System Requirements for Linux Computers (nosnap Veeam Agent)

If you plan to use a nosnap package to install Veeam Agent, the protected Linux computer must meet the following system requirements:

Specification

Requirement

Hardware

[For nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux] CPU: x86 or x64.

[For nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux on Power] CPU: IBM POWER9 or POWER10.

Memory: 1 GB RAM or more. Memory consumption varies depending on the backup type and the total amount of backed-up data.

Disk Space: 100 MB free disk space for product installation.

Network: 10 Mbps or faster network connection to a backup target.

Disk layout: MBR or GPT.

OS

Important! Check considerations and limitations that apply to the list of supported OSes.

Nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux supports the 64-bit versions of the following distributions:

  • Debian 10.13 – 12.2
  • Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 22.10, 23.04 and 23.10
  • RHEL 6.4 – 8.9, 9.0 – 9.3
  • CentOS 7
  • Oracle Linux 6 – 8.9, 9.0 – 9.3 (RHCK)
  • Oracle Linux 6 (starting from UEK R2) – Oracle Linux 9 (up to 5.15.0-200.131.27.el9uek)
  • SLES 12 SP4, 12 SP5, 15 SP1 – 15 SP5
  • SLES for SAP 12 SP4, 12 SP5, 15 SP1 – 15 SP5
  • openSUSE Leap 15.3 – 15.5
  • openSUSE Tumbleweed has an experimental support status. For details about experimental support, see this Veeam KB article.

Veeam Agent supports 32-bit versions for RHEL 6 and Oracle Linux 6 distributions only.

Nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux on Power supports little endian versions of the following Linux distributions for IBM Power:

  • SLES 15 SP3 and 15 SP4
  • SLES for SAP 12 SP5, 15 SP3 and 15 SP4
  • RHEL 8.4 and 8.6
  • RHEL for SAP 8.4

File System

Important! Check considerations and limitations that apply to the list of supported file systems.

Veeam Agent for Linux supports consistent snapshot-based data backup for the following file systems:

  • BTRFS (for OSes that run Linux kernel 3.16 or later)

[For nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux] BTRFS is supported only if it resides directly on a physical device with no additional abstraction layers (such as LVM, software RAID, dm-crypt and so on) below or above it.

[For nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux on Power] If BTRFS has additional abstraction layers (such as LVM, software RAID, dm-crypt and so on) above it, only file-level restore operations are supported. Instant Recovery, restore verification (SureBackup), bare metal recovery and volume-level restore are not supported.

Supported file systems that are not located on logical volumes, other file systems and network file systems like NFS or SMB shares can be backed up using the snapshot-less mode only. For details, see the Snapshot-Less File-Level Backup section in the Veeam Agent for Linux User Guide.

Software

Important! Check considerations and limitations that apply to the list of supported components.

Protected computer must have the following components installed:

  • libacl
  • libattr
  • lvm2
  • libfuse2 (FUSE libraries for Debian-based and SLES-based systems)
  • fuse-libs (FUSE libraries for RedHat-based and Fedora systems)
  • dmidecode2
  • efibootmgr (for UEFI-based systems)2
  • isolinux (for Debian-based systems)2
  • syslinux (for RedHat-based systems)
  • btrfs-progs (for backup of BTRFS file system)
  • mksquashfs (for custom Veeam Recovery Media)2
  • unsquashfs (for custom Veeam Recovery Media)2
  • wget (for custom Veeam Recovery Media)2
  • xorriso (for custom Veeam Recovery Media with EFI support)2
  • tar (for file system indexing, log export and rotation)
  • gzip (for file system indexing, log export and rotation)

2 Nosnap Veeam Agent for Linux on Power does not require the following packages: dmidecode, efibootmgr, isolunux, mksquashfs, unsquashfs, wget and xorriso.

Considerations and Limitations

OS

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.

  • The Linux OS must be set up to receive software updates from the default repositories enabled in the OS after installation.

File System

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

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.

System Requirements for Computers with nosnap Veeam Agent NOTE

Consider the following:

  • During volume-level backup, data from shared disks, clustered file systems or clustered LVM will not be backed up.
  • To perform volume-level backup, Veeam Agent for Linux will create an LVM snapshot, which can cause instability of the cluster or cluster software. This can happen due to the failover conditions configured for the cluster. However, if the cluster instability is caused by creation of an LVM snapshot only during backup, contact Veeam support for assistance.
  • Backup of clustered file systems using a native file system snapshot is not supported. This includes snapshots created with the help of custom pre-job or post-job scripts.
  • The following objects can be backed up only by snapshot-less file-level backup:
  • Files on shared disks, clustered file systems or clustered LVM.
  • Files on local file systems that are not hosted by LVM.
  • Sparse files are not supported. Veeam Agent backs up and restores sparse files as regular files.
  • Backup of pseudo file systems, such as /proc, /sys, tmpfs, devfs and others, is not supported.

Software

System Requirements for Computers with nosnap Veeam Agent IMPORTANT

Linux user account used to work with Veeam Agent for Linux must have the /bin/bash shell set as the default shell.

Page updated 12/28/2023

Page content applies to build 12.1.1.56