Linux Symantec BackupExec

Symantec BackupExec 11d/12d on Debian Linux

The Ubuntu distribution of Linux is based on Debian.

This page is part of the Linux Setup discussion.

Debian Etch (4.0)

The Symantec BackupExec Remote Agent (RALUS) is supported on Linux, but currently there are no Debian packages available from Symantec. This HOWTO describes, how to get things running on Debian Etch (4.0) together with BackupExec 11d (the procedure for 12d is the same, but file names might differ):

• Logon to the Debian box.
• Download the latest unix agent from http://fileconnect.symantec.com
• Within the archive you should find two files: VRTSralus.tar.gz and VRTSvxmsa.tar.gz
• Extract the .gz files:

tar -xvzf VRTSralus.tar
tar -xvzf VRTSvxmsa.tar

• The install files are in .rpm format so you’ll need to use alien to convert them to .deb format.

First install alien:

sudo apt-get install alien

• To convert, just run the commands (example is for build 7170):

alien VRTSralus-11.00.7170-0.i386.rpm vrtsralus-11.00.7170-0.i386.deb    
alien VRTSvxmsa-4.4-021.i686.rpm vrtsvxmsa-4.4-021.i686.deb

• Install the files using dpkg:

dpkg -i vrtsralus_11.00.7170-1_i386.deb
dpkg -i vrtsvxmsa_4.4-22_i386.deb

• Create a group called beoper:

sudo addgroup beoper

• Add the root user to the group:

sudo adduser is beoper

• Install the libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 package: (For newer version of Linux see the comment below.

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

• Start the agent by entering the following command:

sudo /opt/VRTSralus/bin/VRTSralus.init start

Your Backup Exec server should now be able to backup the server, ie, in a selection list you will see Unix Agents under Remote Selections and you'll be able to select your server and the required directories. Take care not to select network drives etc when making the backup selections. As soon as you click on the server, you'll have to enter some new credentials, username/password.

Add note about editting the ralus.cfg in /etc/VRTSralus directory.

To debug problems stop the linux agent with this command

sudo /opt/VRTSralus/bin/VRTSralus.init stop

and run this command:

sudo /opt/VRTSralus/bin/beremote --log-console.

Debian 5 and up

Some additional steps are currently required to when trying to follow this process on current, (18 November 2009) versions of Debian based systems.

Install Libstdc++5

Some newer versions of Ubuntu do not have this version of the library, to install it:

• Change directory to /tmp directory:

cd /tmp/

• Download deb package:

wget -c http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/universe/g/gcc-3.3/libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_amd64.deb

• Unpack deb package to get library file

dpkg -x libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_amd64.deb libstdc++5

• copy library file to /usr/bin directory

sudo cp libstdc++5/usr/lib/libstdc++.so.5.0.7 /usr/lib

Additional Notes

One install required /opt/VRTSralus/bin/VRTSralus.init to be made executable for all with the chmod 111 command.

When accessing some Linux servers from the backupexec server I've noticed that the after setting up a user defined selection for the server it backupexec appears to hang be patient this is probably caused a specific folder not mounting and taking a long time to timeout. Check the selections to make sure that you are not backing up any mounted network drives on the server.