Performing File-Level Recovery

In case a disaster strikes, you can recover corrupted or missing files of a VM instance from a cloud-native snapshot or image-level backup. Veeam Backup for Google Cloud allows you to download the necessary files and folders to a local machine using the File-Level Restore browser.

Important

You can recover files and folders from the following file systems only:

Microsoft Windows systems — FAT, FAT32, NTFS.
Linux systems — ext2, ext3, ext4, XFS, Btrfs.

How File-Level Recovery Works

To recover files and folders of a backed-up VM instance, Veeam Backup for Google Cloud performs the following steps:

Deploys a worker instance within the worker project in either of the following Google Cloud regions:

To restore files and folders from a cloud-native snapshot, the worker instance is deployed in the region in which the source VM instance resides.
To restore files and folders from an image-level backup, the worker instance is deployed in the region in which the storage bucket with backed-up data resides.

For more information on how to specify a project for worker instances, see Managing Worker Configurations.

When restoring files and folders from a cloud-native snapshot, attaches persistent disks of the VM instance to the worker instance.

When restoring files and folders from an image-level backup, the disks are not physically extracted from the backup — Veeam Backup for Google Cloud emulates their presence on the worker instance. The source backup itself remains in the read-only state.

Launches the File-Level Restore browser.

The File-Level Restore browser displays the file system tree of the backed-up VM instance. In the browser, you select the necessary files and folders to restore.

Saves the selected files and folders to the local machine.
Removes the worker instance from Google Cloud.

How to Perform File-Level Recovery

To recover files and folders of a protected VM instance, do the following:

Important

Before you start file-level recovery, make sure that network settings are configured for each region where worker instances will be deployed during the recovery process. For information on how to configure network settings, see Adding Worker Configurations.
Make sure the machine where you plan to open the File-Level Restore browser is allowed to access the worker instances over the internet. To enable internet access for a worker instance, update the firewall rule specified in the instance network settings to add an inbound rule for HTTPS traffic on the port 443. For information on how to update firewall rules, see Google Cloud documentation.