System Requirements

The protected Linux computer must meet requirements listed in the table below.

Considerations and Limitations

OS

• Linux kernel version 2.6.32 or later is supported as long as you use kernels supplied by your distribution. Consider the following limitations:

• Fedora and openSUSE Tumbleweed are supported up to kernel 5.15.7.
• Linux kernel 2.6.32-754.6.3 in RHEL and Oracle Linux (RHCK) is not supported.
• If you work with the Veeam Agent for Linux 5.0 build earlier than 5.0.1.4493 and the protected computer is running Linux kernel version 5.8 or later, only snapshot-less file-level backup is supported. For details, see Snapshot-Less File-Level Backup.

• Only GA versions of the supported distributions that have been released before the current version of Veeam Agent for Linux are supported.

If a new version of a supported Linux distribution is released after the release of the current version of Veeam Agent, Veeam Agent may require a patch to support this new OS version. For details on Veeam Agent compatibility with Linux OS versions, see this Veeam KB article. Customers with a valid contract can request a patch from Veeam Support; for other customers, the support of the new Linux distribution will be provided with the next release of Veeam Agent.

• For the following distributions, we recommend you to install Veeam Agent from a pre-built binary veeamsnap kernel module packages provided by Veeam:

• CentOS 7.0 – 8.5.
• RHEL 6.0 – 8.5.
• SLES 11 SP4, 12 SP2 – 15 SP3.
• SLES for SAP 11 SP4, 12 SP2 – 15 SP3.
• openSUSE Leap 15.2 – 15.3.

For other supported distributions, use the dkms packages instead of the pre-built binary veeamsnap kernel module packages.

Keep in mind that the pre-built binary veeamsnap kernel module packages require kernel 2.6.32-131.0.15 or later for RHEL 6 (excluding 2.6.32-279.el6.i686) and 3.10.0-123 or later for CentOS / RHEL 7.0 – 7.9.

For details on installing Veeam Agent on every supported distribution, see Installing Veeam Agent for Linux.

• To ensure proper functioning of the veeamsnap kernel module, verify that your system does not have any of the following modules installed: hcdriver, snapapi26, snapapi, snapper, dattobd, dattobd-dkms, dkms-dattobd, cdr or cxbf.
• The Linux OS must be set up to receive software updates from the default repositories enabled in the OS after installation.
• For cloud-based installations that use customized kernels (such as Linux distributions deployed from AWS Marketplace or Azure Marketplace), the veeamsnap kernel module has experimental support status.
• RHEL, CentOS and Oracle Linux (RHCK) are supported up to certain kernel versions. For details, see this Veeam KB article.
• Ubuntu 21.10 minimal install is not supported.

File System

• Veeam Agent for Linux does not back up volumes that reside on USB devices and SD cards.
• Veeam Agent for Linux backs up and restores LVM snapshots as standard data files.
• File-level backup has the following limitations:

• Total size of all file systems must not exceed 218 TB. This limitation applies to all file systems where files you plan to back up are located.
• Size of a file must not exceed 16 TB.
• Name of a file must not be larger than 254 bytes.

Keep in mind that characters that you can use in the file name may be encoded in 2 bytes or more.

• Veeam Agent supports backup of extended attributes with the following limitations:

• Veeam Agent backs up extended attributes only with the following public namespaces: system, security, trusted, and user.
• All extended attribute names and values of a file must not exceed 4096 bytes (size of a default ext4 file system block). Veeam Agent does not back up attributes exceeding the limit.

For the kernel version 4.13 or later, if a value of extended attribute exceeds the limit, Veeam Agent uses the ea_inodes feature. Backups created using the ea_inodes feature cannot be mounted on kernel versions up to 4.12.

• Backup of file and directory attributes (for example, a — append only, c — compressed, and so on) is not supported.

• Each volume included in a backup must have a unique UUID.
• The veeamsnap module provides RAM-based changed block tracking (CBT) mechanism. Every time the module is unloaded or Veeam Agent for Linux computer is rebooted, CBT data is reset. As a result, Veeam Agent reads the entire data added to the backup scope to detect what blocks have changed since the last job session, and incremental backup requires greater time.
• Backup of machines used as cluster nodes can be taken only by the veeam-nosnap package. For details, see Appendix A. Requirements for veeam-nosnap.

• Certain limitations for Dell PowerPath configuration apply. To learn more, see this Veeam KB article.

• BFQ I/O scheduler is not supported.
• Sparse files are not supported. Veeam Agent backs up and restores sparse files as regular files.

Software

• The following packages are not required for CentOS, RHEL and SLES distributions if a pre-built binary veeamsnap package is to be installed.

• dkms
• gcc
• make
• perl
• kernel-headers (for RedHat-based systems)
• kernel-devel (for RedHat-based systems)

For details, see Installing Veeam Agent for Linux.

• Version of the following packages varies according to the Linux kernel version that you use:

• linux-headers (for Debian-based systems)
• kernel-headers (for RedHat-based systems)
• kernel-devel (for RedHat-based systems)

• For openSUSE and SLES distributions, either of the following packages is required: libncurses5 or libncurses6.
• The dmidecode package is required for Veeam Agent management — a valid BIOS UUID must be obtainable either from dmidecode | grep -i uuid or from /sys/class/dmi/id/product_uuid. Each Veeam Agent that consumes a license installed in Veeam Backup & Replication must have a unique BIOS UUID. If a valid UUID cannot be obtained, Veeam will generate it automatically.
• The libmysqlclient package is required to process MySQL database system located on the Veeam Agent server. For details, see Backup of MySQL Database. Package version varies according to the MySQL database system version that you use.
• The libpq5 package is required to process PostgreSQL database system located on the Veeam Agent server. For details, see Backup of PostgreSQL Database.
• The python3 package or another RPM package providing a /usr/bin/python3 binary is required for CentOS, RHEL 7.0 and later distributions if a pre-built binary kmod-veeamsnap package is to be installed.
• The btrfs-progs package version 3.16 or later is required.
• The lvm2 package version up to 2.03.12 is required. Later versions are not supported.
• Live patching of Linux kernel is supported with limitations. For details, see Live Patching Support.

Backup Source

Any file systems and devices that are accessible from the host OS. To learn about limitations, see File System.

Backup Target

Backup can be performed to the following types of storage:

• Local (internal) storage of the protected computer (not recommended).
• Direct attached storage (DAS), such as USB, eSATA or Firewire external drives.
• Network Attached Storage (NAS) able to represent itself as SMB (CIFS) or NFS share. Requires cifs-utils or nfs-utils packages to be installed on the Veeam Agent for Linux computer, depending on a network storage type.
• Veeam Backup & Replication 11 or later backup repository.
• Veeam Cloud Connect 11 or later cloud repository.

Network

Consider the following:

• If you back up to a repository managed by a Veeam backup server, Veeam Agent for Linux must be able to establish a direct IP connection to the Veeam Backup & Replication server. Veeam Agent for Linux cannot work with Veeam Backup & Replication that is located behind a NAT gateway.
• Domain names of the Veeam Agent computer, Veeam Backup & Replication server and other servers in the Veeam backup infrastructure must be resolvable into IPv4 addresses.