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.

  1. 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.
  2. [If you have selected to mount disks to a helper appliance] Veeam Backup & Replication unregisters the helper appliance.

Requirements for FAT, NTFS or ReFS Restore from Storage Snapshots

Before you restore VM guest OS files from storage snapshots, check the following requirements:

  • You must add the storage system to the backup infrastructure.
  • You must check limitations for data recovery from storage snapshots.
  • If you plan to restore VM guest OS files to their original location, make sure that VMware Tools are installed on the target VM.
  • Veeam Backup & Replication restores ACL for recovered VM guest OS files. To let Veeam Backup & Replication detect the target Linux system architecture and kernel version, make sure that arch and uname are installed on the VM guest OS.
  • Veeam Backup & Replication must have access to the guest OS of the target VM to be able to deploy a coordination process. The coordination process performs a number of administrative actions on the target VM guest OS, for example, collects information about mount points.
  • The mount server, whether it is a helper host or a helper appliance, must have access over a network to a VM whose files you restore or direct access to vCenter or ESXi host where the VM resides. If the mount server is connected to a VM whose files you restore through VIX API/vSphere Web Services, you must use a root account for a target VM, otherwise the restore process will fail.
  • For Linux target VM, consider the following:
    • If you want to restore files over network, make sure that the SSH daemon is configured and SCP utility is available on the target VM.
    • SELinux must be disabled on the target VM.
    • A range of ports that are used for data transfer must be open on the target VM.

For more information on configuring connection settings for Linux servers, see the Specify Credentials and SSH Settings step of the New Linux Server wizard.

  • [For storage systems working over Fibre Channel] To let Veeam Backup & Replication present snapshots of LUNs to an ESXi host, you must register the ESXi host with a WWN ID on the storage system.
  • [For NetApp ONTAP storage systems] Depending on the storage type, you may need to install additional licenses on the storage system. For more information, see Required Licenses for NetApp.

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.