ActiveImage Protector 4.5 Readme
Revised on March 28, 2017
This document contains the following information you will find important when you use ActiveImage Protector. It is highly recommended that you read this document carefully before starting to install ActiveImage Protector.
Table of Contents
System Requirements
Precautions when upgrading from earlier version
User Guide and related documents
Limitations and Precautions
CPU
Pentium 4 or above
Main Memory
1024MB is required. (2048MB or above is recommended.)
Hard Disk Space
400MB or more of available hard disk space is required at setup.
In addition to the above, the following hard disk space is required to reserve working space in "/var/opt". Normally, the following working space is automatically reserved when installing the product.
- 3% of the total volume size of the device, of which entry is added to "/etc/fstab", is required as working space for snapshot (the working space is also used to back up with Deduplication Feature).
- 0.01% of the total volume size of the device, of which entry is added to "/etc/fstab", is required as working space to create bitmap for incremental backup.
DVD-ROM Drive
Required to install the product (boot up the product) and boot up Boot Environment.
Linux Distributions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.0 - 6.7 (i386, x86_64)
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 - 5.11 (i386, x86_64)
CentOS
- CentOS 7.0
- CentOS 6.0 - 6.7 (i386, x86_64)
- CentOS 5.0 - 5.11 (i386, x86_64)
- In the event that "Permission denied" error message occurs, please use the following command to remount and try installation again. (Device name: "/media/AIPxx_Linux")
# mount -o remount,exec <Device Name>
- If the following modules are not set up in the environment, before you start setting up this program, “yum” command or “rpm” command must be used to set up RPM package corresponding to the following:
libstdc++.i686, libuuid.i686, glibc.i686, zlib.i686
* For further details, please visit here.
- If your system environment does not support Linux Ext4, backup of large capacity (over 2TB) disks is not supported. “yum” command or “rpm” command must be used to set up RPM package corresponding to the following:
e4fsprogs
- To launch GUI, the following module must be set up. Before launching GUI, “yum” command or “rpm” command must be used to set up RPM package corresponding to the following:
libxcb.i686, libXrender.i686, libXext.i686, libXau.i686, libX11.i686, libSM.i686, libICE.i686, glib2.i686, freetype.i686, fontconfig.i686, expat.i686
* For further details, please visit here.
- Since this product includes loadable kernel module, it may not run properly on the most recent kernel version released after this product. Before starting to install this product or updating kernel version, please refer to the list of evaluated kernel versions.
* For further details, please visit here.
File System
Linux Ext2 / Linux Ext3 / Linux Ext4 / Linux Swap / Linux LVM (volume group and logical volume) / Linux RAID
* Linux RAID is not supported if RAID is configured by using dmraid.
* Only full sector backup of XFS volume is supported. Smart sector backup image files of XFS volume cannot be properly restored.
* As for backup image files for the file system other than the above, full sector backup is created.
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Inherit settings / profiles from Version 4.5.0 or 4.5.1
- If the current version of ActiveImage Protector is installed to the environment where an earlier version of ActiveImage Protector is installed, the earlier version is automatically uninstalled before installing the current version of ActiveImage Protector (4.5.2).
If you select [Yes] to [Do you want to keep current configuration?], the current profiles, schedules and other settings are inherited. If you select [No], these settings are deleted and not inherited.
- If the earlier version is uninstalled before installing the current version, please use the installer for the current version instead of the installer for an earlier version.
- After upgrading from an earlier version to the current version, you do not need to restart your computer.
Inherit settings / profiles from Version 4.0 or 4.1
- In the event that the current settings with the version 4.0 or 4.1 are retained and upgraded to the current version, the settings and profiles are inherited to the current version. Profiles are automatically converted to xml file.
Inherit settings / profiles from Version 3.5 or earlier
- In the event that the current settings with Version 3.5 or earlier version are inherited to the upgraded version, the settings and profiles are renamed to "*.ini.3x" (version 3.x) or "*.ini.2x"(version 2.x) and saved.
When upgraded to the current version, please take the following procedures to inherit the settings from the earlier version.
Inherit Settings
Use "vi" command to open "aip.ini.3x(2x)". Copy parameters from the file and paste them to the corresponding positions in "aip.ini".
Inherit Profiles
Now that the profile file format is changed from this version, the profiles created with version 3.5 or earlier cannot be inherited to the current version. The profiles created with version 3.5 are saved in "/opt/NetJapan/profiles" as "*.ini.3x(2x)", the use of "vi" command allows you to view the contents in the profile.
Activation Information
- In case that the product is upgraded from version 4.1 or earlier, even if you already activated the product, you need to activate the upgraded version again.
- In case that the product is upgraded from version 4.5.0 or 4.5.1 to the current version, if you already activated the product, the activation information is carried on into the upgraded version.
Compatibility of Backup Images
- Version 4.5.1 or earlier version is not upward compatible and does not support the use of backup image files created with this version (4.5.2).
- This current version (4.5.2) is downward compatible and supports the use of backup image files created with an earlier version.
- Restore Image Wizard in GUI does not support LVM backup images created with version 3.5 or earlier. Launch terminal window and run the following command to use Restore Image Wizard in CUI which supports the earlier versions.
#/opt/NetJapan/aiprestore_lvm_35
Back to Table of Contents
User Guide in English and related documents can be found in [Doc] - [en] folder in the product's media.
Related Documents
- Index.html： Provides links to the related documents such as this Readme, Release Note, Technical Support, etc.
User Guide
The following User Guides can be found in [Guide] - [en] folder.
- GUI_Backup-Restore_Guide.pdf： User Guide contains information about backup and restore procedures using ActiveImage console (GUI).
- CUI_Backup-Restore_Guide.pdf：User Guide contains information about backup and restore procedures using aipmng (CUI).
Basic Points
Backup and Restore
Backup
Restore
Offsite Replication
Mount / Unmount Image File
Others
Connect to Remote Computer
ActiveImage Boot Environment
Precautions for backup with Deduplication Compression option enabled in boot environment
Operation procedures using aipmng (CUI)
- Optical media such as CD-R/DVD-R and tape devices are not supported as the destination storage to directly save backup image files.
- Mount Image, Consolidate Image Files and Archive Backup Image Files features do not support images written on optical media such as CD-R/DVD-R.
- If [Temporary Change Tracking] option is selected by default for [Tracking Settings], the tracking information is purged whenever the computer is restarted. After rebooting system, the first scheduled backup is full backup instead of incremental, if this option is enabled. Thereafter, incremental backup files are created according to the specified schedule, associated to the firstly created full backup.
Before selecting [Persistent change tracking] option, please make sure that you have unmounted volume with sufficient available space.
- To add another volume as a tracking target, please add the entry of the volume to "/etc/fstab" and re-configure the settings for the program.
- The following three formats are supported for tracking target volumes of which entries are added to "/etc/fstab". If "auto" is selected for the file type of "fstab", the volume is not identified as tracking target volume. Please make sure the specific file type is entered.
- Block special file name
- UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
- LABEL=volume-label
- Differential backup schedule created with version 3.5 or an earlier version and [Do disk based backup] do not work with version 4.0 or later.
Since LVM backup has been changed with version 4.0, the backup schedule inherited from earlier version must be edited / updated or recreated.
- The use of "fdisk" command in ActiveImage Protector Linux Edition initializes the disks recognized as uninitialized at the following timings.
In the event that a connected disk is used as RAW device and unpartitioned, the data in the first sector may be changed as a result of initialization processing.
The disks as such need to be partitioned so that by allocating a partition to RAW device, you should be able to avoid data loss from the first sector.
- When "aipcontrol diskinfo" command is executed.
- When backup task is started.
- When Restore Image wizard is launched.
- When GUI is launched.
- Backup image cannot be restored to the disk of which sector size is different from backup source.
- If a lot of storage devices are connected to the system, start-up of ActiveImage console may take long.
- ActiveImage Protector supports up to the maximum number of 31 disks per system.
Up to the maximum number of 24 volumes per disk are supported.
- Before creating iso image of Boot Environment please make sure that "mkisofs" is configured in the system.
- When you select to display ActiveImage console in Japanese, the default font "IPA P Gothic" is selected.
If the settings are not configured in advance, please use ActiveImage console after you configure the settings
Top of the topic
- In case working space for snapshot is not reserved during installation, please select [Preference] - [Snapshot] to reserve snapshot working space.
In the event that snapshot working space is not reserved, backup by taking a snapshot or Deduplication Compression feature may fail.
- AIP supports backup of the maximum size of 15TB volume.
For example, in case 20TB disk is partitioned into 10TB and 10TB volumes, both disk based and volume based backup are supported. However, in case that the 20TB disk is not partitioned, backup of 20TB disk is not supported.
- Since backup feature of this product uses loopback device provided by OS, you need to change the number of loopback devices according to the number of backup source volumes.
The number of loopback devices required for backup is the number of backup source volumes + 2.
If necessary, please change the number of loopback devices referring to the following.
For example, if you want to change the number of loopback devices to 16 when OS is booted up, please add the following command to "/etc/rc.local".
MAKEDEV -m 16 /dev/loop
- If the schedule is defined and applied within five minutes or less before the first scheduled start time, the first task will not be executed according to the schedule.
- If your machine is restarted while backup process is in progress, restart of the machine does not resume the aborted backup process. The same backup task needs to be executed again.
- In the event that the schedule settings are edited and the destination to save the image files is changed, the file names in the image file set created in the newly specified destination and the already existing image files saved in the previous destination may be duplicated.
The consistency and sequence of the created image files are guaranteed for image file set saved in a single destination.
- If a removable disk such as external USB HDD is specified as backup destination, please make sure you do not disconnect the removable disk while execution of the task is suspended.
The task resumed after reconnecting the USB HDD will fail.
- You are recommended to specify HDD other than backup source or a network shared folder as the destination to save backup image files.
If you need to specify backup source HDD as the destination to save backup image files, you need to reserve working space for snapshot larger than the storage space for image files.
Also, task process time may take longer.
- In [Select Folder] page, you may not be allowed to log in shared folder on host which static IP address is allocated to.
If you encounter the problem, please specify IP address for the host.
- If [Continue operation without deduplication] option is selected in [Preference] - [Deduplication], please restart ActiveImage console.
Until ActiveImage console is restarted, the option setting will not become active in Backup Wizard.
- Before you back up XFS formatted volume, please make sure you enabled [Include free space in image] option in [Advanced Option].
You should fail to boot up the system restored from backup image which was created with this option disabled.
- In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or CentOS 5 environment, even if you select [Preference] - [Tracking Settings] and enable [Persistent change tracking] option, after rebooting system, full backup image file is created instead of incremental backup image.
- In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or CentOS 5 environment, working space for snapshot cannot be reserved in Linux Ext4 volume where e4fsprogs is installed and configured.
Please specify Linux Ext3 volume to reserve working space for snapshot.
- The settings configured for post task action are not shown in [Summary] page.
- If a scheduled task does not start according to the schedule, the problem may be solved by restarting the service. Please copy the script [service_stop_start.sh] located under [utility] folder in the product media to a local folder and run the script from terminal.
# bash service_stop_start.sh
- When a backup image created for [LVM system] device type is selected as restore source, all of the image files created at the same time are selected.
- Restore of swap area by volume is not supported.
- Restore to Software RAID (mdraid) disk configured with mdadm by volume may fail.
In the event that you encounter this failure, please enter the following command to use aipmng (CUI) and try again.
# aipmng --restore
- The contents in the target disk in LVM system will be completely purged at the same time restore process is started.
If a target volume already exists, backup of the existing target should be created before executing restore processing.
- To restore and overwrite LV except for the rear most in VG where multiple LV's exist, the restored LV will be displayed at the end of the disk map after restore process is completed.
- Mounted volume, boot volume, PV, mdraid configured volume cannot be specified as restore target.
With ActiveImage console launched, if the volume mounted in local system is specified as restore target, please select [View] - [Refresh] after unmounting the volume in the system before executing restore process.
- When a volume is restored to overwrite an existing volume, [Target] indicates to be "unallocated space" in [Summary] page in restore wizard.
- Even when [Purge task log together] option is disabled, information displayed by selecting [Dashboard] - [Task Log] is purged.
- If you change [Port] in [Host settings for connection], connection with AIP agent may not be established.
If you experience this problem, please restart the system and try again.
- A restored partition may be indicated as [Unknown] in the disk map.
If you experience this problem, click on [Refresh] on the window.
- In the event that you click on [Back] to edit settings in a specific page, a warning message about the settings before you changed may be displayed.
- In [Restore Image Wizard], a backup image of Software RAID (mdraid) configured by using mdadm is indicated as Basic disk. This is just an indication error and the image, when restored, can be correctly recognized as Software RAID (mdraid).
- When you try to select an image file, spirit files (CHNK file) are allowed to be selected, however, please do not select them.
If you select sprit files, console may crash.
- If a volume of tracking target is restored and overwritten, since the changes occurred as a result of restore process are identified as the changes, the size of the image file created by the first incremental backup is larger.
To avoid this problem, run a full backup task or run the following command to reboot the device of tracking target before the next incremental backup task is started.
After tracking is restarted, the first scheduled backup is a full backup instead of an incremental.
#/etc/aipsnap disable_tracker <Block Device Name>
#/etc/aipsnap enable_tracker <Block Device Name>
- In RedHat5 or CentOS5 environment, in the event that block device mapped with udev.rules is not mounted in advance, the block device cannot be recognized as backup source.Once the block device is mounted, even after unmounted, the device is recognized as backup source.
- Restore and overwrite to configured but unpartitioned volumes is not supported.
- Restore by volume does not support restore to logical volume.
- Please make sure the specified restore target has larger space than restore source before you start restoring a volume to available space.
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If you select WebDAV, FTP, SFTP or Amazon S3 for off-site replication target, only single-byte alphanumeric characters can be used to specify the path to the target location.
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If you execute consolidation of image files located in the destination storage for scheduled backup with Replication option enabled at remote host other than backup source, the following has to be taken care of:
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Please make sure [Always keep this target same as destination] option is enabled.
In the event that consolidation of image files is executed with this option disabled, data integrity in image file set cannot be ensured at replication target.
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After consolidation at remote host other than the backup source, if the sizes of the image file of which number is changed at the storage and the image file named the same at the replication target are identical, the image file cannot be replication source.
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Before executing consolidation of image files on replication target, please make sure [Allow consolidation at this target] option is enabled.
In the event that backup of image files is executed with this option enabled, the following limitations are imposed.
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Newly created image files can be specified as replication source.
If this option is enabled for replication target, no other replication option can be selected.
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Consolidation cannot be executed at backup destination.
* With this option disabled or by deleting schedule, the above described limitations are lifted.
* When you executed consolidation of image files on replication target with this option disabled, depending on the settings for other replication options, there may be cases that data integrity in image file set cannot be ensured.
Ex: With "Always keep this target same as destination" option enabled, the result of consolidation executed on replication target is overwritten by the result at the storage destination of backup image files.
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When SFTP is selected for replication target, SSH server using SSH1 protocol for authentication is not supported.
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Replication to SFTP target takes longer than uploading through use of third party client tool.
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Before selecting Amazon S3 for replication target, please make sure AWSCLI is configured on the system.
For more detailed information about AWSCLI configuration procedures, please visit Amazon Web Service.
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Replication settings are not displayed in Schedule information in Dashboard.
Top of the topic
- In [Image Mount], file system of the following volumes is recognized as "Unknown".
- GPT Volume
- Volumes in the image file created with an earlier version of ActiveImage Protector.
- In the event that a part of backup image file which includes multiple volumes is mounted as read only, aix file cannot be created for other volumes mounted as writable.
- If you mount an image in the environment where mount driver is not properly applied, you get the message "[19] Unknown AIP error".
- Operation log in Image Explorer is not recorded in task log.
- In case that the image files in network folder which is not mounted on local system are consolidated, or in case that some data are deleted from an incremental image file which is included in an archived file, the archived image size is not decreased by the deleted data size but the size may grow up.
- When XFS volume in backup image is mounted, "Unknown AIP error" occurs.
- When the height of file information window is changed in Image Explorer by using mouse, "Details" and "Disk Map" buttons are hidden.
- Even when [Force unmount even if in use] option is enabled, the image file may not be properly unmounted.
- Mounting a differential image file (.aix) created to include changes made to an image file mounted as writable is not supported.
- If an incremental file in an image set is lost, you cannot use any image in the image set for operation.
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- To copy files / folders in [Open Image File] or [Select Folder] dialog, please edit the extended attributes of the copy source such as permission, owner user / group, SELinux context, etc., accordingly.
- With ActiveImage console launched, the volume mounted in local system is indicated to be available for [Device for tracking] in [Tracking settings] in [Preference].
In the event that a volume is mounted after local system is booted up, please restart ActiveImage console.
- You cannot use "/" in [Create Support Info].
- If a comment is entered in Backup Wizard, line feeds may be inserted to the comment to be indicated in [Summary] page.
- ActiveImage Protector CLI menu cannot be called as a user belonging to Wheel group.
- In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or CentOS 7 environment, ActiveImage Protector CLI cannot be started from menu.
- In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or CentOS 7 environment, GUI does not support Japanese to enter comment for backup operation, etc.
- In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or CentOS 7 environment, if firewalld is disable, installation of the product may fail.
- For E-Mail notification, please make sure [Use this SMTP server] is enabled by selecting [Preference] - [Notification].
- In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 or CentOS 7 environment, booting the product after kernel update does not automatically download driver.
- [Remember the last window size and location] option, even if enabled in [Preference］- [Console], may not properly behave.
- In the event that you activate the product upon installation, if a space is included to specify User Name, activation of the product will fail.
Activation of the product with User Name including a space is allowed in GUI.
- In the event that a pile of task log records are stored, booting ActiveImage console may take longer.
Top of the topic
- To connect to a remote host using ActiveImage console, the following settings need to be configured.
Remote Host (Managed)
Please make sure Windows Firewall (iptables) exception settings are configured to open the following TCP/UDP ports.
When you install ActiveImage agent, you can select [Set firewall exception] option to automatically configure the exception settings to open the following ports.
- TCP port 48236 (to connect to a remote computer)
- UDP port 48238 (to connect to a remote computer)
- UDP port 137 (to browse shared folders)
If [system-config-firewall] (firewall setting tool provided by GUI) is used, please manually configure the settings to open the following TCP/UDP ports instead of using program's installer.
- TCP Port 48236
- UDP Port 48238
- UDP Port 137
ActiveImage console (Managing)
Select [Set firewall exception] option when installing the program, and settings are automatically configured to open the following UDP port.
- UDP port 48239 (to connect to a remote computer)
If [system-config-firewall] (firewall setting tool provided by GUI) is used, please manually configure the settings to open the ports.
To install Windows management console, the required settings must be configured by using the program's installer.
- When you establish connection with a remote host which an earlier version of ActiveImage agent is installed, version 4.5 menu is provided.
- While connection to remote host is live, the following information is not updated in real time.
- Schedule information on Dashboard
- List of images after [Delete Image] of [Image Management] was executed
- In the event that remote host for connection target in different segment is not listed in [Computer List], you can enter IP address of the remote host for connection target.
To connect to remote host using net share command in Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Firewall may ask you for Netlogon Service permission.
- When you establish connection with a remote host which an earlier version (4.0/4.1) of ActiveImage agent is installed, you are allowed to use commands supported by the version of ActiveImage agent on connection target.
- When connected to remote host, Delete Image function of Image Explorer is disabled in context menu.
- Sorting of IP addresses in remote connection window does not work properly.
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- Red Hat Enterprise 5 or CentOS
5 environment with "-noefi" option enabled does not support EFI boot.
- While booting up ActiveImage Boot Environment in BIOS boot environment, key board operation may cause unnecessary control to be displayed and ActiveImage Boot Environment may not boot up.
If you experience this problem, press Enter key twice or more times to boot up ActiveImage Boot Environment.
- Japanese language input is not supported.
- Reference to help is not supported.
- When booting up generation 2 Hyper-V virtual machine, please make sure [Enable secure boot] option is disabled in Firmware settings for virtual machine.
- VolGroup in encrypted system environment is not properly recognized.
- When you select a file to restore or in Image Explorer, [Date Modified] is shown in UTC.
- Post-task process option is not supported.
- VolGroup cannot be correctly recognized in the environment configured by Intel RAID. Also, backup image of LVM cannot be restored from GUI. To restore, please run the following command.
# /opt/NetJapan/aipcontrol restorelvm [Disk Image Name] [VolGroup Image Name] [IntelRAID Device Name]
- "/tmp" is used as the temporary work folder for backup with Deduplication Compression option enabled in boot environment.
In the event that the size of duplicate data grows to exceed the space in "/tmp" folder, you can change the location of temporary work folder for backup with Deduplication Compression by taking the procedures of Step 2 [Select Destination] in Backup Wizard.
- In the event that you open the dialog to change the location of temporary work folder for Deduplication Compression and select [Cancel], "/" is specified.
- [Continue operation without deduplication] option cannot be selected when [Deduplication Compression] is selected to back up in Boot Environment.
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Backup with Replication option enabled is not supported.
Also, creating backup schedule is not supported.
- A volume / LV may not be selected to restore to available space.
- In the event that you run "Restore a partition" to Software RAID (mdraid) volume configured with mdadm, you will get "-553 No open file" message.
Please run the following command to restore mdraid volume.
# aipcontrol restorevolume <image path> <md dev path>
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