According to Symantec support and many forum posts, Backupexec supports only Ubuntu 9, and nothing for the new versions. Since I have ubuntu 10 running in production and willing to upgrade to 11, I have managed to install support BackupExec agent on my servers without any issue and everything was working fine for the last year or two years (for one server at least). You will find below few tips and ticks in case you face issues while backing up your data with Backupexec 12.5 or 2010.
I have noticed today that in Ubuntu – and in debian generally, the port 10000 is reserved for webmin even if it’s not installed, which is a conflict with ndmp service for backupexec agent which run on the same port. A workaround will be to change ndmp port to 12000 for example and everything will be working like charm.
The only issue here, is that in a datacenter there are more complex architectures, going behind firewalls, with public servers, … you will need to restrict dynamic ports that Backupexec is using. From a range of 10000 ports to only 4 ports for example. So to make sure that there is no firewall issue, I used to add this rule to iptables (Not required) :
$ sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 10000:10003 -j ACCEPT
$ sudo iptables-save
$ sudo iptables --list
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere anywhere tcp dpts:ndmp:10003
Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
if ndmp is not defined in services, make sure you add it :
$ sudo vi /etc/services
# comment webmin line below
# webmin 10000/tcp
# add this for backupexec
ndmp 10000/tcp # backupexec
Then restart RALUS service
$ sudo /opt/VRTSralus/bin/VRTSralus.init restart
As I have previously mentioned, if 10000 is not working, try with 12000. And you are done.
Last note, it’s “recommended” to have two different selections for windows and linux servers, and have the backup method for windows servers using the reset archive bit, while the Linux using modified time. Reset archive bit might work fine for linux though even if it’s a recommendation from Symantec.
Enjoy !