Preparing for Linux Guest Files Search and Restore

To be able to view, search and restore machine guest files for Linux machines, you should take several preparatory steps as described below:

1. If you want to enable Linux guest files indexing, use the corresponding machine backup job options (Index everything, Index everything except, or Index only following folders option). For details, refer to the Indexing Options section of this guide and to the “Creating Backup Jobs> Enable Application-Aware Image Processing and Indexing” section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide. Starting with Veeam Backup & Replication v9, however, indexing is optional - you can browse and restore machine guest files from the restore points created without guest indexing. For details, refer to the Browsing Machine Backups for Guest OS Files  and Performing 1-Click File Restore sections.

2. For proper Linux file system indexing, Veeam Backup & Replication requires several utilities to be installed on the machine: mlocate, gzip, and tar. If these utilities are not found, you will be prompted to deploy them to support index creation.
3. By default, guest files restore to the original location will be performed using the account specified in the corresponding machine backup job. If it does not have sufficient access to target machine, you will be prompted for the credentials. Specify user account and password with sufficient access rights.
   For details, refer to the Guest OS Credentials section of this guide and the “Creating Backup Jobs> Enable Application-Aware Image Processing and Indexing” section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.

Linux FLR Helper Appliance

To perform Linux machine guest files restore, FLR helper appliance should be configured on the corresponding Veeam backup server (one that controls the backup job processing selected machine). For details on FLR helper configuration, please refer to the “Multi-OS File Level Recovery” section of the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide. These settings are saved in Veeam Backup & Replication database on per-user basis; they will be applied each time the certain user starts Linux file-level restore.

When Linux guest file-level restore is then started from Enterprise Manager, FLR helper configuration settings are obtained from the database of the corresponding Veeam backup server. If no FLR helper configuration is found for current user account, Veeam will use default settings (those set during the latest FLR appliance configuration process in Veeam backup console). Thus, before starting Linux machine file-level restore from Enterprise Manager, make sure that Linux FLR helper settings had been configured on Veeam backup server.