Guest OS Restore from Linux, Unix and Other File Systems

You can restore VM guest OS files from a storage snapshot. Veeam Backup & Replication supports file-level restore for the most commonly used file systems on Linux, Solaris, BSD, Unix and Micro Focus OES. For the full list of supported file systems, see Platform Support.

How Restore Works

When you perform guest OS file restore, Veeam Backup & Replication provides the following options for mounting VM disks from a snapshot:

• Mounting disks to a helper host. As a helper host, you can select the target host where you want to restore files from the snapshot or any other Linux server. We recommend you to specify the same server to which you want to restore the files. This will improve the performance.
• Mounting disks to a helper appliance. The helper appliance is a helper VM running a stripped down Linux kernel that has minimal set of components. The appliance is quite small — around 50 MB. It requires 2048 MB RAM and 2 CPU.

When you perform file-level restore, Veeam Backup & Replication does the following:

1. On an ESXi host in your virtual environment, Veeam Backup & Replication creates a clone/virtual copy of the storage snapshot where the VM disks are hosted. Veeam Backup & Replication mounts the clone/virtual copy to the selected ESXi host as a new datastore.
2. [If you have selected to mount disks to a helper appliance] Veeam Backup & Replication copies an ISO of the helper appliance to the datastore and starts the helper appliance.
3. Veeam Backup & Replication mounts the restored VM disks to the helper appliance or helper host as virtual hard drives. VMDK files are mounted directly from storage snapshots.
4. After disks are mounted, Veeam Backup & Replication launches the Veeam Backup browser where mounted VM disks are displayed. In the browser, you can restore files and folders to their original location, local machine drive or save them in a network shared folder.
5. Depending on which restore command you use, the operations differ:

• You select the Restore or Restore to command to restore files to the original location or to another VMware vSphere VM.

The helper host or helper appliance connects to the VM to which you restore files (target VM) over SSH or VIX API/vSphere Web Services if a connection over SSH cannot be established. Then Veeam Backup & Replication deploys on the VM the agent which performs restore.

• If you restore files to a new location, select the Copy to command.

The helper host or helper appliance connects to the VM to which you restore files (target VM) over the network. Then Veeam Backup & Replication deploys on the VM the agent which performs restore.

6. When the restore process is finished, Veeam Backup & Replication deletes the datastore, unmounts the clone/virtual copy from the ESXi host and then deletes this copy.
7. [If you have selected to mount disks to a helper appliance] Veeam Backup & Replication unregisters the helper appliance.

Requirements for Linux, Unix and Other File Systems Restore from Storage Snapshots

Before you perform backup from storage snapshots, check requirements specific for data recovery in Data Recovery from Storage Snapshots Requirements and Limitations.

Performing Linux, Unix and Other File System Restore from Storage Snapshots

For information on performing restore from Linux, Unix and other file systems, see section the Restoring VM Guest OS Files (Multi-OS) section in the Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide.