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Restore from Linux, Unix and Other File Systems

The restore from Linux, Unix and other file systems method helps you restore files from Linux, Solaris, BSD, Novell Storage Services, Unix and Mac machines. For the list of supported OSes and file systems, see Platform Support.

You can restore files to the original or new location, access restored files using FTP or launch application item restore for the files. For more information, see Finalize Restore.

Note

You can also recover guest OS files of VMware vSphere VMs directly from storage snapshots. For more information on how restore from storage snapshots works, see the Linux, Unix and Other File System Restore from Storage Snapshots section.

 

How Restore Works

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

  • Mounting disks to a helper host. As a helper host, you can select the target host where you want to restore files from the backup 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 1024 MB RAM and takes around 10 seconds to boot.

When you perform guest OS file restore, Veeam Backup & Replication performs the following operations:

  1. [If you have selected to mount disks to a helper appliance] Veeam Backup & Replication deploys the helper appliance on the ESXi host in the virtual infrastructure.
  2. Veeam Backup & Replication mounts disks of a VM from the backup or replica to the host selected as a helper host or helper appliance. The backup file or VM replica itself remains in the read-only state in the backup repository or datastore.
  3. Veeam Backup & Replication launches the Veeam Backup browser where mounted VM disks are displayed. You can browse the VM guest file system in the Veeam Backup browser and restore files or folders to the original VM or to another location. Also, you can enable an FTP server on the virtual appliance and allow VM owners to restore files themselves.
  4. Veeam Backup & Replication connects to the VM to which you restore files (target VM) and deploys the agent which performs restore. During the restore process, the helper host or helper appliance connects to the VM over network or VIX API/vSphere Web Services, if a connection over the network cannot be established.
  5. When you close the Veeam Backup browser or it is closed by timeout, Veeam Backup & Replication unmounts the content of the backup file or replica from the helper appliance or helper host.
  6. [If you have selected to mount disks to a helper appliance] Veeam Backup & Replication unregisters the helper appliance on the ESXi host.

Related Topics

Restoring VM Guest OS Files (Multi-OS)