Archive Name] The Actions bar is available when you select an archive in the archives table. Duplicates actions of the archives toolbar. • [Backup Name] The Actions bar is available when you expand the archive and click on any of its backups. Duplicates actions of the archives toolbar. 4.2.2.
4.2.2.1. Creating a personal vault To create a personal vault 1. In the Name field, type a name for the vault being created. 2. [Optional] In the Comments field, add a description of the vault. 3. In the Path field, click Change... In the opened Personal Vault Path window, specify a path to the folder that will be used as the vault. 4. Click OK. As a result, the created vault appears in the Personal group of the vaults tree. 4.2.2.2.
All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. These operations can be also accessed from the [Archive name] actions bar (on the Actions and tools pane) and from the [Archive name] actions item of the main menu respectively. The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with archives stored in a vault. To Do Validate an archive Click Validate. The Validation (p. 230) page will be opened with the pre-selected archive as a source.
Validate a backup Click Validate. The Validation (p. 230) page will be opened with the pre-selected backup as a source. Validation of a file backup imitates recovering of all files from the backup to a dummy destination. Validation of a disk backup calculates a checksum for every data block saved in the backup.
To Do Sort backup archives by any column Click the column's header to sort the archives in ascending order. Filter archives by name, owner, or machine. In the field below the corresponding column's header, type the archive name (the owner name, or the machine name). Click it once again to sort the archives in descending order. As a result, you will see the list of the archives, whose names (owner names, or machine names) fully or just partly coincide with the entered value.
5. Scheduling Acronis scheduler helps the administrator adapt backup plans to the company’s daily routine and each employee’s work style. The plans’ tasks will be launched systematically keeping the critical data safely protected. The scheduler uses local time of the machine the backup plan exists on. Before creating a schedule, be sure the machine’s date and time settings are correct. Schedule To define when a task has to be executed, you need to specify an event or multiple events.
The specified period of time has passed since the last successful backup completed 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. 107) backup option. What-ifs • What if an event occurs (and a condition, if any, is met) while the previous task run has not completed? The event will be ignored.
Examples "Simple" daily schedule Run the task every day at 6PM. The schedule's parameters are thus set up as follows. 1. Every: 1 day(s). 2. Once at: 06:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. The task will be started on the current day, if it has been created before 6PM. If you have created the task after 6 PM, the task will be started for the first time on the next day at 6 PM. To: not set. The task will be performed for an indefinite number of days.
The obvious way is to add five simple schedules. If you spend one minute for examination, you can think out a more optimal way. As you can see, the time interval between the first and the second task's recurrences is 4 hours, and between the third, fourth and fifth is 2 hours. In this case, the optimal way is to add two schedules to the task. First daily schedule 1. Every: 3 day(s). 2. Every: 4 hours. From: 08:00:00 AM Until: 12:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 09/20/2009. To: not set. Second daily schedule 1.
To: <...> Set up a date when this schedule will be disabled. If this check box is cleared, the task will be run for an indefinite number of weeks. Advanced scheduling settings (p. 169) are available only for machines registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server. To specify these settings, click Change in the Advanced settings area. All the settings you made are displayed in the Result field at the bottom of the window.
week. For more details, see the Full and incremental backups plus cleanup example in the Custom backup scheme (p. 208) section. Several weekly schedules for one task In the case when the task needs to be run on different days of the weeks with different time intervals, consider adding a dedicated schedule to every desired day of the week, or to several days.
5.3. 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.
This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme. The "Last day of every month" schedule is added to the full backups, while the differential backups are scheduled to be performed once a week and incremental on workdays. For more details, see the Monthly full, weekly differential, and daily incremental backups plus cleanup example in the Custom backup scheme (p. 208) section. "Season" schedule Run the task on all workdays during the northern autumn seasons of 2009 and 2010.
2. On: . 3. Every: 12 hours From: 12:00:00 AM Until: 12:00:00 PM. 4. Effective: From: 11/01/2009. To: not set. Third schedule 1. Months: June, July, August. 2. Days: 1, 15. 3. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. 4. Effective: From: 11/01/2009. To: not set. 5.4. Advanced scheduling settings The following advanced settings are available when you select a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule for machines registered on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server.
Delay values range from zero to the specified maximum delay value, and are determined according to the chosen distribution method. The delay value for each machine is determined when the policy is deployed to the machine, and remains the same until you edit the policy and change the maximum delay value. The conditions, if any, will be checked at the task's actual start time on each machine. The following examples illustrate this setting.
5. To enable the use of the Wake-on-LAN functionality, select the Use Wake-on-LAN check box. 6. To distribute the centralized backup tasks' start times, select the Distribute start time within the time window check box and then specify the maximum delay value and the distribution method. 5.5. At Windows Event Log event This type of schedule is effective only in Windows operating systems.
• • Event type: Error Event ID: 7 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.
5.6. Conditions Conditions add more flexibility to the scheduler, enabling to execute backup tasks with respect to certain conditions. Once a specified event occurs (see the Scheduling section for the list of available events), the scheduler checks the specified condition and executes the task if the condition is met. 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. 107) backup option.
• Task start conditions: Wait until the conditions are met, Run the task anyway after 2 hour(s). As a result, (1) If the user becomes idle before 9PM, the backup task will start at 9PM. (2) If the user becomes idle between 9PM and 11PM, the backup task will start immediately after the user becomes idle. (3) If the user is still active at 11PM, the backup task starts anyway. 5.6.2.
specified time interval, or logs off at any other time – do not back up the users' data, i.e. skip task execution. • Event: When logging off, The following user: Any user. • • Condition: Fits the time interval, from 04:30:00 PM until 10:00:00 PM. Task start conditions: Skip the task execution. As a result, (1) if the user logs off between 04:30:00 PM and 10:00:00 PM, the backup task will start immediately following the logging off. (2) if the user logs off at any other time, the task will be skipped.
(1) If all users are logged off at 8PM, the backup task will start at 8PM. (2) If the last user logs off between 8PM and 11PM, the backup task will start immediately after the user has logged off. (3) If any of the users is still logged on at 11PM, the backup task starts anyway. 5.6.5. Time since last backup Applies to: Windows, Linux Enables to put a backup task run on hold until the specified time interval since the last successful backup completion passes.
6. Direct management This section covers operations that can be performed directly on a managed machine by using the direct console-agent connection. The content of this section is applicable to both stand-alone and advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 6.1. 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. 6.1.1.
Check connectivity to the server and run Acronis License Server to manage licenses. license server. Trial period is over Insert a full license key 15 day trial period has expired. Enter a full license key. Low free space on X vaults Show list Show list will take you to the Vaults view where you can examine the vault size, free space, content and take the necessary steps to increase the free space.
Warnings Highlight the date in yellow if no "Error" entries appeared and at least one "Warning" entry appeared in the log on this date. Information Highlight the date in green if only "Information" log entries appeared on this date (normal activity.) The Select current date link focuses selection to the current date. System view Shows summarized statistics of backup plans, tasks, and brief information on the last backup. Click the items in this section to obtain the relevant information.
• Use the toolbar's buttons to take an action on the selected plan (task). See the Actions on backup plans and tasks (p. 183) section for details. You can run, edit, stop and delete the created plans and tasks. • Use the Information panel to review detailed information on the selected plan (task). The panel is chevron. The content of the panel is also collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the duplicated in the Plan details (p. 189) and Task details (p. 187) windows respectively. 6.1.2.1.
A backup plan status is derived from the results of the last run of the plans' tasks. 1 State How it is determined How to handle Error At least one task has failed.
Any running task can put itself into the Need interaction state when it needs human interaction such as changing media or ignoring a read error. The next state may be Stopping (if the user chooses to stop the task) or Running (on selecting Ignore/Retry or another action, such as Reboot, that can put the task to the Running state.) Stopping The user can stop a running task or a task that needs interaction. The task changes to the Stopping state and then to the Idle state. A waiting task can also be stopped.
• Edit the backup policy on the management server in case a centralized plan has failed 2 Warning Last result is "Succeeded with warning" View the log to read the warnings -> [optionally] Perform actions to prevent the future warnings or failure. 3 OK Last result is "Succeeded", "-", or "Stopped" No action is required. 6.1.2.2. The "-" state means that the task has never been started or has been started, but has not finished yet and so its result is not available.
Run a plan/task Backup plan Click Run. In the Run Backup Plan (p. 187) window, select the task you need to be run. Running the backup plan starts the selected task of that plan immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions. Why can't I run the backup plan? • Do not have the appropriate privilege Without the Administrator privileges on the machine, a user cannot run plans owned by other users. Task Click Run. The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions.
Edit a plan/task Backup plan Click Edit. Backup plan editing is performed in the same way as creation (p. 193), 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.
Delete a plan/task Backup plan Click Delete. What will happen if I delete the backup plan? The plan's deletion deletes all its tasks. Why can't I delete the backup plan? • The backup plan is in the "Running" state A backup plan cannot be deleted, if at least one of its tasks is running. • Do not have the appropriate privilege Without the Administrator's privileges on the machine, a user cannot delete plans owned by other users. • The backup plan has a centralized origin.
Filter plans/tasks by name or owner. Type a plan's/task's name or an owner's name in the field below the corresponding header name. As a result you will see the list of tasks, whose names/owners' names fully or just partly coincide with the entered value. Filter plans and tasks by state, status, type, origin, last result, schedule. In the field below the corresponding header, select the required value from the list.
Types of tasks Task name Description Backup (disk) Backing up disks and volumes Backup (file) Backing up files and folders Backup (virtual machine) Backing up an entire virtual machine or its volumes Recovery (disk) Disk backup recovery Recovery (file) File and folder recovery Recovery (volume) Recovery of volumes from a disk backup Recovery (MBR) Master boot record recovery Recovery (disk to existing VM) Recovery of a disk/volume backup to an existing virtual machine Recovery (disk to new
Provides details on the selected backup: when it was created, its type (full, incremental, differential), information on the archive and the vault the backup is stored in. Settings The Settings tab displays information on scheduling and the options changed against the default values. Progress The Progress tab is available while the task is running. It is common for all types of tasks. The tab provides information about task progress, elapsed time and other parameters.
Destination The Destination tab provides the following information: • • • Location - name of the vault or path to the folder, where the archive is stored. Archive name - name of the archive. Archive comments - comments on the archive (if provided). Settings The Settings tab displays the following information: • Backup scheme - the selected backup scheme and all its settings with schedules. • Validation (if selected) - events before or after which the validation is performed, and validation schedule.
6.1.3.1. Actions on log entries All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding items on the log toolbar. All these operations can also be performed with the context menu (by right-clicking the log entry), or with the Log actions bar (on the Actions and tools pane). The following is a guideline for you to perform actions on log entries. To Do Select a single log entry Click on it.
Filter log entries by type Press or release the following toolbar buttons: to filter error messages to filter warning messages to filter information messages Filter log entries by the original backup plan or managed entity type Under the Backup plan (or Managed entity type) column header, select the backup plan or the type of managed entity from the list. Filter log entries by task, managed entity, machine, code, owner Type the required value (task name, machine name, owner name, etc.
The log entry's details that you copy will have the appearance as follows: ---------------------------Log Entry Details--------------------------Type: Information Date and time: DD.MM.YYYY HH:MM:SS Backup plan: Backup plan name Task: Task name Message: Description of the operation Code: 12(3x45678A) Module: Module name Owner: Owner of the plan ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date and time presentation varies depending on your locale settings. 6.2.
Exclusions (p. 197) [Optional] Set up exclusions for the specific types of files you do not wish to back up. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Where to back up Archive (p. 198) Specify path to the location, where the backup archive will be stored, and the archive name. It is advisable that the archive name be unique within the location. The default archive name is Archive(N) where N is the sequence number of the archive in the location you have selected. Access credentials (p.
After that, you might be prompted for the password (p. 195). The plan you have created will be accessible for examination and managing in the Backup plans and tasks (p. 179) view. 6.2.1. Why is the program asking for the password? A scheduled or postponed task has to run regardless of users being logged on. In case you have not explicitly specified the credentials, under which the task(s) will run, the program proposes using your account.
Disks/volumes Available if the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Windows (or for Linux) is installed. Select this option to back up disks and/or volumes. To be able to back up disks or volumes, you must have Administrator or Backup operator privileges. Backing up disks and volumes enables you to recover the entire system in case of severe data damage or hardware failure.
A disk backup stores all volumes of the selected disk (including hidden volumes such as the vendor's maintenance partitions) and the zero track with the master boot record. Linux A volume backup stores all files and folders 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. 6.2.4.2. Selecting files and folders To select files and/or folders for backing up 1.
To specify which files and folders to exclude: Set up any of the following parameters: • Exclude all hidden files and folders Select this check box to skip files and folders with the Hidden attribute. If a folder is Hidden, all of its contents — including files that are not Hidden — will be excluded. • Exclude all system files and folders Select this check box to skip files and folders with the System attribute.
• To back up 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.
Why two or more plans should not back up to the same archive 1. Backing up different sources to the same archive makes using the archive difficult from the usability standpoint. When it comes to recovery, every second counts, but you might be lost in the archive content. Backup plans that operate with the same archive should back up the same data items (say, both plans back up volume C.) 2. Applying multiple retention rules to an archive makes the archive content in some way unpredictable.
• • Simple – to schedule when and how often to backup data and specify retention rules. Grandfather-Father-Son – to use the Grandfather-Father-Son backup scheme. The scheme does not allow data to be backed up more than once a day. You set the days of week when the daily backup will be performed and select from these days the day of weekly/monthly backup.
Backup Set up the backup schedule - when and how often to back up the data. To learn more about setting up the schedule, see the Scheduling (p. 161) section. Retention rule 6.2.9.4. With the simple scheme, only one retention rule (p. 38) is available. Set the retention period for the backups.
Start backup at: Specifies when to start a backup. The default value is 12:00 PM. Back up on: Specifies the days on which to perform a backup. The default value is Workdays. Weekly/Monthly: Specifies which of the days selected in the Back up on field you want to reserve for weekly and monthly backups. A monthly backup will be performed every fourth such day. The default value is Friday. Keep backups: Specifies how long you want the backups to be stored in the archive.
• • Weekly/monthly: Saturday (for example) Keep backups: o Daily: 1 week o Weekly: 1 month o Monthly: indefinitely As a result, an archive of daily, weekly, and monthly backups will be created. Daily backups will be available for seven days since creation. For instance, a daily backup of Sunday, January 1, will be available through next Sunday, January 8; the first weekly backup, the one of Saturday, January 7, will be stored on the system until February 7. Monthly backups will never be deleted.
Moreover, assume that you want to retain access to all backups, including the daily ones, for at least six months. The following GFS scheme suits such purposes: • • Start backup at: 11:30 PM • • Weekly/monthly: Friday Back up on: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday Keep backups: o Daily: 6 months o Weekly: 6 months o Monthly: 5 years Here, daily incremental backups will be created on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with weekly and monthly backups performed on Fridays.
Parameters You can set up the following parameters of a Tower of Hanoi scheme. Schedule Set up a daily (p. 162), weekly (p. 164), or monthly (p. 167) schedule. Setting up schedule parameters allows creating simple schedules (example of a simple daily schedule: a backup task will be run every 1 day at 10 AM) as well as more complex schedules (example of a complex daily schedule: a task will be run every 3 days, starting from January 15.
Roll-back period The number of days we can go back in the archive is different on different days. The minimum number of days we are guaranteed to have is called the roll-back period. The following table shows full backup and roll-back periods for schemes of various levels.
6.2.9.6. Custom backup scheme At a glance • Custom schedule and conditions for backups of each type • Custom schedule and retention rules Parameters Parameter Meaning Full backup Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform a full backup. For example, the full backup can be set up to run every Sunday at 1:00 AM as soon as all users are logged off. Incremental Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform an incremental backup.
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.
Cleanup schedule: Monthly, on the Last day of All months, at 10:00 PM 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. 38).
6.3. Recovering data 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 managed machine's operating system fails to start or you need to recover data to bare metal, boot the machine from the bootable media (p. 341) or using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 47). Then, create a recovery task. Acronis Universal Restore (p.
Select the archive to recover data from. Data type (p. 214) Applies to: disk recovery Choose the type of data you need to recover from the selected disk backup. Content (p. 214) Select the backup and content to be recovered. Access credentials (p. 216) [Optional] Provide credentials for the archive location if the task account does not have the right to access it. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box.
Recovery options Settings [Optional] Customize the recovery operation by configuring the recovery options, such as pre/post recovery commands, recovery priority, error handling or notification options. If you do nothing in this section, the default values (p. 112) will be used. After any of the settings is changed against the default value, a new line that displays the newly set value appears. The setting status changes from Default to Custom.
o If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the Local folders group and click the required folder. If the archive is located on removable media, e.g. DVDs, first insert the last DVD and then insert discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts. o If the archive is stored on a network share, expand the Network folders group, then select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder.
6.3.4.1. Disks/volumes selection To select a backup and disks/volumes to recover: 1. Select one of the successive incremental backups by its creation date and time. Thus, you can revert the disk data to a certain moment in time. Specify the items to recover. By default, all items of the selected backup will be selected. If you do not want to recover certain items, just uncheck them. To obtain information on a disk/volume, right-click it and then click Information. 2.
6.3.5. Access credentials for location Specify the credentials required for access to the location where the backup archive is stored. To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: o Use the task credentials The program will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the General section. o Use the following credentials The program will access the location using the credentials you specify.
The new virtual machine will be configured automatically, the source machine configuration being copied where possible. The configuration is displayed in the Virtual Machine Settings (p. 221) section. Check the settings and make changes if necessary. Then you proceed to the regular disk mapping procedure described below. Existing virtual machine Available when the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for ESX/ESXi is installed.
• Recover from backup The program will replace the NT signature of the target hard disk with one from the disk backup. Recovering the disk signature may be desirable due to the following reasons: o Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 creates scheduled tasks using the signature of the source hard disk. If you recover the same disk signature, you don't need to re-create or edit the tasks created previously.
[Volume] [Letter]: Disk # /Volume (p. 219) Sequentially map each of the source volumes to a volume or an unallocated space on the destination disk. Size (p. 219): [Optional] Change the recovered volume size, location and other properties. Volume destination To specify a destination volume: 1. Select a volume or unallocated space where you want the selected volume to be recovered to. The destination volume/unallocated space should be at least the same size as the uncompressed image data. 2. Click OK.
installed operating system could prevent the machine from booting. You cannot set a logical drive or dynamic volume active. • Logical. Information about logical volumes is located not in the MBR, but in the extended partition table. The number of logical volumes on a disk is unlimited. A logical volume cannot be set as active. If you recover a system volume to another hard disk with its own volumes and operating system, you will most likely need only the data.
6.3.6.4. Virtual machine settings The following virtual machine settings can be configured. Storage Initial setting: the default storage of the virtualization server if the new machine is created on the virtualization server. Otherwise the current user's documents folder. This is the place where the new virtual machine will be created. Whether you can change the storage on the virtualization server or not, depends on the virtualization product brand and settings. VMware ESX may have multiple storages.
o 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. 2. Click OK. Exclusions Set up exclusions for the specific types of files you do not wish to be overwritten during recovery.
Overwriting Choose what to do if the program finds in the target folder a file with the same name as in the archive: • • • Overwrite existing file - this will give the file in the backup priority over the file on the hard disk. Overwrite existing file if it is older - this will give priority to the most recent file modification, whether it be in the backup or on the disk. Do not overwrite existing file - this will give the file on the hard disk priority over the file in the backup.
To learn more about the Universal Restore technology, see the Universal Restore (p. 47) section. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore is not available when: • a machine is booted with Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (using F11) • • the backup image is located in Acronis Secure Zone you have chosen to use Acronis Active Restore (p. 338) because these features are primarily meant for instant data recovery on the same machine.
Mass storage drivers to install anyway To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. If the target hardware has a specific mass storage controller such as RAID (especially NVIDIA RAID) or a fibre channel adapter, specify the appropriate drivers in the Drivers field. The drivers defined here will have priority. They will be installed, with appropriate warnings, even if the program finds a better driver. Use this option only if the automatic drivers search does not help to boot the system.
3. In Data type, select Disks or Volumes depending on what you need to convert. 4. In Content, select the disks to convert or the volumes with the Master Boot Records (MBR) of the corresponding disks. 5. In Recover to, select New virtual machine. 6. In VM server, select the type of the new virtual machine to be created or on which virtualization server to create the machine. 7. In VM name, enter the name for the new virtual machine. 8. [Optionally] Review the Virtual machine settings (p.
Solution for Windows: Recover the volume once again. When configuring recovery, opt for using Acronis Universal Restore and specify the appropriate HAL and mass storage drivers. • Windows was recovered to a dynamic volume that cannot be bootable Solution: Recover Windows to a basic, simple or mirrored volume.
6.3.11.1. How to reactivate GRUB or LILO and change its configuration Generally, you should refer to the boot loader manual pages for the appropriate procedure. In case the system disk (volume) is recovered to identical hardware, the following steps would usually help. GRUB 1. Boot the machine from the Linux rescue CD or Linux installation CD. The installed system and the system on the CD must have the same kernel version. The Linux distribution does not have to be the same.
b. Edit the record root=/dev/hdXY (or root=/dev/sdXY for a SCSI disk) in the section corresponding to the current kernel. In this record, X – disk number (a for the first disk, b for the second disk, etc.) Y – number of the partition on this disk Change X and Y according to the new location of the root. For example: root=/dev/hda1 c. Save the configuration file. 3. Execute the command for activating LILO: # lilo 4. Eject the CD and reboot. 6.3.11.2.
Note: This procedure requires restarting the machine. Use standard precautions when modifying the registry. 1. In Registry Editor, open the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management 2. Add the PoolUsageMaximum entry to the subkey: • Entry type: DWORD Value • • Base: Decimal Value: 40 3. Add the PagedPoolSize entry to the subkey: • • Entry type: DWORD Value • Value: FFFFFFFF Base: Hexadecimal 4.
opened with the pre-selected object as a source. All you need to do is to select when to validate and (optionally) provide a name for the task. To create a validation task, perform the following steps. General Task name [Optional] Enter a unique name for the validation task. A conscious name lets you quickly identify the task among the others. Credentials (p. 231) [Optional] The validation task will run on behalf of the user who is creating the task. You can change the task credentials if necessary.
The task will always run under the credentials you specify, whether started manually or executed on schedule. 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. To learn more about using credentials in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, see the Owners and credentials (p. 30) section.
2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive. The table displays the names of the archives contained in each vault/folder 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.
To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: o Use the task credentials The program will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the General section. o Use the following credentials The program 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. Specify: • User name.
Limitation: Mounting of volume backups stored on Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node is not possible. To mount an image, perform the following steps. Source Archive (p. 235) Specify the path to the archive location and select the archive containing disk backups. Backup (p. 236) Select the backup. Access credentials (p. 236) [Optional] Provide credentials for the archive location. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box. Mount settings Volumes (p.
click Use anonymous access instead of entering credentials. As appears from 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. o If the archive is stored on a locally attached tape device, expand the Tape drives group, then click the required device. 2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive.
6.5.4. 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. Click on the selected volume to set its mounting parameters. o Access mode - choose the mode you want the volume to be mounted in: • Read only - enables exploring and opening files within the backup without committing any changes.
Certain Windows applications, such as Acronis disk management tools, can access the zone. To learn more about the advantages and limitations of the Acronis Secure Zone, see the Acronis Secure Zone (p. 46) topic in the "Proprietary Acronis technologies" section. 6.7.1. Creating Acronis Secure Zone You can create Acronis Secure Zone while the operating system is running or using bootable media. To create Acronis Secure Zone, perform the following steps. Space Disk (p.
To allocate space for Acronis Secure Zone 1. Choose a hard disk (if several) on which to create the zone. The unallocated space is 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. Again, the program displays the total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone depending on your selection.
Activate Enables the boot time prompt "Press F11 for Acronis Startup Recovery Manager…". If the system fails to boot, you will be able to start the bootable rescue utility by pressing F11. Acronis Startup Recovery Manager activation overwrites the Master Boot Record (MBR) with its own boot code. You will have to reactivate third-party boot loaders, if installed. Under Linux, consider installing the LILO or GRUB loader to a Linux root (or boot) partition boot record instead of the MBR before activation.
6.7.2. Managing Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone is considered as a personal vault (p. 352). Once created on a managed machine, the zone is always present in the list of Personal vaults. Centralized backup plans can use Acronis Secure Zone as well as local plans. If you have used the Acronis Secure Zone before, please note a radical change in the zone functionality. The zone does not perform automatic cleanup, that is, deleting old archives, anymore.
o o dragging the slider and selecting any size between the current and minimum values. The minimum size is approximately 50MB, depending on the geometry of the hard disk; typing an exact value in the Acronis Secure Zone Size field. 4. Click OK. 6.7.2.3. Deleting Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone deletion will automatically disable Acronis Startup Recovery Manager if it is activated and destroy all backups stored in the zone.
Linux-based bootable media Linux-based media contains Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Bootable Agent based on Linux kernel. The agent can boot and perform operations on any PC-compatible hardware, including bare metal and machines with corrupted or non-supported file systems. The operations can be configured and controlled either locally or remotely using the management console.
To be able to create or modify PE 2.x images, install Acronis WinPE ISO Builder on a machine where Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) is installed. The further operations are described in the Adding the Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x (p. 247) section. If you do not have a machine with WAIK, prepare as follows: 1. Download and install Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows Vista (PE 2.0): http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.
o 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. 3. [optional] Remote logon settings: o user name and password to be entered on the console side at connection to the agent. If you leave these fields empty, the connection will be enabled on typing any symbols in the prompt window. 4. [optional] Network settings (p.
Once the bootable agent starts on the server, it retrieves the list of available NICs. This list is sorted by the slots the NICs occupy: the closest to the processor on top. The bootable agent assigns each known NIC the appropriate settings, identifying the NICs by their MAC addresses. After the NICs with known MAC addresses are configured, the remaining NICs are assigned the settings that you have made for non-existent NICs, starting from the upper non-assigned NIC.
1. The Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore add-on is installed on the machine where the bootable media is created AND 2. You are creating a removable media or its ISO or detachable media, such as a flash drive. Drivers cannot be uploaded on a PXE server or WDS/RIS. The drivers can be added to the list only in groups, by adding the INF files or folders containing such files.
• • Creating the PE 2 ISO with the plug-in from scratch. Adding the Acronis Plug-in to a WIM file for any future purpose (manual ISO building, adding other tools to the image and so on). To be able to perform any of the above operations, install Acronis WinPE ISO Builder on a machine where Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) is installed. If you do not have such machine, prepare as described in How to create bootable media (p. 243). Acronis WinPE ISO Builder supports only x86 WinPE 2.x.
c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x WIM 1. Select Acronis WinPE ISO Builder from the start menu. 2. Specify path to the source WINPE.WIM file. The standard path to this file for x86 hardware is \Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\winpe.wim. 3. Specify path to the folder with the Acronis plug-in files. (check the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\WinPE\Settings\WinPE for the plug-in location). 4.
6.8.2. Connecting to a machine booted from media Once a machine boots from bootable media, the machine terminal displays a startup window with the IP address(es) obtained from DHCP or set according to the pre-configured values. Remote connection To connect to the machine remotely, select Connect -> Manage a remote machine in the console menu and specify one of the machine's IP addresses. Provide the user name and password if these have been configured when creating the bootable media.
Acronis command line utilities • Acronis • asamba • lash • trueimagecmd • trueimagemnt Linux commands and utilities busybox ifconfig readcd cat init reboot cdrecord insmod rm chmod iscsiadm rmmod chown kill route chroot kpartx scp cp ln scsi_id dd ls sed df lspci sg_map26 dmesg lvm sh dmraid mc sleep e2fsck mdadm ssh e2label mkdir sshd echo mke2fs strace egrep mknod swapoff fdisk mkswap swapon fsck more sysinfo fxload mount tar gawk mtx tune2
grub ping umount gunzip pktsetup uuidgen halt poweroff vconfig hexdump ps vi hotplug raidautorun zcat 6.8.5. Recovering MD devices and logical volumes To recover Linux Software RAID devices, known as MD devices, and/or devices created by Logical Volume Manager (LVM), known as logical volumes, you need to manually create the correspondent volume structure before starting the recovery.
Example Suppose that you previously performed a disk backup of a machine with the following disk configuration: • The machine has two 1-gigabyte and two 2-gigabyte SCSI hard disks, mounted on /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, and /dev/sdd, respectively. • The first and second pairs of hard disks are configured as two MD devices, both in the RAID-1 configuration, and are mounted on /dev/md0 and /dev/md1, respectively. • A logical volume is based /dev/my_volgroup/my_logvol.
VG UUID 0qoQ4l-Vk7W-yDG3-uF1l-Q2AL-C0z0-vMeACu 5. Run the following command to create the logical volume; in the -L parameter, specify the size given by VG Size: lvm lvcreate -L1.99G --name my_logvol my_volgroup 6. Activate the volume group by running the following command: lvm vgchange -a y my_volgroup 7. Press CTRL+ALT+F1 to return to the management console. Step 2: Starting the recovery 1. In the management console, click Recover. 2. In Archive, click Change and then specify the name of the archive.
trueimagemnt --mount /mnt --filename smb://server/backups/linux_machine.tib -i 4 This command mounts the logical volume DYN1, whose index in the backup is 4, on the mount point /mnt. To unmount a backup volume • Use the --unmount command, specifying the volume's mount point as a parameter. For example: trueimagemnt --unmount /mnt 6.8.6. Acronis PXE Server Acronis PXE Server allows for booting machines to Acronis bootable components through the network.
On a machine that has an operating system on the hard disk, the BIOS must be configured so that the network interface card is either the first boot device, or at least prior to the Hard Drive device. The example below shows one of reasonable BIOS configurations. If you don’t insert bootable media, the machine will boot from the network. In some BIOS versions, you have to save changes to BIOS after enabling the network interface card so that the card appears in the list of boot devices.
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. In such case with the help of Acronis Disk Director Lite, the user has the possibility to recreate the necessary disk configuration so that the volume image can be recovered exactly “as it was” or with any alteration of the disk or volume structure the user might consider necessary.
6.9.3. Choosing the operating system for disk management On a machine with two or more operating systems, representation of disks and volumes depends on which operating system is currently running. A volume may have a different letter in different Windows operating systems. For example, volume E: might appear as D: or L: when you boot another Windows operating system installed on the same machine.
shown in the table, as well as in graphical form at the bottom of the view. Any volume changes, including changing the volume letter or label, are also immediately displayed in the view. 6.9.5. Disk operations Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on disks: • • Disk Initialization (p. 259) - initializes the new hardware added to the system • • • Disk conversion: MBR to GPT (p.
After the disk is initialized, its icon is now shown in green instead of grayed and the necessary new disk information appears. The disk block remains gray though, because after the initialization all the disk space remains unallocated and so still impossible to be used for program installation or file storage. To be able to use it, proceed normally to the Create volume operation. 6.9.5.2. Basic disk cloning Sometimes it is necessary to transfer all the disk data onto a new disk.
If the destination is smaller, then the As is option of cloning will be unavailable and proportional resizing of the source disk volumes will be mandatory. The program analyzes the target disk to establish whether its size will be sufficient to hold all the data from the source disk without any loss. If such transfer with proportional resizing of the source disk volumes is possible, but without any data loss , then the user will be allowed to proceed.
If you need to leave an NT signature: 1. Click to clear the Copy NT signature check box, if necessary. 2. Click to clear the Turn off the machine after the cloning operation check box, if necessary. 3. Click Finish to add the pending operation. 4. Click Commit on the toolbar and then click Proceed in the Pending Operations window. 5. Wait until the task is finished. 6.9.5.3.
If you need to convert a GPT disk to MBR: 1. Select a GPT disk to convert to MBR. 2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Convert to MBR in the context menu. You will receive a warning window, stating that you are about to convert GPT into MBR. You will be explained the changes that will happen to the system after the chosen disk is converted from GPT to MBR. E.g.
Basic to dynamic conversion of the disk, comprising of system volumes, takes a certain amount of time, and any power loss, unintentional turning off of the machine or accidental pressing of the Reset button during the procedure could result in bootability loss. In contrast to Windows Disk Manager the program ensures bootability of an offline operating system on the disk after the operation. 6.9.5.6. Disk conversion: dynamic to basic You would want to convert dynamic disks back to basic ones, e.g.
6.9.6. Volume operations Acronis Disk Director Lite includes the following operations that can be performed on volumes: • Create Volume (p. 265) - Creates a new volume with the help of the Create Volume Wizard. • • Delete Volume (p. 269) - Deletes the selected volume. Set Active (p. 269) - Sets the selected volume Active so that the machine will be able to boot with the OS installed there. • • Change Letter (p. 270) - Changes the selected volume letter • Format Volume (p.
each disk in the volume; it means that to create a striped volume, a user will need two or more dynamic disks. The disks in a striped volume don’t have to be identical, but there must be unused space available on each disk that you want to include in the volume and the size of the volume will depend on the size of the smallest space. Access to the data on a striped volume is usually faster than access to the same data on a single physical disk, because the I/O is spread across more than one disk.
• • • Basic • • Mirrored Simple/Spanned Striped RAID-5 You will obtain a brief description of every type of volume advantages and limitations of each possible volume architecture. for better understanding of the If the current operating system, installed on this machine, does not support the selected type of volume , you will receive the appropriate warning. In this case the Next button will be disabled and you will have to select another type of volume to proceed with the new volume creation.
Set the volume size On the third wizard page, you will be able to define the size of the future volume, according to the previously made selections. In order to choose the necessary size between the minimum and the maximum values, use the slider or enter the necessary values into the special windows between the minimum and the maximum values or click on the special handle, and hold and drag the borders of the disk's picture with the cursor.
To perform the planned operation click Commit in the toolbar, and then click Proceed in the Pending Operations window. If you set a 64K cluster size for FAT16/FAT32 or on 8KB-64KB cluster size for NTFS, Windows can mount the volume, but some programs (e.g. Setup programs) might calculate its disk space incorrectly. 6.9.6.2.
(To finish the added operation you will have to commit (p. 271) it. Exiting the program without committing the pending operations will effectively cancel them.) The new volume structure will be graphically represented in the Disk management view immediately. 6.9.6.4. Change volume letter Windows operating systems assign letters (C:, D:, etc) to hard disk volumes at startup. These letters are used by applications and operating systems to locate files and folders in the volumes.
The new label will be graphically represented in the Disk Management view of the console immediately. 6.9.6.6. Format volume You might want to format a volume if you want to change its file system: • to save additional space which is being lost due to the cluster size on the FAT16 or FAT32 file systems • as a quick and more or less reliable way of destroying data, residing in this volume If you want to format a volume: 1. Select a volume to format. 2.
The Undo action lets you undo the latest operation in the list. While the list is not empty, this action is available. The Redo action lets you reinstate the last pending operation that was undone. The Commit action forwards you to the Pending Operations window, where you will be able to view the pending operation list. Clicking Proceed will launch their execution. You will not be able to undo any actions or operations after you choose the Proceed operation.
7. Centralized management This section covers operations that can be performed centrally by using the components for centralized management. The content of this section is only applicable to advanced editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. 7.1. Administering Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server This section describes the views that are available through the navigation tree of the console connected to the management server, and explains how to work with each view. 7.1.1.
agent will stop working until a successful license check. Vaults with low free space: X View vaults The alert is displayed if at least one centralized vault has less than 10% free space. View vaults will take you to the Centralized vaults (p. 124) view where you can examine the vault size, free space, content and take the necessary steps to increase the free space.
Activities The stacked column chart lets you explore the daily history of the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 agents' activities. The history is based on the log entries, collected from the registered machines and from the management server. The chart shows the number of log entries of each type (error, warning, information) for a particular day. Statistics for the selected date are displayed to the right of the chart. All the statistics fields are interactive, i.e.
Way of working with the backup policies view • Use the toolbar's operational buttons to create new policies, apply the existing policies to machines or perform other operations with backup policies (p. 278). • Use the Information pane's tabs to view detailed information about the selected policy and perform additional operations, such as revoke the policy, view details of the machine (group) the policy is applied to, etc. The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the chevron.
What to do if a policy has the Error status 1. To find out the reason of the failure, do one or more of the following: o Click the Error hyperlink to see the log entry of the latest occurred error. o Select the policy and click View tasks. Check the tasks that have Failed as their last result: select a task and then click View log. Select a log entry and then click View details. This approach comes in handy if the policy state is Deployed, that is, the policies' tasks already exist on the managed machines.
7.1.2.3. Actions on backup policies All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding items on the tasks toolbar. The operations can also be performed using the context menu (right-click the selected backup policy), or using the 'Backup policy name' actions bar on the Actions and tools pane. The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with backup policies. To Do Create a backup policy Click Create backup policy.
o o Groups In the group tree, select the group(s) the policy will be applied to. The right part of the window lists the machines of the selected group. Individual machines In the group tree, select the required group. Then, in the right part of the window, select the machines to apply the backup policy to. 2. Click OK. The Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server will deploy the policy to the selected machines and machines belonging to the selected groups.
Source The tab displays information about the type of source to be backed up and the source selection rules. Destination The tab displays information about the backup destination. Settings The tab displays information about the backup scheme used by the policy and backup options that were modified against the default settings. Applied to The tab displays a list of machines and groups the selected policy is applied to. Actions To Do View details of the machine (group).
Groups The management server administrator has the ability to group machines. A machine can be a member of more than one group. One or more nested groups can be created inside any group created by the administrator. Grouping helps organize data protection by the company departments, by the Active Directory domains or organizational units within a domain, by various populations of users, by the site locations, etc. The main goal of grouping is protection of multiple machines with one policy.
Way of working with groups • • • In the Physical machines view, select the group. Use the toolbar's operational buttons to perform actions on the selected group (p. 292). Use the Information panel's tabs to view detailed information about the selected group and perform additional operations, such as revoke policies or explore policy inheritance. The panel is collapsed by default. To expand the panel, click the chevron. The content of the panel is also duplicated in the Group details (p. 295) window. 7.
Grouping actions To Do Create a custom static or dynamic group Click Add a machine to another static group Click Create group. In the Create group (p. 293) window, specify the required parameters of the group. The new group will be created in the group, the selected machine is a member of (except for the built-in All physical machines group). Add to another group. In the Add to group (p. 286) window, specify the group to copy the selected machine to.
a managed machine and perform all the direct management operations. Other operations View detailed information on a machine Click View tasks existing on a machine Click View log entries of a machine Click Refresh a list of machines Click View details. In the Machine details (p. 286) window, examine information on the machine. View tasks. The Tasks (p. 300) view will display a list of the tasks, existing on the machine. View log. The Log (p.
To register an agent during agent installation, you have to be logged on with the management server administrator's account or provide the server administrator's credentials on prompt. To perform registration through a local or remote console-agent connection, you have to be connected with the management server administrator's credentials or provide the management server administrator's credentials.
Policy selection To apply the backup policy to the selected machine (group) 1. From the list, select the backup policy that you want to apply to the machine (group). Use filters to display the desired policies. 2. Click OK. Adding a machine to another group To add the selected machine to another group 1. Select the group the machine will be added to. 2. Click OK. The machine being added becomes a member of more than one group.
Machine The tab displays the following information on the registered machine: • • • Name - name of the selected machine (taken from the Computer name in Windows) IP address - IP address of the selected machine Status - the machine's status. Determined as the most severe status of all backup plans (p. 180) (both local and centralized) existing on the machine and backup policies (p. 276) applied to the machine.
The Log (p. 302) view will display a list of the log entries related to the selected backup policy. Revoke policy from the machine. Click Revoke. The management server will revoke the policy from the machine. The policy itself remains on the management server. In case the machine is a member of a group and the policy is applied to the group, you cannot revoke the policy from a single machine without firstly removing the machine from the group.
Run a plan/task Backup plan Click Run. In the Run Backup Plan (p. 187) window, select the task you need to run. Running the backup plan starts the selected task of that plan immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions. Task Click Run. The task will be executed immediately in spite of its schedule and conditions. Stop a plan/task Backup plan Click Stop. Stopping the running backup plan stops all its tasks. Thus, all the task operations will be aborted. Task Click Stop.
Why can't I edit the backup plan? • The backup plan is currently running. Editing of the currently running backup plan is impossible. • The backup plan has a centralized origin. Direct editing of centralized backup plans is not possible. You need to edit the original backup policy. Task Click Edit. Why can't I edit the task? • Task belongs to a backup plan Only tasks that do not belong to a backup plan, such as a recovery task, can be modified by direct editing.
Filtering and sorting Filtering and sorting of the backup policies is performed in the same way as in the Backup plans and tasks view for direct management. See the Filter and sort backup plans and tasks (p. 186) section for details. Member of This tab appears only if the selected machine is added to one or more custom groups and displays a list of the groups the machine is a member of. Operations To Do View details of a group Click View details.
Filtering and sorting machines To Do Sort machines by any column Click the column's header to sort the machines in ascending order. Click it once again to sort the machines in descending order. Filter machines by name. Type a machine's name in the field below the corresponding column's header. As a result you will see the list of machines, whose names fully or just partly coincide with the entered value. Filter machines by status, last connect, last backup, availability.
Edit a custom group Click Edit. In the Edit group (p. 295) window, change the required parameters of the group. Move one custom group to another Click Delete a custom group Click Move to. In the Move to group (p. 295) window, specify a group that will be a new parent of the selected group. Delete. Deletion of a parent group will delete its child groups as well. Backup policies applied to the parent group and inherited by its child groups will be revoked from all members of the deleted groups.
Adding multiple criteria Adding multiple criteria forms a condition according to the following rules: a) All the entries of the same criteria are combined by logical addition (OR). For example, the following set of criteria Operating system: Windows Server 2008 Operating system: Windows Server 2003 will add to the same group all the machines whose operating system is Windows 2000 OR Windows 2003.
Move one group to another To move the selected group to another group or to the root 1. In the groups tree, click the group to move the selected group to. You can move any type of custom group (either static, or dynamic) to another custom group of any type, or to the root folder. The root folder of the machines tree contains groups of the first level. Groups that include other groups are called parent groups. Groups that are in parent groups are called child groups.
selected backup policy. View tasks of a policy Click View tasks. The Tasks (p. 300) view will display a list of the tasks related to the selected backup policy. View log of a policy Click View log. The Log (p. 302) view will display a list of the log entries related to the selected backup policy. Revoke a policy from the group. Click Examine where the policy applied to the group came from Click Revoke. The management server revokes the policy from the group.
Storage node enables you to: • relieve managed machines of unnecessary CPU load by using the storage node-side cleanup (p. 350) and storage node-side validation (p. 350). • drastically reduce backup traffic and storage space taken by the archives by using deduplication (p. 64). • prevent access to the backup archives, even in case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by a malefactor, by using encrypted vaults (p. 346).
To Do Add a storage node to the management server Click Add. In the Add storage node (p. 299) window, specify the machine the storage node is installed on. Adding a storage node establishes a trusted relationship between the management server and the storage node, in the same way as when you add machines to the server. Once the storage node is added to the management server, you will be able to create managed vaults on the node. Remove a storage node from the management server Click Remove.
Adding a storage node To add a storage node 1. In the IP/Name field, enter the name or the IP address of the machine the storage node resides on, or click Browse... and browse the network for the machine. Use the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the storage node, that is, a completely specified domain name ending in a top-level domain. Do not enter “127.0.0.1” or “localhost” as the storage node IP/name.
Vaults This tab displays a list of the vaults, managed by the storage node. To open a managed vault for detailed examination and to perform operations on it, select the vault, then click View vault (on the tab's toolbar). In the Centralized vault (p. 123) view, perform the required actions. Services This tab displays the compacting task scheduling parameters. Service tasks This tab lets the management server administrator manage the compacting task and review its parameters.
Stop a task Click Stop. What will happen if I stop the task? Generally, stopping the task aborts its operation (backup, recovery, validation, exporting, conversion, migration). The task enters the Stopping state first, then becomes Idle. The task schedule, if created, remains valid. To complete the operation you will have to run the task over again.
7.1.5.2. Filtering and sorting tasks The following is a guideline for you to filter and sort tasks. To Do Set a number of tasks to display Select Options > Console options > Number of tasks (p. 83) and set the desired value. The maximum number of tasks that can be displayed is 500. If the number of tasks exceeds the specified value, use filters to display the tasks that are beyond the scope. Sort tasks by column Click the column's header to sort the tasks in ascending order.
Operations performed using bootable media are logged as well, but the log’s lifetime is limited to a current session. Rebooting eliminates the log, but you can save the log to a file while the machine is booted with the media. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node has its own local event log. This log's events are accessible through the centralized log only. Centralized event log The centralized event log is accessible when the console is connected to the management server.
Tasks 7.1.6.1. Select a task, and then click View log. The Log view appears with the log entries belonging to the selected task. Actions on log entries All the operations described below are performed by clicking the corresponding items on the log toolbar. All these operations can also be performed with the context menu (by right-clicking the log entry), or with the Log actions bar (on the Actions and tools pane). The following is a guideline for you to perform actions on log entries.
7.1.6.2. Filtering and sorting log entries The following is a guideline for you to filter and sort log entries. To Do Display log entries for a given time period 1 In the From field, select the date starting from which to display the log entries. 2 In the To field, select the date up to which to display the log entries.
• • • Task - The task the event relates to (if any) • • Machine - The name of the machine where the event has occurred (if any) Managed entity type - Type of managed entity where the event has occurred (if any) Managed entity - The name of the managed entity where the event has occurred (if any) Code - 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.
You can set one or more parameters via Group Policy by using Acronis Administrative Template. For information on how to apply the administrative template, see How to apply Acronis Administrative Template (p. 78). The administrative template contains the configuration parameters of Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node, as described in the correspondent subtopics of this topic.
compacting procedure. Possible values: Any integer number between 0 and 100 Default value: 80 In a deduplicating vault, the contents of all deduplicated disk blocks are stored in the deduplication data store one after another in a single large file. The contents of all deduplicated files are similarly stored in another large file. Over time, these files may contain obsolete items—disk blocks or files that are no longer referred to from any archive.
Note: The parameters Vault Free Space Warning Limit and Vault Free Space Warning Percentage are independent of each other: a warning will be recorded every time that either of the thresholds is reached. Vault Free Space Error Limit Description: Specifies the amount of free space in a managed vault, in megabytes, below which an error is recorded in the storage node's log and any backup to the vault becomes prohibited.
This parameter contains two settings: Trace State Description: Specifies whether to collect the log entries about Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components' events from the registered machines. Possible values: True or False Default value: True Trace Level Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of collected entries. Only entries of levels greater than or equal to the value in Trace Level will be collected.
Trace Level Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events for sending SNMP notifications about them. Only notifications about events of levels greater than or equal to Trace Level will be sent.
Default value: 30 The management server's process uses special threads—called worker threads or workers— to perform synchronization for a registered machine which is connected for synchronization. Each worker performs synchronization for exactly one machine at a time. A connected machine to be synchronized waits for an available worker. For this reason, the actual number of workers will never exceed the maximum number of connections (see Maximum Connections described previously).
Second Connection Attempt Description: Specifies whether to try to connect to a registered machine by using its lastknown IP address after an attempt to connect to it by using its host name has failed. Possible values: True or False Default value: False When connecting to a registered machine, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server first uses the machine's network name—provided that the machine was added to the management server by name.
full functionality for the number of days specified in Maximum Time Without License Server, as counted from the moment of installation or from the last successful check. License Server Connection Retry Interval Description: Specifies the interval between connection attempts when Acronis License Server is unavailable.
This parameter has two settings: Trace State Description: Specifies whether to record the agent's events into the event log. Possible values: True or False Default value: False Trace Level Description: Specifies the minimum level of severity of events to be recorded into the event log. Only events of levels greater than or equal to the value in Trace Level will be recorded.
Event tracing parameters Parameters called tracing parameters specify when to record notifications about events from Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 components—Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent, and Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node—into the event log or a file.
Default value: 4 (notifications about errors and critical errors will be recorded) 7.1.7.2. Parameters set through GUI The following parameters can be set through the graphical user interface (GUI): • For Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server: CollectingLogs, WindowsEventLog, and Snmp • For Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent: WindowsEventLog and Snmp You will find the description of these parameters in the correspondent topic about configuration through Group Policy. 7.1.7.3.
This database contains a list of tape vaults that are managed by the storage node. Its size depends on the number of archives stored in the tape libraries, and approximately equals 10 MB per hundred archives. Possible values: Any string 0 to 32765 characters long Default value: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Acronis\StorageServer\TapesLocation Registry key: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Acronis\BackupAndRecovery\TapeLocation\TapesDatabasePath 7.2.
Specify the path to the location, where the backup archive will be stored, and the archive name. It is advisable that the archive name be unique within the location. The location must be available at the time when the management server starts to deploy the policy. Access credentials (p. 327) [Optional] Provide credentials for the location if the backup policy account does not have access permissions to the location. To access this option, select the Advanced view check box.
To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: o Use Acronis service credentials The tasks will run under the Acronis service account, whether started manually or executed on schedule. o Use the following credentials The tasks will run under the credentials you specify, whether started manually or executed on schedule. 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.
System volume Type or select: [System Volume] The system volume contains the hardware-specific files that are needed to start Windows, such as Ntldr, Boot.ini, and Ntdetect.com. There is only one system volume even if multiple Windows operating systems are installed on the computer. Boot volume Type or select: [Boot Volume] Refers to the registered machine's boot volume.
attributes (including hidden and system files), the boot record, the file allocation table (FAT) if it exists, the root and the zero track of the hard disk with the master boot record (MBR). The boot code of GPT volumes is not backed up. A disk backup stores all volumes of the selected disk (including hidden volumes such as the vendor's maintenance partitions) and the zero track with the master boot record.
• Partition number on the disk; 1 for the first partition, 2 for the second partition, etc. To guarantee backing up selected disks regardless of their type, consider including three entries in the Volumes to back up selection rules dialog box, one for each possible type. For example, to back up the first hard disk of each Linux machine under a centralized policy, you may want to type the following lines in the Volume field: /dev/hda1 /dev/sda1 /dev/mda1 7.2.2.2.
Windows folder %WINDIR% Points to the folder where Windows is located (for example, C:\Windows) Common data for all user profiles %ALLUSERSPROFILE% Points to the folder where the common data of all user profiles is located (typically, C:\Documents and Settings\All Users in Windows XP and C:\ProgramData in Windows Vista) You can use other environment variables or a combination of environment variables and text.
o The program will access the source data using the credentials of the backup policy account specified in the General section. Use the following credentials The program will access the source data using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the policy credentials do not have access permissions to the data. 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.
Mask (*) *.log Excludes all files with the .log extension. Mask (?) my???.log Excludes all .log files with names consisting of five symbols and starting with “my”. 7.2.5. Archive Specify where to store the archives and define names for the new backup archives. 1. Selecting the archives destination Choose where to store machines' archives: • Store all machines' archives in a single location o To store archives in a centralized vault, expand the Centralized group and click the vault.
So, if the backup policy named, say SYSTEM_BACKUP will be applied to three machines (say, FINDEPT1, FINDEPT2, FINDEPT3), the following three archives will be created in the location: FINDEPT1_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1 FINDEPT2_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1 FINDEPT3_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1 2. Click OK. The name looks like ArchiveN, where N is a sequence number. If the program finds that the archive Archive1 is already stored in the location, it will automatically suggest the name Archive2. 7.2.6.
"fathers") and monthly (referred to as "grandfathers") backups. The expired backups will be deleted automatically. • Tower of Hanoi – to use the Tower of Hanoi backup scheme, where you schedule when and how often to back up (sessions) and select the number of backup levels (up to 16). In this scheme, the data can be backed up more than once a day.
7.2.7.4. Grandfather-Father-Son scheme At a glance • Daily incremental, weekly differential, and monthly full 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.
available through next Sunday, January 8; the first weekly backup, the one of Saturday, January 7, will be stored on the system until February 7. Monthly backups will never be deleted. 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.
• Keep backups: o Daily: 6 months o Weekly: 6 months o Monthly: 5 years 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.
specify the sessions on which the scheme should run. In the discussion below, "days" can be replaced with "scheduled sessions". Number of levels Select from 2 to 16 backup levels. See the example stated below for details. Roll-back period The guaranteed number of sessions that one can go back in the archive at any time. Calculated automatically, depending on the schedule parameters and the numbers of levels you select. See the example below for details.
3 4 days 2 to 5 days 2 days 4 8 days 4 to 11 days 4 days 5 16 days 8 to 23 days 8 days 6 32 days 16 to 47 days 16 days Adding a level doubles the full backup and roll-back periods. To see why the number of recovery days varies, let us return to the previous example. Here are the backups we have on day 12 (numbers in gray denote deleted backups).
Parameters Parameter Meaning Full backup Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform a full backup. For example, the full backup can be set up to run every Sunday at 1:00 AM as soon as all users are logged off. Incremental Specifies on what schedule and under which conditions to perform an incremental backup. If the archive contains no backups at the time of the task run, a full backup is created instead of the incremental backup.
Also, let all backups older than one year be deleted from the archive, and let the cleanup be performed upon creating a new backup. Retention rules: Delete backups older than 12 months Apply the rules: After backing up By default, a one-year-old full backup will not be deleted until all incremental backups that depend on it become subject to deletion too. For more information, see Retention rules (p. 38).
Resulting tasks Any custom scheme always produces three backup tasks and—in case the retention rules are specified—a cleanup task. Each task is listed in the list of tasks either as Scheduled (if the schedule has been set up) or as Manual (if the schedule has not been set up). You can manually run any backup task or cleanup task at any time, regardless of whether it has a schedule. In the first of the previous examples, we set up a schedule only for full backups.
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. 344) 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.
Limitations: cannot be organized on a dynamic disk (p. 345); requires manual configuration of boot loaders, such as LILO and GRUB; requires re-activation of third-party loaders. Agent (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent) An application that performs data backup and recovery and enables other management operations on the machine (p. 347), such as task management and operations with hard disks. The type of data that can be backed up depends on the agent type.
Backup options Configuration parameters of a backup operation (p. 339), such as pre/post backup commands, maximum network bandwidth allotted for the backup stream or data compression level. Backup options are a part of a backup plan (p. 340). Backup plan (Plan) A set of rules that specify how the given data will be protected on a given machine. A backup plan specifies: • what data to back up • • where to store the backup archive (p.
3. The management server deploys the policy to the machines. 4. On each machine, the agent (p. 339) installed on the machine finds data items using the selection rules. For example, if the selection rule is [All volumes], the entire machine will be backed up. 5. On each machine, the agent installed on the machine creates a backup plan (p. 340) using other rules specified by the policy. Such backup plan is called a centralized plan (p. 342). 6.
A management server has two built-in groups that contain all machines of each type: All physical machines (p. 349), All virtual machines (p. 352). Built-in groups cannot be deleted, moved to other groups or manually modified. Custom groups cannot be created within built-in groups. There is no way to remove a physical machine from the built-in group except for deleting the machine from the management server. Virtual machines are deleted as a result of their host server deletion. A backup policy (p.
On a machine that is not registered on the management server, a user having the privilege to back up to the centralized vault can do so by specifying the full path to the vault. If the vault is managed, the user's archives will be managed by the storage node as well as other archives stored in the vault. Cleanup Deleting backups (p. 339) from a backup archive (p. 339) in order to get rid of outdated backups or prevent the archive from exceeding the desired size.
Differential backup A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup (p. 347). You need access to the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup. Direct management Any management operation that is performed on a managed machine (p. 348) using the direct console (p. 343)-agent (p. 339) connection (as opposed to centralized management (p. 342) when the operations are configured on the management server (p.
and the foreign disks so that they form a single entity. A foreign group is imported as is (will have the original name) if no disk group exists on the machine. For more information about disk groups please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base article: 222189 Description of Disk Groups http://support.microsoft.com/kb/222189/EN-US/ in Windows Disk Management Dynamic disk A hard disk managed by Logical Disk Manager (LDM) that is available in Windows starting with Windows 2000.
816307 Best practices for using dynamic disks on Windows Server 2003-based computers http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816307 Dynamic group A group of machines (p. 347) which is populated automatically by the management server (p. 348) according to membership criteria specified by the administrator. Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 offers the following membership criteria: • Operating system • • Active Directory organization unit IP address range.
Encrypted vault A managed vault (p. 348) to which anything written is encrypted and anything read is decrypted transparently by the storage node (p. 350), using a vault-specific encryption key stored on the node. In case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an unauthorized person, the malefactor will not be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to the storage node. Encrypted archives (p. 346) will be encrypted over the encryption performed by the agent (p. 339).
M Machine A physical or virtual computer uniquely identified by an operating system installation. Machines with multiple operating systems (multi-boot systems) are considered as multiple machines. Managed machine A machine (p. 347), either physical or virtual, where at least one Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Agent (p. 339) is installed. Managed vault A centralized vault (p. 342) managed by a storage node (p. 350). Archives (p.
P Personal vault A local or networked vault (p. 352) created using direct management (p. 344). Once a personal vault is created, a shortcut to it appears under the Personal vaults item of the Navigation pane. Multiple machines can use the same physical location; for example, a network share; as a personal vault. Physical machine On Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Server, a physical machine is the same as a registered machine (p. 349).
Static group A group of machines which a management server (p. 348) administrator populates by manually adding machines to the group. A machine remains in a static group until the administrator removes it from the group or from the management server. Storage node (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Storage Node) A server aimed to optimize usage of various resources required for protection of enterprise data. This goal is achieved by organizing managed vaults (p. 348).
T Task In Acronis Backup & Recovery 10, a task is a set of sequential actions to be performed on a managed machine (p. 348) when a certain time comes or a certain event occurs. The actions are described in an xml script file. The start condition (schedule) exists in the protected registry keys. Tower of Hanoi A popular backup scheme (p. 341) aimed to maintain the optimal balance between a backup archive (p. 339) size and the number of recovery points (p. 349) available from the archive. Unlike the GFS (p.
While the successful validation means a high probability of successful recovery, it does not check all factors that influence the recovery process. If you back up the operating system, only a test recovery under the bootable media to a spare hard drive can guarantee successful recovery in the future. Validation rules A part of the backup plan (p. 340). Rules that define when and how often to perform validation (p. 351) and whether to validate the entire archive (p. 339) or the latest backup in the archive.
Index Actions on backup plans and tasks • 180, 183 Actions on backup policies • 276, 278 A Actions on centralized vaults • 54, 123, 124, 125 A policy on a machine or a group • 57 Actions on groups • 282, 292 About Windows loaders • 229 Actions on log entries • 190, 191, 303, 304 Access credentials • 235, 236 Actions on machines • 281, 282 Access credentials for archive location • 194, 200 Actions on personal vaults • 123, 155, 156 Access credentials for destination • 212, 223 Actions on storage
B Back up later scheme • 201, 328 Back up now scheme • 201, 328 Backing up dynamic volumes (Windows) • 41, 211 Bootability troubleshooting • 226 Bootable agent • 47, 239, 338, 341 Bootable components and media builder • 18 Backing up to tape library • 135 Bootable media • 9, 18, 21, 24, 105, 178, 211, 240, 242, 257, 274, 338, 341, 344, 348 Backup • 24, 28, 339, 343, 344, 347, 351 Bootable Media Builder • 243, 244 Backup archive (Archive) • 19, 24, 339, 340, 342, 343, 346, 347, 348, 350, 351, 352 Buil
Configuring communication settings • 74, 78 Connecting to a machine booted from media • 250 Console (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Management Console) • 24, 338, 341, 343, 344 Default backup options • 89, 194, 319 Default recovery options • 112, 213 Delete volume • 265, 269 Deleting Acronis Secure Zone • 242 Deleting archives and backups • 158, 159 Destination selection • 216 Console options • 82 Differential backup • 339, 344 Consolidation • 132, 339, 343 Content selection • 212, 214 Direct management
F H Fast incremental/differential backup • 90, 103 Hardware • 131 File destination • 212, 221 File-level backup snapshot • 89, 97 File-level security • 90, 104, 105, 113, 116 Files selection • 215 Files to back up selection rules • 320, 323 Filtering and sorting archives • 125, 155, 159 Filtering and sorting backup plans and tasks • 179, 186, 291 HDD writing speed • 90, 99 How deduplication works • 67 How to apply Acronis Administrative Template • 74, 78, 307 How to convert a disk backup to a virtual m
M Machine • 19, 339, 340, 341, 342, 344, 346, 348, 349, 350, 352 Network settings • 245 Notifications • 100, 116 NT signature • 217 Machine details • 280, 281, 284, 286 Number of tasks • 83, 302 Machine management • 86, 287 O Machine options • 86, 102, 103, 118, 119 Machines selection • 278 Main area, views and action pages • 11, 14 Managed machine • 10, 24, 83, 338, 340, 342, 344, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351 Managed vault • 52, 296, 343, 347, 348, 350, 351 Operations with a machine • 58 Operations with
Policy status on a group • 64 Rights for Acronis services • 72, 320 Policy status on a machine • 62 RSM Media Pools • 130, 132 Pop-up messages • 82 Run backup plan • 184, 187, 289 Post-backup command • 94 Running Acronis Disk Director Lite • 257 Post-data capture command • 96 S Post-recovery command • 115 Pre/Post commands • 89, 93, 95, 113, 114 Scheduling • 107, 161, 202, 210, 234, 328, 337 Pre/Post data capture commands • 89, 94, 98 Secure communication • 73 Pre-backup command • 93 Select d
Storage node-side validation • 20, 123, 297, 348, 350 Supported file systems • 22 Supported operating systems • 21 T Tape compatibility table • 44, 131, 132, 154 Types of dynamic volumes • 265 U Understanding Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 • 24 Understanding centralized management • 51 Understanding states and statuses • 180 Tape libraries • 43, 130 Universal Restore • 18, 212, 223, 246 Tape library as a managed vault • 134 Universal Restore (Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Universal Restore) • 45, 47, 21
VM power management • 121 Volume destination • 217, 219 Volume operations • 265 Volume properties • 219 Volume selection • 235, 237 Volume Shadow Copy Service • 89, 95, 97 Volumes • 212, 218 Volumes to back up selection rules • 320 W Weekly schedule • 164, 206, 298, 332 What if • 153 When deduplication is most effective • 65 When to recover • 212, 223 When to validate • 231, 234 Why is the program asking for the password? • 195 Windows event log • 85, 87, 91, 102, 113, 118 WinPE (Windows Preinstallation En
