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Introduction:
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Veritas was acquired by Symantec in December of 2004, and has since been heavily developed to include many new supported operating systems. This howto will give a person ideas on how to use a backup server that many organizations require their network. As an administrator to also ensure backups are done regularly and be able to be restored as well.

The second solution you will discover is know as Storegrid. Storegrid is provided by Vembu Technologies established in 2004. Storegrid is widely used in the industry along side of Veritas, and is gaining some market-share with their free products.

After this howto, you should have developed an opinion on which solution to use to backup your servers in the future. These solutions are complex to configure and learn, but once you know one, the configurations get easier for every other.

The two solutions for this project are a limited trial license, you will only have 30 days to use them. This is plenty of time for our the purposes of this documentation. Places using Veritas include: the local school districts use Veritas, Malaspina uses Veritas, the Ministry of Transportation also uses this product. Storegrid is gaining ground slowly, but does not have many large partners behind it as of this time.

With storegrids model for licensicing, there one day might be a change in backup solutions due to their competitive strategy.

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System and Requirements:
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::A Windows Server 2003 machine
::A Linux box ( preferably Cent0S 5 or Fedora 7)
::A Windows XP box

Static IP for the Windows Server machine and for it to be preferably a native install over VMware.

Trials:
Veritas Server for Windows
Veritas Client for Linux
Storegrid professional

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Goals:
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1. Download Storegrid and Veritas from the following links:
 http://www.vembu.com/storegrid/data-backup.html
 https://www4.symantec.com/Vrt/offer?a_id=45046
2. Install Veritas on Windows 2003 Server; an installation guide is available in the resources
section below.
3. Install Storegrid on Windows 2003 Server or Linux server; an installation guide is available in the resources section below.
4. Once you have installed Veritas on your server, setup the solution to meet the following
requirements:
 Veritas should backup your My Documents directory on your Windows
Workstation on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
 Veritas should backup your Linux workstation’s /etc directory every day at 11PM
 Veritas should backup your 2003 Server’s Registry every 4 hours
 Veritas should backup another Linux workstation on Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays at 2AM
 Any failed backup jobs should notify you via your email account
6. And finally, once you have installed Storegrid on your server, setup the solution to meet
the following requirements:
 Storegrid should backup your Windows workstation System state once a week
 Storegrid should backup the /etc/ directory on your Linux workstation every
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
 Storegrid should backup your Window’s 2003 Server registry every Monday, Wednesday and Friday
 Storegrid should backup two other stations (Linux or Windows, or mixed)

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Veritas Installation:
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Windows 2003 Server:
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Install Backup software, its a typical installation.
Do the environment check before the installation to see if there are any serious errors.

Note: When asked what modules to install, carefully choose the ones you need to install. I choose ones for Sharepoint, Linux server/desktop stuff and any others like msSQL.

Click next like a good Microsoft Administrator and grab a coffee because the installation should take a few minutes.

After completion do the updates.

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Linux Client Installation:
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On the Linux box, have the installer and associated files on the box.

In the terminal:

chmod -R 777 directoryThatHasInstaller

Navigate to the directory and run the installer in the terminal:
./installralus

The installer is pretty self explanatory, just a note: keep in mind what the servers IP is and enter it when needed. The defaults are good enough.

Start VRralus.init
cd /etc/init.d
./VRTSralus.init start

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Note: It will probably fail so install the following:
yum install libstdc*
yum install compat-libstdc*
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Try restarting again if you had a fail.

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Note: Personally this section gave me a huge headache, sometimes it would start, and sometimes it would FAIL. Why? no particular reason, however, I would have to conclude that the answer is within a unwritten chapter in every Linux book: Random unexplainable crap that happens in Linux.

Second Note: if having problems connecting to this Linux client, the answer may revolve about the starting/failing.
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Back on the Windows Server we want to see if you can even see/connect to the unwanted client.

Run the Backup Server Software, goto the Backup option in the menu. Click your way through it and when you get to A Norton Commander type screen, you know you found the cash money.

Also hit the devices tab and create a location for the backed up files to go to. It is pretty self explanatory.

Select the Linux portion, and you should see your Linux box. Right click and connect as. Here you want to select connect as and make a new account profile for that Linux box (Makes sense).

Go back out and hopefully you can connect. Select the root, select the files you want to back up and hit next.

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Pushing Backup Software To The Windows Client:
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Now for a Windows client, it will be similar to connecting to a linux box however, one major difference.

Run the Backup Server Software, goto the Backup option in the menu. Click your way through it and when you get to A Norton Commander type screen, you know you found the cash money.

Instead of going to the Linux section, goto the Domain section and the Microsoft Windows Network. It should be just like the Windows Network browser. Select the machine by right clicking and select the option "Install Remote..." Don't need anymore detail here, it is pretty straight forward and if you have gotten this far, you don't need to be spoon fed.

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Configuring Alerts:
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To schedule alerts and their recipients do the following:

On the main page of the Backup software, select alerts on the topish menu. On the Left hand side menus there should be a section called Notification Tasks.

In there you want to do:
a.) Configure email and pagers
b.) Configure recipients.

Those two are self explanatory, but keep in mind you will have to know typical mail info such as the mail server domain name.

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Scheduling Jobs:
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Create a backup through the backup tab. Don't let it run immediately and get back to the main page. Select "Job Setup" from the main menu area.

Below in the job history, select the backup you want to schedule, right click and goto properties.

Select "Schedule" under the "Frequency" header on the left menu.
Select the radial button: "Run according to schedule" and then click the button: "Edit Schedule Details."

There you can select how you want the job to run. For example, you might want to run a backup every Tuesday and 11PM or on multiple days.

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Adding Another Backup Server On Linux Client:
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vi /etc/VRTSralus/ralus.cfg

Look for a line that has your backupserver IP or looks like so and if not there add it:

Software\Symantec\Backup Exec For Windows\Backup Exec\Engine\Agents\Agent Directory List 1=142.25.97.197

For a second server, example as follows:

Software\Symantec\Backup Exec For Windows\Backup Exec\Engine\Agents\Agent Directory List 2=142.25.97.185

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Storegrid:
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Storegrid, the second solution seems to be finicky as well. Its web interfaces are slightly confusing, however, once understood and working the product is decent. As their products mature, I am sure their presentation and layouts will become more Administrator friendly. Now onto the installation:

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Storegrid Installation For Windows Machines:
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To complete the goals for this howto, you will need the professional edition. The Windows version does XP and Server2003. The Linux for Redhat 9+.

Install storegrid on the server 2003 box as a Client/Server, keep just about everything as defaults except for the administrator password.

Install storegrid on the XP box as a Client, keep just about everything as defaults except for the administrator password.

Checklist::
1.)Will have to add a peer on the client machine (aka: server is the peer)
2.)Check Server and do the above on the Server2003 box, but for itself.
3.)Authorize the Windows Client to be backed up onto the Server2003 box.

--------------------------------------------------------------------Adding Peers:
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Logon to the Windows Server and the Windows Client with your administrative credentials.

The logon wed console page will be located at http://machineIP:6060

Select Administration from the menu > "Add/Delete Peer"
In the machine name or IP screen in the correct form. I chose to use the IP of the machine and give it a unique id in the form below as well.

For the server select, client-server for machine type and the client, choose client.

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Authorizing Client:
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To add the Windows client do the following, otherwise, when you go to do a backup, you will definately get some nasty errors.

On the web console page on the Windows Server, go to the following through the menu:

Server Admin > Group Management

Once there select the Default Group. Here you could create a new group and what the purposes of this howto are, add the client to the appropriate group by: Selecting the server and selecting the add client icon.

A page will refresh and you will need to add the Client name and add the client. Also define the location of the backup on the server and size of location. The password fields are N/A for the purpose of this howto.

Client is now added and authorized to make such a backup to the server now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------Creating Backups:
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On the Client machines web console, configure the backups. This process is very self explanitory, but you should be leary of a few things:

Don't forget your password should you choose to encrypt the backup.
Storegrid has said it will not be recoverable if the password is LOST!

The time backups are operating, so they don't conflict with each other as well. Also mind the extra network traffic and bandwidth.

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Install Linux Client:
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Install this combination of packages:

yum install gcc g++ make zlib libpng freetype2 flex bison libxml2-devel build-essential libstdc++5 unzip openssl libssl-dev

Then install storegrids Linux client that you had already downloaded previously:

Navigate to its location and in the terminal type: ./NameofInstallerFile.sh

The installer should start its process, it should be very similar to the one Veritas uses. The only points to note are: do you want this to be a client or server, or both? the administrative credentials and port information. Also keep note of what this machines StoreGrid ID will be, it is a must know.

The installation will take quite sometime, don't worry if it appears to have frozen on apache initially. It should be ok.
If there are any errors and the installation fails. Delete the Vembu directory, install anything that was missing and make sure apache wasn't running.

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Add The Linux Client To The Backup Array:
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Since the Storegrid installation hopefully went successfully, log into the main Windows Server2003 Storegrid web console. For some sly reason, you cannot log into the Linux clients standalone, but you can only do so through the Servers.

On there we will add the Linux client and authorize it just like we did the Windows Client.

On the web console page on the Windows Server, go to the following through the menu:

Server Admin > Group Management

Once there select the Default Group. Here you could create a new group and what the purposes of this howto are, add the client to the appropriate group by: Selecting the server and selecting the add client icon.

A page will refresh and you will need to add the Client name and add the client. Also define the location of the backup on the server and size of location. The password fields are N/A for the purpose of this howto.

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Note:: You have to put in the Storegrid ID!
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Client is now added and authorized to make such a backup to the server now.

Now to get to the client, you will use the switch form and button in the web consoles menu. Now that you have switched to the Linux box, add the Windows server to the peers section of storegrid as a client/server and configure a backup.

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Conclusion:
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Commercial backups that are versatile, flexible and reliable are rare. Often they have pricetags that are well beyond a budget of most small businesses and in such a circumstance other patch work solutions are often used. Veritas has a higher pricing, and while being older, is the better of the two solutions presented here. Storegrid does have features that are different and very usefull, but it seems to have its own software flaws. Eventually, storegrid will become a wider used and a more solid solution.

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Resources:
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 Red Hat Certified Engineer Linux Study Guide - Chapter 1
 Installation Guide: Backup-Exec 11g: http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/
285734.htm
 Installation Guide: Storegrid: windows-offsite-installation-guide.pdf
 MySQL Backup: http://www.simplyoffsite.com/Support/
HowToBackupYourMySQLServerOnline.aspx
 Symantec Knowledge Base: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/
knowledge_base_sli.jsp