Administration Guide
Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. 1 Welcome to Replibit ............................................................................................................. 6 Major Components ............................................................................................................ 6 The Agent ..................................................................................................................... 6 The Appliance ............................................................................................................... 6 The Vault ...................................................................................................................... 6 The Management Portal ................................................................................................. 6 The Licensing Portal ...................................................................................................... 7 Features ........................................................................................................................... 7 Image Based Backup ..................................................................................................... 7 Incremental Change Capture .......................................................................................... 7 No Chains (Snapshot Dependencies)............................................................................... 7 Branding ....................................................................................................................... 7 ConnectWise Integration ................................................................................................ 8 Email Alerting ................................................................................................................ 8 Automatic Updates ........................................................................................................ 8 Replication .................................................................................................................... 8 USB Seeding ................................................................................................................. 8 Export to VHD/VHDX/VMDK/VDI/RAW ............................................................................ 8 iSCSI Target Support ..................................................................................................... 8 NFS Export .................................................................................................................... 8 Central Licensing Server................................................................................................. 9 Flexible Scheduling ........................................................................................................ 9 ZFS Storage Pool ........................................................................................................... 9 MBR and UEFI ............................................................................................................... 9 Centralized Management ................................................................................................ 9 Support for Physical and Virtual Environments ................................................................. 9 Bare Metal Recovery ...................................................................................................... 9 Replibit Recovery Toolkit ................................................................................................ 9 Instant Recovery ......................................................................................................... 10 Clustering ................................................................................................................... 10 Nightly Boot Checks ..................................................................................................... 10
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Easy Data Migration ..................................................................................................... 10 Reliability .................................................................................................................... 10 Installation ........................................................................................................................ 11 Pre-Installation Information and Tasks ............................................................................. 11 Recommended Minimum Hardware Configuration ............................................................. 12 Download the Replibit Software ....................................................................................... 12 License Portal Configuration ............................................................................................ 12 Creating a Bootable USB Flash Drive ................................................................................ 12 Using Rufus to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive ......................................................... 13 Installation Process ......................................................................................................... 13 The Replibit Installer.................................................................................................... 14 Configuration Process...................................................................................................... 15 First Time Login and Initial Configuration ......................................................................... 18 Initial Storage Configuration ......................................................................................... 19 Licensing .................................................................................................................... 20 Agent Deployment .......................................................................................................... 20 Installing the Backup Agent.......................................................................................... 21 Installing the UEFI Agent ............................................................................................. 21 Settings ............................................................................................................................. 22 License Details (Appliances and Vaults Only) .................................................................... 22 API Key .......................................................................................................................... 22 Upload Logo ................................................................................................................... 23 Change Password ........................................................................................................... 23 Manage Users (Appliance Only) ....................................................................................... 23 Export Image Quota Settings (Appliance and Vault Only) .................................................. 24 Email Notifications (Appliance and Vault Only) .................................................................. 24 Alert Types ................................................................................................................. 24 Job Auto Delete Settings (Appliance and Vault Only) ......................................................... 25 Agent Monitoring (Appliance Only) ................................................................................... 25 Change Machine Name .................................................................................................... 25 Management Portal ......................................................................................................... 25 Time Settings ................................................................................................................. 26 Network Settings ............................................................................................................ 26
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Update Manager ............................................................................................................. 27 Factory Reset (Appliance and Vault Only) ......................................................................... 27 Shutdown and Reboot ..................................................................................................... 27 Using the Appliance ............................................................................................................ 28 The Menu Pane .............................................................................................................. 28 Overview of Menu Items .............................................................................................. 28 Protected Systems ....................................................................................................... 29 Protected System Details Pane ..................................................................................... 30 Snapshot Actions ......................................................................................................... 31 Schedules ................................................................................................................... 35 Jobs ........................................................................................................................... 36 Alerts .......................................................................................................................... 36 Export Options ............................................................................................................ 36 Search ........................................................................................................................ 36 File Browser ................................................................................................................ 37 NFS Exports ................................................................................................................ 37 iSCSI .......................................................................................................................... 38 Manage Storage .......................................................................................................... 38 ConnectWise Settings .................................................................................................. 39 Vault Settings .............................................................................................................. 39 System Details ............................................................................................................ 40 Cluster Management .................................................................................................... 40 Downloads .................................................................................................................. 40 Using the Vault .................................................................................................................. 41 General differences ......................................................................................................... 41 Protected Systems .......................................................................................................... 41 Users ............................................................................................................................. 41 Using the Management Portal ............................................................................................. 42 Dashboard...................................................................................................................... 42 Managed Systems ........................................................................................................... 42 Action Buttons ............................................................................................................. 43 Protected Systems .......................................................................................................... 43 Boot VM Report .............................................................................................................. 44
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Users ............................................................................................................................. 44 Settings.......................................................................................................................... 44 Using the License Portal ..................................................................................................... 45 Menu Pane ..................................................................................................................... 46 My Account ................................................................................................................. 46 Buying Licenses .............................................................................................................. 46 User Management ........................................................................................................... 47 Replibit Installation and Management Best Practices ............................................................ 48 Hardware, Software and Other Requirements ................................................................... 48 External IP Addresses .................................................................................................. 48 Firewall Ports .............................................................................................................. 48 Appliance and Vault Installation Requirements .............................................................. 48 Best Practices for Agent Deployment on Windows ............................................................. 49 Completely uninstall other backup software and Reboot if possible ................................. 49 Search for Unknown Large File Creation ........................................................................ 49 Verify VSS Settings ...................................................................................................... 49 Customers and Locations................................................................................................. 49 Networks, Switching, and Routing ................................................................................ 49 Backup Time Window .................................................................................................. 49 Defragmenting Disks ................................................................................................... 50 Microsoft Exchange VSS Agent ..................................................................................... 50 OEM Installations ........................................................................................................ 50 Security .......................................................................................................................... 51 Change Web Interface Password .................................................................................. 51 Change Shell User Password ........................................................................................ 51 Change Shell Root User Password ................................................................................ 51 File and Folder Recovery..................................................................................................... 52 Disaster Recovery .............................................................................................................. 53 Bare Metal Recovery ....................................................................................................... 53 Minimum System Requirements .................................................................................... 54 Recovering to Bare Metal ............................................................................................. 54 Dissimilar Hardware Driver Injection ............................................................................. 57 Fixing Windows Boot Issues after performing a Bare Metal Recovery .............................. 59
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VMware Recovery ........................................................................................................... 60 NFS Recovery .............................................................................................................. 60 iSCSI Recovery ............................................................................................................ 61 Relocating from iSCSI or NFS Back to Local Storage ...................................................... 62 Hyper-V Recovery ........................................................................................................... 63 NFS Recovery .............................................................................................................. 63 iSCSI Recovery ............................................................................................................ 64 Relocating from iSCSI Back to Local Storage ................................................................. 65 After Performing a Recovery ............................................................................................ 66 Advanced Topics ................................................................................................................ 67 Deploying Replibit as a Virtual Machine ............................................................................ 67 Using the Linux Shell ....................................................................................................... 68 Manually Setting IP Address ............................................................................................ 71 Clustering ....................................................................................................................... 72 Arbiter Node ............................................................................................................... 72 Migrating Protected Systems ........................................................................................... 73 Migrating to a new Appliance ....................................................................................... 73 Migrating to a new Vault .............................................................................................. 74 Using VirtIO in a VM ....................................................................................................... 75 Installing VirtIO Drivers ............................................................................................... 76 Using VirtIO with UEFI ................................................................................................. 80 Windows Directory Services Restore Mode Operations ...................................................... 81 Troubleshooting and Support .............................................................................................. 82 Replibit Support .............................................................................................................. 82 Knowledgebase .............................................................................................................. 82 Troubleshooting Common Issues ..................................................................................... 82 Backup Failures ........................................................................................................... 82 Replication Issues ........................................................................................................ 83 Issues with Boot VM Checks ......................................................................................... 83 Other Issues ............................................................................................................... 83
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Welcome to Replibit Replibit is an Image-Based backup and disaster recovery solution with an integrated virtual machine hypervisor and native off-site replication engine designed to ensure a robust ability to protect your customer’s data from even the most severe site disasters. The product is licensed and delivered as a Channel-Only managed services solution, available to registered Replibit Partners. Partners may use the product to deliver a custom branded Backup and Disaster Recovery managed services solution to their own customers as part of an overall Managed Services business platform. Replibit provides licensing, support and assistance.
Major Components The Agent Agent software is deployed on systems to be protected. Currently supported platforms are Windows Workstations and Servers. Agent software installs and uninstalls without any need to reboot the target device, reducing the impact on the Customer environment.
The Appliance Appliances are Server or Workstation class devices running a hardened Linux distribution. Deployed at the Customer site on Partner provided hardware, the Appliance is the core Customer facing component of the solution. This device holds the backup data received from installed Agents, manages replication to off-site Vaults, provides the Web Management interface for the local site, and hosts the virtual machine environment for Disaster Recovery.
The Vault Vaults are Server class devices running a hardened Linux distribution. Typically deployed in a Partner's datacenter, Vaults receive incoming replication of recovery points sent from Appliances deployed at one or more Customer locations. Vaults are designed to be MultiTenant and securely house protected system data from multiple Customers and locations. Vaults can provide all the same restore and disaster recovery options as an Appliance, including hosting Servers or Workstations using an integrated Hypervisor.
The Management Portal The Management Portal provides a central management repository, allowing secure remote access and reporting statistics for all connected Appliances and Vaults, and their Protected Systems. Typically, a Partner will deploy only one Management Portal, connecting all Appliances and Vaults to it.
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The Licensing Portal The Licensing Portal is the central management point for all Partner and Customer accounts and licensing. Located at https://licensing.replibit.com, each Partner has their master Partner Account login ID and password. Partners create Customer accounts within the portal and allocate licenses to customers from their available pool. Each Customer will have one or more Location(s), each corresponding to a particular Appliance or Cluster of Appliances. Each Location will be allocated Licenses by the Partner, and license allocation may be modified at any time. Partners are billed monthly based on their total License Pool usage. Licenses may be added or removed from the pool at any time to keep licensing in line with demand. When purchasing new licenses, pricing is pro-rated based on the days remaining in the month.
Features Replibit has a robust set of features to provide a secure and reliable Backup and Disaster Recovery platform that is simple to use and maintain.
Image Based Backup The Agent captures all protected system disks at the block level, enabling complete system restores from any recovery point on the Appliance or Vault without the need for any lengthy Operating System reloads.
Incremental Change Capture After the initial base image, all successive backups capture only incremental changes into a new snapshot of that point in time. This provides for very fast, lightweight backups that can be scheduled to occur much more frequently than traditional backups (as frequently as every 15 minutes). Individual backups are also much smaller than traditional backups, facilitating easy off-site replication with modest Internet bandwidth.
No Chains (Snapshot Dependencies) Each incremental snapshot is an independent recovery point on the Appliance or Vault. There are no time consuming roll-ups that can become corrupted or otherwise break a dependency chain to cause recovery failures or force reseeding of base images.
Branding Partners can provide their own Branding and Logo's to customize the product and create their own Branded Business Solution.
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ConnectWise Integration Integrates directly with ConnectWise for ticketing and alerting. Supports two-way ticketing status and synchronization.
Email Alerting Support for alerts by Email to simplify integration with other PSA and monitoring tools. Provides Email alert management and filtering by alert class to reduce ticketing noise.
Automatic Updates All components of the solution can be configured to automatically receive and deploy updates.
Replication Recovery Point data at the Customer site can be asynchronously replicated to an off-site Vault, providing protection against total loss-of-site disasters.
USB Seeding When enabling replication, it is optional to use a USB seed disk to transport the initial full backup image, so that large disks do not have to be replicated over the Internet. When enabling seeding, subsequent Increment backups are delivered immediately to the Vault and will be imported once the USB seed disk has been received.
Export to VHD/VHDX/VMDK/VDI/RAW Any recovery point can be exported as a virtual disk file, to either local or USB storage connected to the Appliance or Vault. Supported formats offer easy integration with VMware, Hyper-V (Gen1 and Gen2), VirtualBox, Xen, KVM and other platforms.
iSCSI Target Support Each recovery point may be exposed as NTFS iSCSI disks for large data recovery or as a set of raw iSCSI disks and act as a SAN replacement to provide instant recovery of systems in your Enterprise virtual environment.
NFS Export The Appliance or Vault can export NFS shares to provide shared storage for your virtual platform and to access exported Virtual Disk Images. This feature is very useful for recovering to a virtual platform, or from a failed SAN when your virtual hosts are still fine.
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Central Licensing Server All licensing and customer account configuration are managed by the Partner from a central licensing server web portal at https://licensing.replibit.com.
Flexible Scheduling Create multiple backup schedules running at staggered intervals or manually defined times to distribute backup traffic network load. Create granular off-site replication scheduling with integrated bandwidth management to prevent Internet bottlenecking during business hours.
ZFS Storage Pool Replibit leverages the advanced data protection, flexible storage technology and snapshot features of the ZFS filesystem, providing for robust data integrity, reliable snapshot replication, and native compression.
MBR and UEFI Replibit supports both legacy MBR style and modern UEFI BIOS systems for backup, recovery, and virtualization.
Centralized Management Securely access and manage all of your devices and protected systems from the central Management Server. Managed devices establish a secure tunnel with the management server without requiring custom firewall rules or port forwarding at the Customer site.
Support for Physical and Virtual Environments Replibit fully supports protection and disaster recovery for both Physical and Virtual environments.
Bare Metal Recovery Leveraging our suite of easy to use tools and utilities, quickly recover your protected systems directly back to bare metal servers once your failed hardware has been replaced.
Replibit Recovery Toolkit More than just a bare metal recovery suite, our Replibit Recovery Toolkit provides a platform to diagnose, troubleshoot, repair, and recover data from an offline system.
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Instant Recovery Failed Protected systems can be recovered instantly by leveraging Replibit’s built-in Hypervisor to boot any recovery point as a virtual machine directly on the backup Appliance, or exporting the protected system’s disks as iSCSI targets to an existing virtual server infrastructure.
Clustering Consolidate multiple Appliances or Vaults into a single management cluster to aggregate reporting and license usage. (Clustering of management functions only, not storage pools)
Nightly Boot Checks Perform a nightly boot check of the latest recovery point on each protected system. Each machine is booted as a virtual guest directly on the Replibit device and a screenshot capture is viewable on the particular device, in the Management Portal and/or delivered via email,and/or ConnectWise ticketing.
Easy Data Migration Protected system recovery points and metadata may easily be migrated between Appliances and Vaults to preserve retention during hardware upgrade or replacement.
Reliability Don’t be this guy the next time you need to recover your customer’s precious data. Get Replibit for your all your data protection needs and rest easy, we’ve got you covered!
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Installation This section of the guide will detail installation, deployment and management of the Replibit Software directly onto physical hardware. For instructions on deploying the components on a virtual machine, see Deploying Replibit as a Virtual Machine in the Advanced Topics section of this guide. Please note that the Replibit Appliance, Vault and Management Portal all use the same ISO image for installation. The procedures listed below are exactly the same for installing any of Replibit’s main components. Consignment to a particular role is performed during the Web Setup Wizard deployment stage performed after installing the base operating system.
Pre-Installation Information and Tasks Replibit is a hardened Linux appliance based on Ubuntu. You do not need to know Linux in order to run and operate Replibit software as all management and operations are performed from within the Web Management interface, but a basic understanding of Linux and common Linux shell commands can be useful when troubleshooting and maintaining the product. Replibit automatically updates all of the software and agents so you do not have to worry about managing the underlying operating system, and the Replibit support team is available to assist when necessary. See ‘Using the Linux Shell’ in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide for instructions on accessing our simplified Linux command line environment.
Before starting your first deployment of Replibit, you should read the “Replibit Installation and Management Best Practices” section of this guide. Doing so will answer many of the questions you may have during the installation and provide an understanding of best practices to use when deploying the product.
Replibit does not require you to purchase proprietary hardware. However, the hardware you choose must be compatible with Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS. The below links will assist you in determining whether or not the hardware you wish to use will support Linux. www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop www.ubuntu.com/certification/server For individual components like NICs or HBA controlelrs use: www.ubuntu.com/certification/catalog
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Recommended Minimum Hardware Configuration 1. OS: 4GB RAM and 2 CPU Cores 2. For Every Five Servers Being Backed Up (Round Up) Add: a. 4GB RAM b. 2 CPU Cores 3. Machine Must Have at Least Two Hard Drives a. One drive for the Operating System, at least 250 GBs in size b. One or more drives for creating the Storage Pool 4. If You Intend to Use Virtualization for Instant Recovery a. Processor Must Support Hardware Assisted Virtualization i. Intel VT ii. AMD-V iii. Intel processors significantly outperform AMD b. Include Additional RAM and CPU cores for running virtual machines
Download the Replibit Software Use the below link for downloading the Replibit installation media
http://replibit.com/downloads/
Once you have completed the download, proceed to the next section,’Creating a Bootable USB Flash Drive’. You may also burn the ISO onto DVD if you prefer. The base operating system installation from USB or DVD typically takes about ten minutes.
License Portal Configuration Prior to configuring a new Appliance, a Customer and Location must be created within the License Portal. See the ‘Using the License Portal’ section of this guide for details.
Creating a Bootable USB Flash Drive You can utilize your preferred bootable USB creation tool. We recommend Rufus as a good allaround USB creation utility. Get it here: https://rufus.akeo.ie/
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Using Rufus to Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive Insert your USB media into your system and launch Rufus. It should automatically detect and select your device, but if necessary choose the correct device from the dropdown list. Check ‘Create a bootable disk using’ and select ISO Image. Browse to and select the Replibit.ISO file. Ensure that Fat32 is the selected filesystem and Partition Scheme is set to ‘MBR partition for BIOS or UEFI-CSM’ Enter a Volume label if desired. Select Quick Format to speed filesystem creation. Click Start and wait for the file copy process to complete. Once the USB creation process is completed, remove the Flash drive and place it in your Replibit hardware device, then proceed to the next section.
Installation Process The following steps describe the installation of the underlying Replibit operating system. In order to ensure that the installation can complete successfully, the system should be connected to a network with DHCP and open Internet access to allow the software to be updated and registered during the setup process. If booting from a USB device, it may be necessary to change the default boot order of the system. Power on the system and press the appropriate key (Typically , or on most white-box systems, or on HP Servers) to enter the BIOS setup menu. Locate the Boot Order management page within the BIOS and configure the system to enable booting from USB Flash drive. Ensure that the boot order places the USB device before internal Hard Drives. Alternatively, press the Boot Menu key (Typically , , or on most systems) and directly select the USB device to boot from. Note that the Replibit operating system does not support booting from UEFI mode motherboards. If your hardware defaults to booting using UEFI then you must change the settings within the BIOS to boot using Legacy mode. Consult your system motherboard documentation for instructions on selecting between Legacy and UEFI boot modes.
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Once the BIOS configuration has been completed, ensure that the DVD or USB Flash Drive is inserted into the system, exit from the BIOS after saving any settings changes, and then reboot the machine. The Replibit installer should now load on the system.
The Replibit Installer When prompted for an Installation Type, select ‘Erase Everything and Install Replibit’ Note that if any other operating system is installed on the system, it will be destroyed and replaced with the Replibit operating system. Click Continue to proceed with the installation.
Select the first disk (usually SDA) in the system to be the boot drive and operating system disk. This disk will be formatted and erased during the installation. Click on Install Now to continue.
Installation will now proceed, wait for it to complete.
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Once the installation has completed, remove the DVD or USB Flash Drive from the system and click Restart Now. Depending on your system BIOS, it may be necessary to hit the bar once to continue if the reboot appears to be stalled.
Wait for the system reboot to be completed, and the login prompt to appear. The IP address of the server should be displayed. If not, see ‘Manually Setting IP Address’ in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide
Configuration Process Now that the underlying operating system has been installed, it is time to complete the configuration and deployment of the new device. Make note of the IP address of the new system displayed at the login prompt. If you intend this device to be a Customer Appliance, ensure that you have already created a customer account in the License Portal and that the account has an unallocated Location before proceeding. See the ‘Using the License Portal’ section of this guide for instructions on creating and managing customer accounts, locations, and licensing. Open a web browser and navigate to the IP address of the newly installed device to launch the first time setup wizard. If the system has Internet access, there will likely be updates to apply. You will see an ‘Updating’ popup indicating that that software upgrade process has started. Observe the console of the device and wait for a reboot to be completed before continuing. Once the system has been updated, the next screen to appear will be the Replibit License Agreement.
Read and accept the agreement before continuing
Select ‘I accept the terms in the license agreement’
Click on ‘I Agree’ to continue the configuration process
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Next, select between a stand-alone deployment or a multi-machine cluster. For the vast majority of deployments, you will select ‘First Machine in Cluster’ If adding a new machine to an existing site deployment, See ‘Clustering’ It is recommended to consult with Replibit Support prior to deploying any cluster, for a discussion of the benefits, ramifications, and limitations of clustering. See ‘Clustering’ in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide for more details. Click Next to proceed.
Select the intended Role for the new device. Appliances reside at the customer site and receive backup data from Agent software installed on the Customer’s protected systems. Vaults reside at the off-site recovery location or datacenter and receive replication of recovery points created by one or more Appliances. A Management Portal collect statistics from connected Appliance and Vault devices and provides secure remote access and management. Partners typically deploy only a single Management Portal for all managed devices.
Click Next to proceed
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Enter your Partner Username and Password that was provided when you completed your Replibit Partner agreement. This is the same set of credentials that is used to manage the License Portal. If deploying a new Appliance, click Get Customers to populate the list of customers with unallocated locations.
Select the correct customer and location. If no customers or locations are available, you must visit the License Portal to create one. If you are attempting to reuse an existing location that had a previous Appliance instance, you must delete and recreate the location within the License portal, or perform a Factory Reset operation on the Appliance originally assigned to the site. This will delete all data and is unrecoverable.
Click Next to proceed The next page displays the current Network Interface configuration. By default, Replibit is configured for DHCP. It is highly recommended to click on ‘Configure’ at this point and set up a static IP address for your device. Once finished with Network configuration, click Setup to continue
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Device setup and role consignment will be completed at this point. You will see the following screens before the device is rebooted one last time.
After rebooting the device, the login page will be shown. Note that the login page may appear before the device has rebooted, but you will not be able to log in until the reboot has completed. This may take several minutes on some systems.
First Time Login and Initial Configuration Once the machine has rebooted you may log in and continue configuring settings. The default username and password are ‘admin’ and ‘password’ It is recommended to change the default password to something complex and secure as soon as possible. Note that both the username and password are case sensitive.
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Initial Storage Configuration The first task you must complete before the other menus become active is to setup your storage pool. When you log in for the first time, the Menu Bar is opened and locked at the Managed Storage tab. Below is a depiction of this screen.
Expand ‘Storage Pool’ and select a RAID level. Available options are RAID-0, RAID-1, RAID-5, and RAID-6. RAID-1 requires a minimum of 2 disks, RAID-5 requires a minimum of 3 disks, and RAID-6 requires a minimum of 4 disks. In RAID-1 and RAID-5, the total storage available for use will be reduced by 1 disk worth of space used for parity and to provide redundancy. A maximum of 1 disk may be lost within a RAID-1 or RAID-5 set without losing storage pool integrity. In RAID-6, the total storage available for use will be reduced by 2 disks worth of space used for parity and to provide redundancy. A maximum of 2 disks may be lost within a RAID-6 set without losing storage pool integrity. RAID-0 provides no redundancy and the loss of any disk in the Storage Pool will corrupt its data integrity. The Storage Pool may be later expanded after creation to increase available storage capacity. Regardless of the RAID level selected, the storage pool must be expanded by exactly the same number of disks chosen during the initial setup, using the same RAID level. When adding additional storage sets, the size of the new disks being added does not have to be the same as the original disk set, but the set must consist of the same number of disks. For example, if you choose to create a RAID-0 pool with 3 1TB disks and later want to expand the pool, you could add 3 additional 2TB disks to expand the pool. If you wish to expand a RAID-0 pool by single disks, create the pool with 1 disk initially and then add disks 1 at a time to achieve your storage capacity target. Note: RAID-0 is not recommended or supported for Production usage. Loss of any disk in a RAID-0 Storage Pool will destroy all data in the pool!
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Using a larger number of disks in a storage pool set improves performance, as data is striped across multiple spindles. Creating storage pools by combining multiple sets of disks improves performance even more, at the expense of extra parity space consumption, as disk sets are stripped together using RAID-0. (i.e. 2 3-Disk RAID-5 sets combined into the storage pool is equivalent to RAID-50 or RAID5+0. Each disk set is independently redundant and in the case of RAID-5 could survive the loss of 1 disk in each set, but total usable capacity from the 6 disks assigned to the pool is only 4 disks worth of storage, as there is 1 disk worth of parity in each set) After selecting the RAID level, select the Compression level for the pool.
LZ mode has slightly lower compression but higher performance. GZIP mode has higher compression at the expense of lower performance. LZ is recommended for all devices.
Expand the Unused Disks pane and select the desired disks to be used by the pool. If you have greater than 10 disks change your view to show 100 disks from the drop down menu. Click ‘Create Storage’ to create the storage pool. Once completed, the Storage Status section at the top of the page should list the availability and pool configuration.
Licensing Once the storage pool is set up, you should verify that licenses have been assigned to the Appliance. In the upper-left corner of the screen you will see available licenses displayed. If assigned licenses are not yet present, select Settings from the Left pane, then Licensing, and click on Sync to retrieve licenses from the License Portal If no licenses are not available after performing a Sync with the license server, visit to the Licensing Portal and verify that licenses have been assigned to this Appliance and location. See the ‘Settings’ section of this guide for instructions on configuring other settings.
Agent Deployment To add a new Protected System to an Appliance and begin making backups, you must download and install the Agent on each system to be protected. The Agent software may be downloaded from the Downloads tab located in the left menu pane of the Appliance, or directly from the login screen. All protected systems require an backup Agent. If the system is configured to boot using a UEFI BIOS, then after installing the backup Agent, also download and install the UEFI agent. P a g e | 20
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Before installing the Replibit Agent, remove any other existing backup agents or products. See the ‘Replibit Installation and Management Best Practices’ section of this guide for additional guidelines and recommendations when deploying Agents.
Installing the Backup Agent After downloading the Agent installer, run it and complete the installation. Accept the license agreement and click Next. Accept or change the default installation location and click Next. Enter the IP address of the Appliance that will back up this system. Optionally, enter an encryption passphrase for the system. If you lose the passphrase there is no way to recover it! You will have to delete the Protected System and all recovery points from the Appliance and Vault, and then reinstall the Agent on the Protected System in order to reset the password. Once the Agent install has completed, click Finished.
Installing the UEFI Agent After the backup Agent has been installed, you must install the UEFI Agent for systems that boot using a UEFI BIOS. The UEFI agent requires Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5. Agent installation will fail with a warning if .Net is not installed. Installation of the UEFI agent requires no selections, simply launch the Agent installer and click Install.
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Settings The following is a detailed explanation of the available options that may be configured from the Settings menu pane on the device. From the left menu pane, click on Settings to expose the configurable options within the main window. The Settings menu pane is universal across all device types, but not all options exist on all types of systems. Where there are differences, the sections below have been labeled as to which device types they apply to.
License Details (Appliances and Vaults Only)
This section displays a list of licenses that have been assigned to the Appliance, as well as used and unused license count. Click the ‘Sync’ button to immediately synchronize with the License Portal. On the Vault this page enables syncing changes to the Partner account password with the License portal
API Key
The API (Application Programming Interface) Key is an authentication string used for gaining access to the system by third-party integrations.
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Upload Logo
Upload Logo provides for Branding of the product by replacing the logo image in the upper left corner and on the login page with a custom image. Image size should be 260 x 65 for best results.
Change Password
Manage the password for the default Web Interface user account, admin. If the admin password is lost, it can also be changed from the shell console. See the ‘Using the Linux Shell’ section of this guide for information on using shell commands
Manage Users (Appliance Only)
This optional feature allows for the creation of customer login accounts on the Appliance. Customer user accounts on the Appliance are have full administrative access to the device and can perform any action available to the admin account with the exception of managing users.
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Export Image Quota Settings (Appliance and Vault Only)
Set the maximum allowable storage space to be available for use when exporting Protected System disks for recovery. Default is 0, or no limit.
Email Notifications (Appliance and Vault Only)
Enable delivery of alerts generated by the device to one or more email addresses. Select Enabled to expose configuration fields. Usage requires an authenticated email account on an email server that is accessible by the device. Fill in: From Email, Username, Password, Server address, Port and Security type, and then enter the destination To email address. To deliver to multiple addresses, enter multiple addresses separated by commas.
Alert Types Select or deselect the types of alerts for which you desire to receive email notifications.
All email recipients receive the same alerts.
Once finished with email notification configuration, click ‘Save’ to save the settings.
Click ‘Test Mail’ to verify that email alerting can be successfully delivered using the configured settings.
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Job Auto Delete Settings (Appliance and Vault Only)
Set the retention period for historical job statistics to keep on the Jobs and Alerts tabs.
Agent Monitoring (Appliance Only)
Define the scope of monitoring and alerting for the status of Agent connection states. Applies to both Email Notifications and ConnectWise integrated ticketing. Options include Server and Workstation, Server Only, Workstation Only, and None. Selecting None will disable alert generation for the connection status of all Protected System Agents.
Change Machine Name
Configure the hostname of the device. Machine Name is used to identify this device when reporting statistics to the Management Portal, Email Notifications, and ConnectWise ticketing. It is recommended to use a descriptive name as this will appear in the Management Portal.
Management Portal
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Configure this device to connect to and be managed by a Management Portal. Enter the public IP address or FQDN of the Management Portal. Enter a configured username and API key obtained from the Management Portal. Select ‘Test Connection’ to verify communications and then click ‘Save’ to commit changes. Devices connected to a Management Portal will be remotely and securely accessible from the portal, without the need to configure firewall rules or port forwarding, by utilizing an encrypted SSH tunnel. To access the available user names and API keys, log in to the Management Portal and select Users from the top menu bar. See the ‘Using the Management Portal’ section of this guide for more help using the Management Portal.
Time Settings
Manage the Time, Date, and Time Zone of the device.
Network Settings
Manage Network Settings on the device. Select an Interface and configured DHCP vs Static, address, netmask, default gateway, and DNS servers. Click ‘Save’ to commit changes. If you change the IP address it may be necessary to close and reopen your browser to the new address. Additional network adapters may be configured to provide access to additional network segments, or to segregate iSCSI or NFS traffic from backup traffic using separate network paths.
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Update Manager
Configures and manages the automatic deployment of updates on devices and protected systems. Select Enable Auto Updates to automatically install new updates during the overnight maintenance window. If available, Agent software on protected systems will also be updated automatically. To manually check for new updates, click Check Updates. If new updates are discovered, the button will change to ‘Update Now’. Click Update Now to install updates immediately. The Device will be rebooted automatically as part of the update process.
Factory Reset (Appliance and Vault Only)
Performs a reset of the device back to its initial, pre-deployment state. Performing a Factory Reset also returns licenses and releases the configured Customer location within the License Portal. After performing a Factory Reset, the device is ready to be redeployed as an Appliance or Vault to the same or other customer location.
Shutdown and Reboot
Shutdown or Reboot the device. Note that when performing a Shutdown, if the system does not have remote power management (Like IPMI or vPro for example) there is no way to remotely power it back on. A user will have to physically press the power button on the system.
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Using the Appliance The following section will discuss usage of the Web Interface options within the Appliance. Many of the options are also substantially similar to options when working with the Vault.
The Menu Pane The left side of the screen is presents the Menu Pane. Clicking on selections from the menu will populate the main window with task specific information and controls. On Appliances the top section of the menu pane contains an overview of Licenses that are unallocated and available for use.
Overview of Menu Items Protected Systems shows information about the systems being backed up by this Appliance. Schedules controls management of backup schedules that can be assigned to Protected Systems. Jobs shows information about active and completed job history. Alerts shows status and information on recent and past Alerts generated by the device. File Browser provides access to mounted recovery points and Exported disks, enabling retrieval of individual files from any web browser. For bulk file recovery, see the ‘File and Folder Recovery’ section of this guide. NFS Exports controls and manages access by remote systems to the NFS file shares hosted on the device for recovery and Exported disk retrieval. iSCSI manages active iSCSI targets. Manage Storage provides access to the Storage Pool configuration utility. Settings contains all of the configurable options discussed in the previous section. See ‘Settings’. ConnectWise Settings provides the configuration parameters for integrating Replibit with ConnectWise for automated alerting and ticketing.
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Vault Settings controls configuration of off-site Vault destinations for replication of Protected System recovery points. System Info provides an overview of system configuration, hardware, and utilization statistics. Cluster Management displays information and management options for members of the current cluster. Downloads provides access to the available Agent installers and other components. Next we will discuss each of these menu panes in detail.
Protected Systems
Selecting Protected Systems will display a list of the systems currently being backed up and protected by this Appliance. The Status column has icons that indicate whether the system is currently running as a virtual machine (first dot will be Green) and whether Replication is enabled for the system (second dot will be Blue). System Hostname, Operating System, and protected disk volumes are listed for identification and information. The Schedule column contains a dropdown Menu listing available backup schedules. The currently selected schedule is displayed. Under the Actions column are the ‘System Details’ and ‘Delete’ buttons. Note: Selecting Delete will prompt for the permanent deletion and removal of the protected system and all recovery points! This actions is permanent and cannot be undone! Selecting the Details button will open the Protected System Details page, which contains many additional system specific configuration options.
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Protected System Details Pane From the system details pane you can see general information about the protected system, available and in-use snapshots, and perform configuration of Replication, Boot Testing, Retention, and Alerting policies. If a Vault schedule has been created in the Vault Settings page (see below) then you can enable replication of recovery point data for this protected system to an off-site Vault. Enabling Replication Select a Vault schedule and choose the transport and base image options.
If Enable Vault Seeding is selected, only incremental recovery points will be sent to the Vault over the Internet. The Full initial image will need to be transported by first exporting it to a USB disk and then importing it into the Vault. Selecting the snapshot to be “used as base” will mark that recovery pointto act as the full image being sent to the Vault. Only the incremental backups after that point in time will be replicated to the Vault. (This is useful when enabling replication on a system with a great many existing recovery points, to prevent excessive Internet traffic.) Enabling Nightly Boot Checks If the Boot VM Check option is enabled, the Appliance will perform a nightly virtual boot-up of the Protected System using the most recent recovery point, then take a screenshot of the running system. The screenshot image may be viewed by clicking the Screenshot button here. The image is also delivered as an email attachment if email notifications are enabled, and
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pushed into a ConnectWise ticket if integration is configured. A global overview of all Boot Images is available on the Management Portal from the Boot VM Report page. See the ‘Using the Management Portal’ section of this guide. Clicking Schedule Now will schedule an immediate backup for the protected system Select Incremental or Full to choose which type of backup to run when prompted. Selecting Migrate will relocate a protected system and all its recovery point data to another Appliance (either via the LAN or a USB drive). Starting a migration of a Protected System to another Appliance will permanently disable it for backups on this Appliance. See ‘Migrating Protected Systems’ in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide. Backup Retention controls how long recovery points will be retained on the device before being automatically purged. There are two modes of backup retention: Basic and Custom. Basic retention mode will retain all snapshots for the specified number of days. Snapshots older than the selected time window will be removed from the system unless they have been marked as persistent. (Booting a recovery point or exporting it via iSCSI in Live mode will mark it as persistent. Persistent recovery points will have to be deleted by Replibit Support from the backend) Custom mode retains all snapshots for a set number of days similar to Basic mode. Thereafter it will retain a set number of Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly snapshots. When determining which snapshots to keep, the system will select the LAST available snapshot for the period in question. For example, the last snapshot of the day, week, month, or year. If the retention value set for an interval is zero, or no appropriate snapshot exists for the given interval, then no snapshot will be retained for that period. For example, you if you select to keep 1 Yearly recovery point, but no snapshots exist from LAST year, then there will be no yearly snapshot retained. The last day of the week is Sunday for purposes of calculating Weekly retention. As another example, if no backups exist for Saturday or Sunday, the last snapshot received on Friday will be retained as the last snapshot of the week, etc. Raise alerts if no backup for: x Hours. Suppress alerting for occasional missed backups. Only raise an alert through email notification or ConnectWise if no backups have completed successfully within the specified interval.
Snapshot Actions
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Recovery Point Action Menu For each recovery point there are a series of actions that can be performed.
Start VM Selecting Start VM will virtualize the chosen recovery point and boot the Protected System from that point in time on the Appliance. There are a number of customizable options available when virtualizing a Protected System. Set the amount of RAM and number of CPU cores that will be available for the virtual system. Select Test Mode or Live Mode Test Mode boots the virtual machine in a private network for testing. Any changes made to the virtual machine hard disk images will be destroyed when the system is shutdown. Live Mode boots the virtual machine on the same LAN as the Appliance management interface. The selected Recovery Point will be marked as Persistent and any changes made to the virtual machine disk volumes will not be lost with system is shutdown. Live mode should only be utilized as an interim, emergency recovery method when systems that have become damaged or lost need to be restored to service urgently and other recovery methods are unavailable. Migrate systems recovered via Live Mode back to physical or virtual hardware as soon as possible. Selecting a Boot Key sends that key stroke to the virtual machine after BIOS POST completes and enables access to the virtual BIOS or Windows Startup menu during system boot. Configuring Boot Device and CD-ROM Image allow for booting of the protected system from a CD image for diagnostic or testing purposes. For example, to perform startup repair when performing a Live Mode system recovery. If an Encryption Passphrase was entered in the Agent, you will be prompted to enter it here. P a g e | 32
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For information on configuring and using Virt-IO drivers, refer to ‘Using VirtIO in a VM’ in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide. When a virtual machine is running, an additional button, Terminal, will be present in the Actions list for the chosen recovery point. Selecting Terminal will open a new browser window, displaying the running virtual machine console. Ensure that your web browser is configured to allow popups before starting a VM or selecting Terminal. Mount Selecting Mount will mount all of the Protected System’s disks that were selected for backup at that time on the Appliance or Vault and make them accessible from the File Browser tab of the Menu Pane. If an Encryption Passphrase was entered during the Agent installation, you will be prompted for it here. For individual file recovery, browse down using the File Browser and download the files that you are looking for by Right-Clicking them from the right side window. For instructions on performing bulk recovery of files or folders, refer to the ‘File and Folder Recovery’ section in this guide. For instructions on recovering complete systems, refer to the ‘Disaster Recovery’ section of this guide. Export Selecting Export will create a virtual disk image file for each protected disk volume on the system. By default the images are generated in the ExportVMs folder on the device within the Storage Pool and can be accessed using the File Browser or via the NFS Export feature. An option exists to export the disk images to an attached USB drive. Note that exporting to USB is considerably slower than exporting to the Storage Pool. Large disks may require an extremely long time to export onto USB storage. We always recommend that USB3 is used for optimum performance. If an Encryption Passphrase was entered during installation of the Agent, you will be prompted for it here. Available formats are VMDK (VMware), VDI (VirtualBox), VHD (Hyper-V Gen1 or Xen), VHDX (Hyper-V Gen2) and RAW (KVM). Select the desired options and click Start to begin the export process. Progress may be monitored from the Conversion tab on the Jobs Menu Pane.
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Start iSCSI iSCSI presents the disk volumes of the selected recovery point as iSCSI Targets, which can be accessed by remote systems capable of running an iSCSI initiator client. iSCSI may be utilized for bulk recovery of files or direct virtualization of protected systems on third-party hypervisors like VMware or Hyper-V. See the ‘Disaster Recovery’ section of this guide for more details. Enabling iSCSI for a recovery point can be performed in Test Mode or Live Mode. Similar to Start VM, when exported in Test Mode the recovery point is destroyed when iSCSI is stopped and any changes made to the disk volumes are lost. When started in Live Mode a persistent recovery point is created and any changes to data is retained. Persistent recovery points created by Start VM and iSCSI Start are interchangeable. For example, a virtual machine recovered using Live Mode may be shut down and then exported via iSCSI in Live Mode, preserving the data changes that have been made to the disks so that they can be recovered to new physical or virtual hardware. If an Encryption Passphrase was entered during the installation of the Agent it will be requested here. Select the desired Mode and click Start. To connect to the exported targets, from the iSCSI Initiator device enter the IP address of the Appliance or Vault into Dynamic Discovery or Quick Connect with no Authentication specified. Delete If desired, individual recovery points may be deleted by clicking the Delete button at the right edge of each snapshot. Used Snapshots Expanding Used Snapshots will display only recovery points that are currently in use. (i.e Running VM, Mounted, Exporting, or currently exposed as iSCSI targets)
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Schedules The Schedules menu pane is used to manage scheduling of backup jobs for Protected Systems. Multiple backup schedules may be created, enabled, disabled, or deleted, and assigned to individual Protected Systems.
When creating a schedule, enter a Name, and select whether it is Enabled or assigned as the Default schedule. You may specify a time window for performing the initial Full image backup. (You may wish to exclude normal business hours for example.) For ongoing incremental backups, choose the backup mode: Interval or Manual. For Interval, select the backup window and set the backup frequency. For Manual, enter a comma separated list of backup times using 24-hour format in the form HH:MM. (i.e. 07:00,12:00,18:00)
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Jobs
The Jobs menu pane contains information about current and historical job history. On the menu pane there are submenus for Backup, Vault Replication, Conversion, and System type jobs. The Backup tab contains information about local Backup jobs on the Appliance. Vault Replication shows details of recovery points being replicated to the off-site Vault. Conversion shows the progress and status of disks being exported on the system. System shows the status and progress of system updates and Protected System migrations. Set the retention period for Jobs metadata from the Jobs Auto Delete Settings page of the Settings menu pane.
Alerts
The Alerts menu pane shows the status of any active or recent alerts generated by the Appliance. Alert Archive alerts are retained based on the Jobs Auto Delete Settings retention on the Settings menu pane.
Export Options
Many of the menu pane pages have a set of common Export options buttons in the top right corner of the page. Select Copy to copy the selected page entries to the system clipboard. CSV, Excel, and PDF will prompt for downloading the currently displayed entries in the selected format. Print will generate and display the data in a printable format within the browser page.
Search Many of the menu pages have a Search field that you may use to filter for specific criteria. For example, you may search Job or Alert history for specific events. Combine multiple search criteria by separating search terms with a pipe character (|). (i.e. running|paused or failed|missed)
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File Browser
The File Browser lets you explore, download, and delete Exported disk images and mounted recovery points for simple file recovery operations. Right-Click items in either the left or right windows panes for a list of options. Located at the bottom of the page is also displayed a list of mounted recovery points, with an option to Dismount them.
When finished with file recovery operations it is recommended to dismount any mounted recovery points or delete any exported disk volumes. This will allow for successful cleanup of recovery points by retention policies and free up space in the Storage Pool.
NFS Exports
Enabling NFS Exports allows remote systems to connect to the Appliance and mount the Export folders as a network file system. Click Add Allowed IP and enter the IP address of the host that you wish to allow connections from. When mounting the NFS folders from a client, enter the IP address of the Appliance and the shared folder path. On an Appliance the path is /export/admin. On a Vault the path is /export/ where is the login name of the Customer whose data you are recovering. See the sections on recovering to VMware or Hyper-V using NFS in the ‘Disaster Recovery’ section of this guide for examples of using NFS Exports for data recovery.
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iSCSI
The iSCSI menu pane displays all currently exported iSCSI targets, including details about session identity and names. Use this tab to help identify disk volumes by IQN name, to quickly find all exported targets, or to Dismount and remove sessions when they are no longer necessary. See the sections of this guide on ‘File and Folder Recovery’ and ‘Disaster Recovery’ for example of using iSCSI to recover protected systems and data.
Manage Storage
From the Manage Storage menu pane you can see the status and configuration of the Storage Pool and all disk volumes present within the system. If you are using a san and have expanded out the LUN size on the SAN, you can use the Expand Pool button to rescan the LUN for the size change. Clicking Destroy Pool will delete the storage pool and all data. USE WITH CAUTION! Replibit supports using external iSCSI disk volumes for creating the storage pool. Expand iSCSI Storage to display the iSCSI initiator management settings.
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Enter the discovery server IP address and click Add on discovered disk volumes to attach them to the Appliance. Note that iSCSI network traffic may be segregated from backup traffic by placing it in an alternate subnet bound to a second physical NIC. (See Network Settings within the Settings menu pane). Also, it is highly recommended to utilize 10Gbe Ethernet cards when using iSCSI devices for the Storage Pool to improve disk performance. Using 1Gbe Ethernet for iSCSI Storage Pool devices is not officially supported by Replibit due to poor performance concerns. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
ConnectWise Settings From the ConnectWise Settings menu pane you may enable integration of Replibit with your ConnectWise PSA. Once enabled, alerting events trigger tickets within the PSA. Ticket status is synchronized in both directions with the corresponding alert. Contact Replibit Support for assisting with enabling and configuring ConnectWise integration.
Vault Settings
From the Vault Settings menu pane, you can create and manage connections to one or more off-site Vault repositories. Click Add Vault to create a new connection.
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Enter a friendly name by which to identify the vault, and the public IP address or FQDN by which it may be accessed by the Appliance. Click Test Connection to verify that communication can be established. The Vault must have ports 22, 443 and 9080 open to the Appliance. Configure the replication schedule to suite your specific Customer location requirements. Click Add to add additional time blocks and create a schedule as simple or as granular as you like. Set different bandwidth restrictions throughout the day, or exclude time windows to prevent replication during those time periods as desired. It is recommended to create only a single Vault schedule assigned to all Protected Systems, as bandwidth consumed by concurrently running Vault schedules is cumulative. (i.e. if two schedules are running during the same time window, each capped at 5Mbps, then the total allowable network traffic will be 10Mbps)
System Details This menu pane displays an overview and summary of the system status of the Appliance. Details include system memory and disk usage, detailed storage utilization by protected system, and graphical performance metrics over time.
Cluster Management From this pane you may enable and configure Clustering for the device. See ‘Clustering’ in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide for more details. Replibit does not recommend the use of Clustering unless required for very large Customer locations.
Downloads From the Downloads menu pane you will find links to download the available Agents and other installable components of Replibit. Back to Table of Contents
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Using the Vault The Vault provides essentially the same services and features as the Appliance, with a few exceptions. All of the menu panes and features present on the vault work similarly to the Appliance, and as such we will document only the Vault specific differences here.
General differences Where the Appliance is intended to be deployed at a single customer location, the Vault is designed to be multi-tenant and securely accept replicated recovery point data from multiple customers and sites. As such, the Web Interface features and options are slightly different than the Appliance, and specific features are split up between Admin mode and User mode. The Admin has access to configuration and management functions on the device, but is locked out of user specific features and options. Users have very limited access to configurable settings on the device, but have full access to recovery and export options ONLY for their own protected systems present on the Vault.
Protected Systems As there are no backups taking place on the vault, there is no Missed Backup Alert Hours setting present here. When logged in as Admin all of the snapshot actions are greyed out. You must log in using a customer account (as provisioned within the License Portal) in order to access the snapshot actions.
Users The Vault synchronizes periodically with the License Portal to retrieve all customer accounts and passwords. From the Users menu pane you can access a list of all users and set customer specific disk space quotas to limit total storage usage by customer. Also available is a digest of license usage for all customers defined within the License Portal.
All remaining menu pane options and features operate identically to the Appliance. Refer to ‘Using the Appliance’ for a detailed description of their use and function.
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Using the Management Portal The Replibit Management Portal provides a central server that delivers secure remote access to all managed devices (Appliances and Vaults) as well as an overview of all managed and protected systems. Data is collected from all devices to provide consolidated reporting on license usage, device status, and protected system backups.
Dashboard The Dashboard provides a simple count of managed and protected systems, broken down by type.
Managed Systems
The Managed Systems page displays details of all connected Appliances and Vaults. Data can be sorted by any field by clicking the column header. Click again to reverse the sort order. Some useful information that can be monitored from this page includes: Version - verify all devices have been updated to the latest software; Stats Time - Verify that all devices are online and have reported in recently; Licenses – Verify that no unallocated licenses exist.
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Action Buttons
At the right edge of each device is a series of Action buttons. In order from left to right:
Remote Access the Web Interface of the managed device over a secure VPN tunnel Terminal Access the Shell console of the managed device over a secure VPN tunnel History Display historical License usage by the device over time Systems Jump to the Protected Systems page and display systems managed by this device Delete Delete this object from the Management Portal
Note: When deleting, if the device is currently connected, the Management Portal settings will be cleared from the Settings page on the selected device. Deleting a managed system will also delete all Protected Systems and metadata associated with it from the Management Portal database. Note: If you do not have a means to connect directly to the Managed Device Web Interface, you will no longer have access to the Managed System after deleting it from the Management Portal!
Protected Systems
This page provides a detailed list of protected systems residing on all managed devices. Details include identity, IP, appliance, local and off-site storage utilization, agent status, last backup, last replicated backup, and more. From the Actions column click History to display historical backup status metrics for the protected system, or delete to remove the system and delete its history. Note that protected systems that still exist on the managed device will be recreated within the management portal. Note: Managed and Protected Systems that are no longer in use should be manually deleted from the Management Portal to ensure accurate reporting statistics.
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Boot VM Report
This page provides a visual quick reference to the status of the latest Boot VM test for all protected systems managed by the Management Portal. If Boot VM Check is not enable for a system, the image column will display N/A. Identity and status information is provided for both Appliance and Vault Boot VM Check images to allow quick and easy verification that all protected systems are recoverable.
Users Similarly, to the Vault, the Management Portal is designed to be multi-tenant. From the users page you may create customer login accounts to allow your customers access to the remote access and reporting features of the Management Portal. When configuring the Management Portal settings on a device, you will need the username and API key from the Users page to establish the connection. The admin user has access to all managed systems connected to the portal. Customer user accounts have access only to managed and protected systems registered with using their user account.
Settings All options on the settings page are covered under the ‘Settings’ section of this guide.
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Using the License Portal The Replibit Licensing Portal is a cloud hosted license management tool that controls management of each Partner’s customer accounts and licensing. From the Licensing portal the Partner may purchase or return licenses from their available pool or allocate licensing to specific customer locations. Licenses are billed on a monthly basis, and new license purchases are pro-rated based on the number of days remaining in the month. Partners may add or remove licenses from their available pool at any time in order to keep license usage in line with actual customer needs. Log in to the Replibit Licensing Portal at https://licensing.replibit.com The Partner login credentials were provided to you when you completed your Partner enrollment. Once logged in you are presented with a list of existing customers within the customer management utility. From this menu you may add, remove, activate, deactivate, and edit customer user accounts. You may also add or remove customer locations for use when deploying or removing Appliances to a specific customer.
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Menu Pane My Account From the My Account menu pane you can view order history, review monthly payments, examine any documents assigned by the licensing team, manage credit cards that you have on file and configure payment methods.
Keep your Profile Details up to date to ensure that your contact and billing information is correct.
If necessary, you may also change or reset your Partner account password from this page. Be advised that if you change your Partner password, you will be required to update the password on all Vault devices currently deployed. From the Vault, navigate to the Licensing page of the Settings Menu pane and update the partner account password.
Buying Licenses Select the Buy menu pane to open the license purchase window
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Server and Workstation licensing may be purchased individually or bundled with Replication licensing at a discounted cost. Enter the quantity of each license type and any package specific coupon codes you may have received from the Licensing team. Kernel for Exchange or similar are third-party recovery tools for performing mailbox item or user level retrieval of Microsoft Exchange data. The product is compatible with Exchange 2000 through Exchange 2016, is actively maintained by the developers, and simple to use. Kernel for Exchange licensing is purchased as a commercial-use Technician license. Each seat you purchase allows legal, unlimited commercial usage for a single support technician. There is an initial purchase cost for the license, which includes the first year of support, and a mandatory annual support renewal cost to continue using the product.
User Management Select User Management from the menu pane to manage customers and licensing.
Expand Users to manage customer accounts and locations as discussed above
Expand Licenses to manage license assignments to individual customer locations. From the Licenses page, select Reduce License if you wish to remove unused licenses from your available license pool.
When deploying a new Appliance you must have a Customer account with an unallocated Location within the License portal. If the Appliance at a location has been destroyed, you must delete and recreate the location to remove the association to the old Appliance. Performing a Factory Reset on an Appliance will also release the location for re-use within the License Portal. You may add as many locations to a customer account as you like. Once a new Location has been created, expand User management, click Licenses, and select the Customer and Location to add or remove licensing for the site. License Usage is consolidated and reported on a Per-Customer basis. Each Customer should have only one account with multiple locations unless you desire to split billing between different entities.
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Replibit Installation and Management Best Practices Hardware, Software and Other Requirements External IP Addresses Each Vault and Management Portal instance running in your datacenter is an independent machine. Each of these devices will need their own dedicated Public IP address unless you are using a third-party VPN tunnel solution to route traffic from your customer Appliances. Creating Public DNS records for each is optional but recommended.
Firewall Ports
LAN: Ports 9090-10000 need to be open between the Protected System and the Appliance
WAN: Ports 22, 443, and 9080 need to be open between the Appliance and the Vault
Ports 22, 443, and 10000+ need to be open to the world for the Management Portal. One port per managed device needs to be open above 10000. For example, if you have 50 Appliances and Vaults under management, you need to open ports 10000-10049.
Appliance and Vault Installation Requirements
It is highly recommended that Replibit be installed on Bare Metal. Virtual installations are not supported or recommended for production environments. To install Replibit as a virtual machine, refer to the ‘Deploying Replibit as a Virtual Machine’ section in the ‘Advanced Topics’ section of this guide
Although Replibit offers the flexibility to select your own hardware, there are many factors to consider when building a reliable BDR platform. Consult the ‘Planning for Success With Replibit’ section of this guide for a detailed discussion of this and other factors to consider when planning your deployment.
Unless you are using a SAN, it is recommended to use a hardware RAID-1 (if available) disk volume for the operating system, and use ZFS Software RAID when creating the Storage Pool.
When using a SAN, the optimal configuration is to create a RAID-1 storage pool using 2 10Gbe iSCSI disk volumes, each provided by a separate SAN server.
DHCP should be enabled on the network when installing Replibit. During configuration or after setup has completed, a static IP address should be assigned to the device.
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Best Practices for Agent Deployment on Windows Completely uninstall other backup software and Reboot if possible
Some legacy backup software, such as Backup Exec or Acronis may not completely remove their proprietary VSS extensions when uninstalled from Add/Remove Programs. It is recommended to use their stand-alone uninstaller utility if available to ensure proper cleanup and removal of these agents.
Search for Unknown Large File Creation
Perform a search for files greater than 50MB created within the last 7 days. Verify that there are no ongoing large data dumps being performed on the server that can dramatically balloon the size of Replibit’s incremental backup images. Some possible examples to avoid: SQL Database backups; Quickbooks company file backups; PST File exports or copies, Windows Server Backup images, etc. If large file creation is discovered, alleviate the issue by disabling the source of the file creation, or retarget the file storage to a separate disk volume and then disable that volume from backup by the Replibit agent.
Verify VSS Settings
From an elevated command prompt, run ‘vssadmin list shadowstorage’ Examine the volume shadow copy size column and verify that it is NOT set to UNBOUNDED The recommended default storage size is 10% of total space If less than 15% of the disk volume is free, it is recommended to redirect shadowstorage to another volume with sufficient free space. To modify shadowstorage configuration, run the following command ‘vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=C: /on=D: /maxsize=3GB’ replace the source, destination and maxsize values as appropriate.
Customers and Locations
When deploying Replibit to customers with multiple locations, create only one customer account within the License Portal and assign multiple locations to the account. Each customer location that has servers to be protected should have its own Appliance. Replibit does not recommend performing backup operations of remote servers over Intranet or VPN connections with less than 1Gigabit of bandwidth available.
Networks, Switching, and Routing
Appliances should be connected to the same physical LAN and VLAN as the protected systems they are guarding. Avoid transporting data through firewalls or routers to alleviate network congestion and performance bottlenecks. Appliances and Protected Systems should be connected to 1Gigabit Ethernet switches or faster for best performance.
Backup Time Window
Microsoft’s best practice recommendation is to increase the minimum configured backup window by 15 minutes for every TB of disk size. (Total volume size, not space in use.) For example, a server with 2TB in total disk capacity should not be backed up any more frequently than every 30 minutes.
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Defragmenting Disks
Performing Disk Defragment operations on systems protected by Image-based backup solutions can generate unnecessarily large incremental backups due to excessive block changes. It is not recommended to perform frequent, scheduled defragmentation operations on systems protected by Image-based backup solutions like Replibit Prior to installing the Replibit Agent, it is recommended to perform a thorough disk defrag of both regular files and the Master File Table, if possible. This will help ensure that the initial base image for the protected system is in a healthy state.
Microsoft Exchange VSS Agent
The Exchange VSS agent is disabled by default on Windows Server 2003 SBS. Ensure that this service is set to Automatic startup and running in order to ensure consistent Exchange backups and log file cleanup. The Exchange VSS agent is set to Manual by default on Exchange 2008 and newer. Ensure that this service is set to Automatic startup and running in order to ensure consistent Exchange backups and log file cleanup.
OEM Installations
Microsoft Windows systems distributed as OEM installations are not supported for virtualization. Many OEM distributions are deliberately crippled so that they will not run as a virtual machine. Virtualizing Microsoft OEM distributions is a violation of the Microsoft Licensing Terms and Conditions. Replibit will not provide support for virtualizing OEM distributions of Microsoft operating systems.
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Security All of Replibit’s components are deployed with a set of default password that should be changed IMMEDIATELY upon installation to prevent the risk of hackers taking over your devices. Perform the following:
Change Web Interface Password
Log in to the Web Interface using any browser Select the Settings menu pane Select Change Password Enter current password and new password and click Apply
Change Shell User Password
Log in to the Console using the ‘replibit’ user account Run ‘changepassword’ Enter the new password for the Replibit user
Change Shell Root User Password
Contact Replibit Support to obtain the default root user password Log in to the Console using the ‘root’ user account Run ‘passwd’ Enter the new password for the Root user
Failure to change default passwords is a serious security risk for both you and your customers and it is always best practice to only deploy Replibit Devices behind a firewall!
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File and Folder Recovery For simple recovery of a few files, it is fastest and easiest to use the Mount option for a selected recovery point from the protected system details page. After mounting the recovery point, browse the disk structure using the File Browser, locate the desired file(s) and download them. For larger requests, or if it is necessary to perform search operations to locate missing files, leverage iSCSI to mount the recovery point on a workstation or server and perform standard Windows file search and copy operations to restore you missing data. Select the recovery point to recover data from on the protected system details page and click iSCSI Start to export the data as a set of disks. From a Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 or newer system, open the iSCSI Initiator applet from Administrative Tools. If prompted to start the service, select Yes.
Enter the IP address of the Appliance or Vault in the Target field and click on Quick Connect.
Available disks will be enumerated in the Discovered Targets window.
Consult the iSCSI menu pane of the Appliance or Vault to identify the IQN name of the disk volume you wish to search. Select the desired disk in the Discovered Targets window and click Connect.
Once the disk has been connected, open the Computer Management applet from Administrative Tools, expand Storage, and select Disk Management
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Locate the newly attached system disk and verify that it is online. (If not, Rightclick the disk name and select Online.)
Identify the drive letter that has been assigned to the disk volume(s).
Using Windows Explorer or your preferred file management utility, search or browse for the files and folders you intended to recover, then copy and paste them back to the original server locations.
Once recovery has been completed, you must cleanup and remove your disk connections. Close any Explorer windows open to the recovery disk volumes. From the Disk Management applet, Right-click the disk name and select Offline. From the iSCSI Initiator applet, select the connected disk(s) and click Disconnect. Also remove any entries from the Discovery and Favorites tabs. From the Appliance or Vault, click Stop iSCSI from the iSCSI menu pane or protected system details page. (If you receive an error when disconnecting the volume within the iSCSI Initiator applet, try again after stopping iSCSI on the Appliance or Vault)
Disaster Recovery Sooner or later you will be required to perform recovery for a protected system that has been damaged or corrupted beyond repair. Depending on whether the system is physical or virtual, there are a number of ways in which to perform the recovery process.
Bare Metal Recovery Recovering a lost system directly onto bare metal used to be a painful and time consuming process. Because Replibit captures a full system image during backup, the recovery of systems back onto Bare Metal has been greatly simplified. The Following instructions may be used to recover your protected system back onto either a bare metal server or virtual machine.
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Minimum System Requirements 3GB RAM 1Ghz CPU Bootable DVD or USB Support
Recovering to Bare Metal
Download the Replibit Recovery Toolkit (RRT) ISO from Replibit http://ftp.replibit.net/isodownload/RRT35_x86.ISO http://ftp.replibit.net/isodownload/RRT35_x64.ISO If you are recovering a UEFI system you must use the correct architecture image Boot your destination system from the RRT ISO. Wait a minute once the Desktop loads for the Network wizard to start Locate the "Replibit Recovery Wizard" icon on the Desktop and Double-Click it
This will launch the Replibit Recovery Utilities as shown here. For Legacy BIOS systems select "MBR Boot Partition". For UEFI BIOS systems or Data Partitions select “Data/UEFI Boot Partition”
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Enter the Vault or Appliance IP address or FQDN. Enter the username and password If recovering from a Vault you must use the Customer account name and not the admin account in order to access protected systems for recovery.
Click Next
Select the protected system you wish to recover from the dropdown list
Select Choose from Recent Snapshots, or select a specific date from which you wish to recover
Click Next
Select the recovery point date and time that you would like to use for recovery of the protected system
Click Next
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The Recovery Wizard will now start Microsoft iSCSI services and exported the selected recovery point on the Appliance or Vault
The progress window should show successful service startup and iSCSI target creation
Click Next
Select the drive volume(s) you wish to recover by checking the selection box
For each volume being recovered, choose a disk to restore it to by selecting from the dropdown list
Click Next
The recovery data copy process will begin at this point. Monitor the overall job progress from the Recovery Wizard status window. Clicking the FastCopy icon in the system tray will display detailed job progress. NOTE: If Windows presents a Format Disk popup, select CANCEL on the popup.
Once the recovery process is complete, click Finish
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To restore additional data drives, repeat this process and select Date/UEFI Boot Partition from the main wizard launch menu If recovering MBR/Legacy BIOS systems, reboot the system now or proceed to the Dissimilar Hardware Driver Injection instructions in the next section
If recovering a UEFI BIOS system, reboot the system now from the Replibit Recovery Toolkit to allow Windows to properly label local disk drives
Once the reboot is complete, identify the drive letter where the Windows folder is located
Open a command prompt and change directory to X:\ Run ‘bcdedit.cmd ’ replacing Drv with the drive letter containing Windows Reboot the system or proceed to Dissimilar Hardware Driver Injection
Dissimilar Hardware Driver Injection If recovering to a Bare Metal system, it is likely that the new hardware is substantially different from the original machine and the recovered system will need to have drivers installed for the new devices. Perform the following steps to inject drivers into the offline system prior to booting it for the first time
Locate and verify the drive letter and path to the Windows directory of the recovered system
Launch the Replibit Recovery Wizard from the Desktop
From the Replibit Recovery Wizard Utilities menu, select Driver Injector to launch the driver injection utility
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Select Browse next to Target Analyzer Output. Navigate to and select X:\BMRReplibit\Devices.pmq
Select Browse next to Driver Search Directory. Navigate to and select Y:\Drivers
Select Offline mode
Select Browse next to Offline Image Location. Navigate to and select the Windows folder
Click Next
Wait for the driver search to complete
A list of discovered devices and available drivers will be displayed
Verify and select the appropriate drivers that you wish to install
Click Next to install the selected drivers
Once the driver installation is complete you may close the wizard and reboot the system
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Fixing Windows Boot Issues after performing a Bare Metal Recovery If you find that the system will not boot, or encounters an error message or blue-screen during the startup process after recovering a system to new hardware, perform the following steps to resolve the issue.
Boot the system from a Replibit Recovery Toolkit image Be sure to use a disk of the same architecture as the operating system that you are trying to restore. (i.e. x86 or x64)
Once the system has booted, located and identify the drive letter that contains the Windows directory
Open a command prompt using the icon on the Desktop
Change directory to X:\
Run ‘bcdedit.cmd ’ replacing DRV with the drive letter containing Windows
Launch Windows Startup Repair from the pinned icon on the taskbar
Once the Startup Repair wizard has completed, reboot the system normally
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VMware Recovery Any of the Bare Metal Recovery options previously discussed may be used when rescuing protected systems back into a VMware environment. In addition, the following options are also available.
NFS Recovery In a VMware environment it is possible to utilize the NFS Export feature on an Appliance or Vault to simplify and expedite recovery of protected systems, even when the underlying storage of the host server has been compromised, but the physical host is still in operation. In order for this method to be employed, verify that there is sufficient free space remaining on the Appliance or Vault to hold the entire thick provisioned disk size for all protected systems you intend to recover. If insufficient disk space remains, refer to the VMware iSCSI Recovery section below. To begin recovery of the affected protected systems, from the Web Interface navigate to the Protected System details page and select a recovery point for each protected system that you wish to restore and click Export. Select VMDK as the format and start the Export process. Monitor the progress of the operation from the Conversion tab on the Jobs menu pane. For better performance it is recommended not to select Export to USB. From the Web Interface navigate to the NFS Exports menu pane and select Enable NFS Exports. On a Vault, you will have to be logged in using a customer account in order to see this option. If not already present, click Add Allowed IP and add the IP address of the VMware host server. In multi-server VMware environments, add all host addresses in your cluster to the allowed IP list if you desire to enable vMotion operations between hosts. From the VMware Client, connect to each host and add the Replibit device as an NFS storage location. Select Configuration and then choose Storage. Click Add Storage, choose Network File System, and then click Next. For Server enter the IP address of the Replibit device. For Folder enter /export/admin for an Appliance or /export/ for a Vault, where is the customer name the protected systems you are trying to restore belongs to. Do NOT select Mount NFS Read-Only. Enter a name for the new Datastore (i.e. ‘Replibit’) and click Next, then Finished. If successful, the new Datastore should appear in the list of storage locations. Once the Export jobs have finished for each protected system that you intend to recover, create a new guest server within the VMware Client. Choose the Replibit data store as the server location, and configured the desired system resources and settings. When selecting disk drives, choose ‘Use an Existing Hard Disk’ and browse to the exported disk volume in the Replibit datastore. If necessary, edit the final guest server configuration and add any additional disks to the system. Power on the guest server and complete any required configuration changes to the
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running system to return it to service. The recovered system may be run indefinitely from Replibit storage while waiting for repair or replacement of the failed host system storage array.
iSCSI Recovery If disk space on the device is constrained, iSCSI export can be used to expose the protected system disks to VMware. This has the advantage of being faster, as we do not have to wait for the Export conversion process, but iSCSI is also more fragile. Exported iSCSI target identifiers are not persistent through a reboot of the Replibit device. The disks will have to be rediscovered and guest servers will have to be reconfigured if the Replibit device is rebooted. Ensure you have selected Live mode when starting iSCSI or data loss may occur. Data changes applied to the iSCSI disks is persistent and will not be lost when running iSCSI in Live mode. It is recommended to use iSCSI Export with caution, and at present NFS Export is to be preferred. If using iSCSI for virtual machine instant recovery, ensure that Live mode is selected when starting the service to alleviate the possibility of data loss in the event of a device reboot while the recovered systems are running from Replibit storage. VMware does not allow storing the virtual disk pointer files for RDM disks on NFS, so the host must have at least one small native VMFS datastore to allow creation of virtual machines using this method. Configure each VMware host to allow iSCSI discovery from the Replibit server. From Configuration select Storage Adapters. If not already present, add the Software iSCSI Adapter to the host. For ESX 5.1 and newer, configure iSCSI network communications as follows: From Networking select a virtual switch whose physical network adapters are connected to the same physical network as the Replibit device. (Typically this is vSwitch0) If there is not one already present, select properties and add a new VMKernel Adapter to the switch. Give it an available IP address in the same subnet as the Replibit device. (If the Replibit Appliance has multiple network adapters, you may use any configured subnet to isolate traffic onto separate controllers.) In complex networks, assign the VMKernel adapter to the correct VLAN. If more than one physical network adapter is associated with this vSwitch, edit the properties of the VMKernel adapter. On the Nic Teaming page move all but one network adapter to Unused, so that there is only a single network card active. From the Storage Adapters configuration page, edit the Software iSCSI adapter. Add the new VMkernel adapter on the Networking page. Add the IP address of the Appliance or Vault to the Dynamic Discovery tab, and save settings. For each protected system, choose a recovery point and click iSCSI Start to export the disks. From the VMware Client, select Storage Adapters from the Configuration page. Select the Software iSCSI adapter and click Rescan All from the top right of the page. Once complete the newly exported iSCSI disks should appear in the lower storage management window. It is recommended to do this one system at a time and change the default LUN names to a friendly name to simplify identification later. (i.e. change to _)
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Within the VMware client, create a new Guest server stored on a native VMFS datastore. When selecting disks, choose ‘Raw Disk’ and select the discovered iSCSI disks exported from the Replibit device. The disk objects must be stored on a VMFS datastore. Boot the new Guest server on the VMware host and complete any reconfiguration necessary to return the system to service.
Relocating from iSCSI or NFS Back to Local Storage Once the host server storage has been repaired, perform the following steps to migrate the recovered systems from iSCSI or NFS back onto local storage. If you own VMware licensing and have a vCenter server, you may use Storage Migration from the VMware Client to easily relocate the guest system and storage back to the host. Enterprise license owners can perform this operation while the guest is up and running, others will be required to power off the protected system first. From the VMware Client, attach to vCenter and select the desired guest. Right-click and select Migrate. Chose ‘Change Host and Storage Location’ and complete the remaining steps to pick a new host and storage location for the system. If recovering using iSCSI, in order to force the conversion of the Raw Disk (RDM) volumes into a VMDK, when choosing the storage location choose Advanced. For each disk, explicitly select either ‘Thick’ or ‘Thin’ as the destination format. The target datastore must be different than where the virtual machine files are currently located. Those without vCenter licensing will have to perform a migration from the ESXi host shell. If you have not already done so, enable and start the ESXi Shell and optionally the SSH server on the host. From Security Profile in host Configuration, select Properties from the Services section. Start ESXi Shell, and optionally SSH to enable access to the server command line interface. Use ‘vmkfstools’ to perform a disk conversion of the protected systems disks onto local storage. Shut down the protected system and log in to the ESXi shell as root. Copy the Guest virtual machine definition onto local storage:
cp -R (i.e. cp -R /vmfs/volumes/Replibit/Server01 /vmfs/volumes/Datastore1) Run the conversion command as follows:
vmkfstools -I -d (i.e. vmkfstools /vmfs/volumes/Replibit/Server01_2016_02_01_11_00_00_pm_vmdk/ 57501948_e06c_4d4a_91e6_7ef6b7b689fe_C.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/Datastore1/Server01/C.vmdk -d thin)
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Note that when typing names in the shell you may use the tab completion to make entering long file paths easier. Type the first few letters and press to complete the name. If the name is not unique, press twice to list all matching possibilities. Type a few more letters and press again. There is no progress displayed during the conversion. Wait for the shell to return to a new line with a cursor prompt. You can monitor activity from the Performance tab by observing disk read/write statistics. Once the conversion is complete, perform the following: From the VMware Client, select the protected system and remove it. (Do not select Delete from Disk!) From Configuration select Storage and browse the Datastore location that you copied the machine definition files. Open the folder containing the recovered server, right-click the .vmx file and import the Guest. Edit the Guest configuration and remove all hard disks. (Do not delete from disk!) Save and edit the Guest again and, then Add Disks. Browse to the converted VMDK files within the local Datastore. Save and boot the Guest.
Hyper-V Recovery Any of the Bare Metal Recovery options previously discussed may be used when rescuing protected systems back into a Hyper-V environment. In addition, the following options are also available.
NFS Recovery In a Hyper-V environment it is NOT possible to utilize the NFS Export feature of the Replibit Appliance or Vault when the underlying storage of the host server has been compromised, but the physical host is still in operation, as Hyper-V cannot store virtual machine disk files on an NFS storage location. In order for this method to be employed, there must be sufficient local free space remaining on the Appliance or Vault to hold at least the Thin provisioned disk size for all protected systems you intend to recover. In addition, to complete the Export process there must be enough free space remaining on the Appliance or Vault to hold the fully Thick provisioned disk size of the largest machine being recovered. If insufficient disk space remains, refer to Hyper-V iSCSI Recovery below. To begin recovery of the affected protected systems, from the Web Interface Interface navigate to the Protected System details page and select a recovery point for each protected system that you wish to restore and choose Export. Select VHD as the format for Generation 1 Hyper-V guests, or VHDX for Generation 2 Hyper-V guests (Server 2012 or later only). Click Start to begin the Export process. Monitor the progress of the operation from the Conversion tab on the Jobs menu pane. For better performance it is recommended not to select Export to USB. If you require additional space to perform the export, it is recommended to use the Hyper-V iSCSI Recovery method instead. P a g e | 63
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From the Web Interface navigate to the NFS Exports menu and select Enable NFS Exports. On a Vault, you will have to be logged in as a user account in order to see this option. If not already present, click Add Allowed IP and add the IP address of the Hyper-V host server. In multi-server environments, add all hosts addresses if desired. Install and configure NFS Client services on the Windows Hyper-V hosts if it is not already present. Run Server Manager and select Roles and Features. On Windows Server 2008/R2 select Features, expand File Server Tools and select Services for Network File Systems Tools. On Server 2012/R2 choose Add Roles and Features, select Role Based or Feature Based installation and then select the local server. Enable Client for NFS under Features selections. For all version of Windows, mount the remote NFS share from a command prompt. Run the following for an Appliance: Mount –o fileaccess=777 \\\export\admin (i.e. mount \\192.168.0.10\export\admin Z:) Run the following for a Vault: Mount –o fileaccess=777 \\\export\ (i.e. mount –o fileaccess=777 \\192.168.0.10\export\customer1 Z:) Copy the exported disk volumes onto a local storage location on the Hyper-V server. Create a new Hyper-V Guest as per normal. When selecting hard disks, browse to the location that you copied the disk volume images to and selected the exported VHD/VHDX file(s). Power on the guest server and complete any required configuration changes to the running system to return it to service.
iSCSI Recovery If disk space on the device is constrained, iSCSI export can be used to expose the protected system disks to Hyper-V. This has the advantage of being faster, as we do not have to wait for the Export conversion process, but iSCSI is also more fragile. Currently, iSCSI target identifiers are not persistent through a reboot of the Replibit device. The disks will have to be rediscovered and guest servers will have to be reconfigured with the correct disk device assignments if the Replibit device is rebooted. Data changes applied to the iSCSI disks will be persistent when running iSCSI in Live mode. It is recommended to use iSCSI Export with caution, and at present NFS Export is to be preferred. If using iSCSI for virtual machine instant recovery, ensure that Live mode is selected when starting the service to alleviate the possibility of data loss in the event of a device reboot while the recovered systems are running from Replibit storage. Complete the steps listed above to enable NFS Exports and add the Replibit device as an NFS storage location to your physical Hyper-V hosts. This will provide a location to hold the Guest server definitions and temporary file storage if necessary.
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For each protected system select a recovery point and click iSCSI Start to expose the disks to Hyper-V. From Administrative Tools on the Hyper-V host run iSCSI Initiator. Enter the IP address of the Appliance or Vault in the Target field and click Quick Connect. Select each discovered disk and click Connect to attach it. Click Done when finished. Note: When adding additional servers you can click refresh to discover the new disk LUNs. In order to enable a disk to be eligible for use as a pass-thru disk to a Guest system, the disk must be offline. Open Computer Manager and expand Storage, Disk Management. Identify the new system disks and set them Offline if necessary by right-clicking the disk name and selecting Offline. Open Hyper-V Manager and create a new Virtual Machine. If your primary storage array has been lost you may select “Store the virtual machine in a different location” and browse to the mapped NFS share provided by Replibit. Make a new folder for Virtual Machine definitions. Complete the creation of the Guest and assign resources as desired. When choosing hard disk options, select “Attach a Virtual Disk Later”. Once complete, edit the settings of the new Virtual Machine. Select the IDE (Gen 1) or SCSI (Gen 2) controller and add a hard disk. Select Physical Disk and choose the desired disk to assign from the dropdown containing all available local system disks.
Relocating from iSCSI Back to Local Storage Once the host server storage has been repaired, perform the following steps to migrate the recovered systems from raw iSCSI disks back onto local storage. Shut down the Guest Virtual Machine, as this process cannot be completed while the machine is running. To enable migration of iSCSI disks, you must first assign control of the disks back to the Hyper-V host. Open Computer Management, expand Storage and select Disk Management. Right-click the disk label and select Online to enable access to the host server. Open Hyper-V Manager. Right-Click Hyper-V from the left toolbar and select New Disk. Select disk format (VHD or VHDX) and type (Fixed or Dynamic, do not choose Differencing) and specify a location. Select ‘Copy the contents of a physical disk’, and then select the appropriate source physical disk. Click Finish and wait for the conversion process to complete. When completed, edit the virtual machine and replace the existing physical disks with the newly created virtual disk files. If the Virtual Machine definition was created on the Replibit NFS storage share, delete the virtual machine and recreate it on Local Storage. Attach the virtual disks created above and reboot the server.
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After Performing a Recovery IMPORTANT!! After performing a full system recovery, regardless of the method used, it is imperative that a new Full Backup be run from the Appliance to synchronize the recovered system with the backup image. Failing to perform a full backup may result in mismatched or missing data in the recovery image and can lead to corrupted backups and total loss of protection.
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Advanced Topics Deploying Replibit as a Virtual Machine Presently, VMware is the only supported platform for deploying Replibit devices in a virtual environment. Replibit leverages a Type-1 hypervisor engine to enable protected system virtualization for boot testing and instant recovery. In order to operate as a virtual machine, Replibit requires support for Nested Virtualization. VMware ESXi 5.1 supports nested virtualization using both AMD and Intel processors, but ESX 5.5 and new has support only for Intel processors. Prior to deploying Replibit as a virtual machine it is recommended that you schedule a call with a Replibit support engineer to assist with the deployment. Replibit does not recommend or support the deployment of Appliances or Vaults as virtual devices in a production environment. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. It is supported to deploy a Management Portal as a virtual device provided sufficient resources are allocated to the device. A Management Portal should have at least 4GB of RAM, and a 100GB operating system disk. Disks may be thin provisioned. To deploy Replibit on VMware, use the VMware client to create a new virtual machine with sufficient resources for the device being provisioned. Once the virtual machine has been created, perform the following steps to customize the virtual machine definition file for use as a Replibit device.
Gracefully shut down the Replibit guest With the VM off, download the .vmx file and open it in WordPad Copy and paste the 4 entries below into the .vmx file and save it vcpu.hotadd = "FALSE" featMask.vm.hv.capable = "Min:1" vhv.enable = "TRUE" disk.EnableUUID = "true"
Upload the modified .vmx file back to its original location on the ESX host Remove the Virtual Machine from inventory (Without Deleting it!) Browse to the .vmx file from Storage and Open it to add the machine back to inventory Start the Virtual Machine
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Using the Linux Shell Replibit is deployed as a hardened Linux distribution. As such there is no graphical user interface display on the physical console, only a text mode Linux shell. To simplify management of the device for users unfamiliar with using Linux shell commands, we have implemented a user account with limited access to a set of user friendly command-line tools. To access the shell tools, log in with the username ‘replibit’ and the default password ‘replibit’. This password should be changed to something more secure when deploying any new device. Advanced Linux users may contact Replibit Support to obtain the root user password. After logging in, type ‘help’ and press for a list of the available commands. All shell commands are case sensitive and should be entered in lower case.
aristosnet: This utility is used to configure the network settings of the device Usage: aristosnet help aristosnet fixIp aristosnet show all aristosnet show aristosnet enable aristosnet disable aristosnet dhcp aristosnet static aristosnet changeClusterInterface
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changepassword: This will change a shell user account password Usage: changepassword [LOGIN] If [LOGIN] is not specified, default to currently logged in user account
changewebpassword: Change the password of a Web Interface user account Usage: changewebpassword
exit: Exit and log out from the shell session Usage: exit
help: List the commands available to the user Usage: help
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ping: Send a stream of network packets to a destination a display results. Useful for testing network connectivity or DNS name resolution. Usage: ping
reboot: Perform a Reboot of the device Usage: reboot [OPTION] Options: -n, --no-sync
don't sync before reboot or halt
-f, --force
force reboot or halt, don't call shutdown(8)
-p, --poweroff
switch off the power when called as halt
-w, --wtmp-only
don't actually reboot or halt, just write wtmp record
-q, --quiet
reduce output to errors only
-v, --verbose
increase output to include informational messages
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
shutdown: Perform a Shutdown of the system and power it off
Usage: shutdown [OPTION]... TIME [MESSAGE] Bring the system down.
Options: -r
reboot after shutdown
-h
halt or power off after shutdown
-H
halt after shutdown (implies -h)
-P
power off after shutdown (implies -h)
-c
cancel a running shutdown
-k
only send warnings, don't shutdown
-q, --quiet
reduce output to errors only
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-v, --verbose
increase output to include informational messages
--help
display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
TIME may have different formats, the most common is simply the word 'now' which will bring the system down immediately. Other valid formats are +m, where m is the number of minutes to wait until shutting down and hh:mm which specifies the time on the 24hr clock.
Logged in users are warned by a message sent to their terminal, you may include an optional MESSAGE included with this. Messages can be sent without actually bringing the system down by using the -k option.
If TIME is given, the command will remain in the foreground until the shutdown occurs. It can be cancelled by Control-C, or by another user using the -c option.
The system is brought down into maintenance (single-user) mode by default, you can change this with either the -r or -h option which specify a reboot or system halt respectively. The -h option can be further modified with H or -P to specify whether to halt the system, or to power it off afterwards. The default is left up to the shutdown scripts.
Manually Setting IP Address Do not use ifconfig. To manually configure a static IP address on a device from the system console, log in to the shell using the ‘replibit’ user account. See ‘Using the Linux Shell’ Run the following command to list the current network configuration ‘aristosnet show all’ Run the following command to set a static IP address on an Interface ‘aristosnet static ’ (i.e. ‘aristosnet static eth0 192.168.0.10 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.254 8.8.8.8’)
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Clustering Replibit has the ability to combine multiple Appliances or Vaults at a location into a cluster for management purposes. What this means is that the management database on the devices is merged and shared, and the Web Interface presents a consolidated view of all Protected Systems residing on any device within the cluster. This does *NOT* perform any data storage consolidation or filesystem clustering services, it is strictly a merging of the database information. To set up a cluster, first deploy a node in stand-alone mode. Once you have deployed and configured the first node, you must enable it for clustering. Log in to the Web Interface and select the Cluster Management menu pane. Select to check the Enable Clustering option.
Once enabled the cluster will consist of this single device as the Primary node with no Arbiter Node (More on this later) Next, install the Arbiter software on a Windows machine on the same LAN and enter the IP address of this device in the Arbiter Node field and save. Now you may deploy a second clustered device at the same location. When performing the initial configuration of the device from the Web Interface, select ‘add machine to existing cluster’. You will be prompted for the IP address of an existing member of the cluster (not the arbiter node). Enter the IP of any device already assigned to the cluster that you are joining. Complete the setup of the device, and configure storage. Once you’ve completed configuration of the Storage Pool you will be able to access the settings menu pane. You will notice that most of the available options and settings are globally shared with all members of the cluster. Only machine specific settings, like Machine Name and Network Settings are independently configurable. Changing any of the shared settings parameters (like Password for example) affects all members of the cluster. The Protected Systems page will list all systems in the cluster residing on any node.
Arbiter Node The database engine on all devices is reconfigured as a true network clustered service. Changes are replicated synchronously to all members, and a quorum must be established to identify the primary node. To form a quorum a majority of all members that exist in the cluster must be online and in communication with one another. If no majority exists, no node will be promoted to Primary and the database will remain read-only. In order for a quorum to exist, there MUST be an odd number of nodes in the cluster. In order to facilitate maintaining an odd
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number of nodes, Replibit utilizes the Arbiter Node service to be deployed when there are an even number of devices in the cluster. The Arbiter Node installer may be downloaded from the Downloads page on any device. Install the Arbiter on any Windows system to deploy a passive database replica to facilitate maintaining the quorum. The Arbiter is VERY low resource intensive, and should preferably be deployed in the same site and subnet as the Replibit devices in the cluster. Once an Arbiter node has been installed, join it to the cluster. From any device in the cluster, navigate to the Cluster Management menu pane. Enter the IP address of the Arbiter Node and click Save. A popup should display success or failure when joining the Arbiter Node to the cluster. Due to the extra complexity induced by the necessity of maintaining a quorum of active nodes, and possible user confusion over which device a particular protected system resides on, Replibit does not recommend enabling Clustering unless there is a compelling need to do so. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Migrating Protected Systems Occasionally it is desirable to relocate a protected system from one device to another, be it for migration to a new Appliance, balancing out storage consumption between Vaults, etc. In order to facilitate this, Replibit has the ability to perform a migration of protected systems, include all recovery points, job history, and metadata, from one device to another. To perform a migration, carefully follow the steps listed below:
Migrating to a new Appliance
Migrate only ONE system at a time Verify that no Backup or Replication Jobs are active for the Protected System Stop and Disable the Replibit service on the Protected System From the System Details page select Migrate and choose a migration method Within Cluster Over Network Select another Node in this cluster Outside Cluster Over Network Enter IP address of another device Within Cluster Over USB Select connected USB storage device Outside Cluster Over USB Select connected USB storage device Click Migrate to begin the migration Observe migration progress from the System tab on the Jobs menu pane Verify that Migration completed successfully on the Source Appliance. VERIFY that Migration completed successfully on the DESTINATION Appliance. VERY Important! If the Migration fails on the Destination Appliance, you must retry the Migration until it is successful. If Migration fails 3 times, contact Replibit Support for assistance.
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Edit Aristos.cfg on the protected system and enter the IP address of the new Appliance Enable and start the Replibit service on the device. Perform a test Backup now.
If migrating via USB, once the export process completes on the source Appliance, connect the USB drive to the Destination Appliance. From the Protected Systems page click Import and select the protected system being migrated. Verify that the Import process completes successfully before enabling the Replibit service on the protected system! If migrating within a cluster, once the job is successfully received on the destination Appliance the migration process is finished. If migrating outside the current cluster, once the import job on the destination Appliance completes successfully, you may delete the protected system from the source Appliance.
Migrating to a new Vault
Migrate only ONE system at a time. Verify that no Replication Jobs are active for the Protected System. Disable the Replication Schedule under Vault Settings on the Appliance that contains the Protected System. From the Vault System Details page select Migrate and choose a migration method Within Cluster Over Network. Select another Node in this cluster Outside Cluster Over Network Enter IP address of another device Within Cluster Over USB Select connected USB storage device Outside Cluster Over USB Select connected USB storage device Click Migrate to begin the migration Observe migration progress from the System tab on the Jobs menu pane Verify that Migration completed successfully on the Source Vault VERIFY that Migration completed successfully on the DESTINATION Vault VERY Important! If the Migration fails on the Destination Vault, you must retry the Migration until it is successful. If Migration fails 3 times, contact Replibit Support for assistance. Create a new Vault Schedule on the Appliance if it does not yet exist for the new Vault Re-enable the replication schedule on the Appliance.
If migrating via USB, once the export process completes on the source Vault, connect the USB drive to the Destination Vault. From the Protected Systems page click Import and select the protected system being migrated. Verify that the Import process completes successfully before enabling the Replication on the source Appliance! If migrating within a cluster, once the job is successfully received on the destination Vault the migration process is finished. P a g e | 74
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If migrating outside the current cluster, once the import job on the destination Vault completes successfully, you may delete the protected system from the source Vault.
Using VirtIO in a VM Enabling VirtIO for a running virtual machine replaces the emulated IDE mode disk storage system with a paravirtual SCSI mode storage controller. Using paravirtual storage drivers improves disk I/O considerably for the guest Operating System and allows for more than four storage devices. When enabling VirtIO in Test Mode, the changes will remain persistent for only ONE boot cycle of the selected recovery point. Once the VM is shut down and powered off, all changes will be lost and the recovery point will revert back to traditional IDE storage controller mode. Enabling VirtIO in Test Mode is available strictly for the purpose of testing the installation procedure and performance for a given Protected System. When enabling VirtIO in Live Mode, a permanent, persistent snapshot of the selected recovery point will be created. VirtIO changes to the configuration will remain enabled permanently for the selected recovery point. The selected recovery point will be locked and remain on the device and may not be deleted until manually removed from the storage pool by Replibit Support. VirtIO will be enabled ONLY FOR THIS RECOVERY POINT. All other recovery points will remain configured for traditional IDE storage controller mode. Ensure that your popup blocker is disabled before starting setup for VirtIO
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Installing VirtIO Drivers
Log into the Replibit Appliance/Vault and open the details of the protected system you wish to virtualize.
Click ‘Start VM’ next to the recovery point you wish to virtualize. Be sure to make a note of the snapshot date and time for future reference.
Choose the RAM, CPU, and Mode you wish to virtualize in. At the bottom of the pop-up window, you will see “Setup virtio”, select it so a check appears in the box. Enter the Encryption Passphrase if prompted
Press Start to launch the VM.
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When prompted for the Virtio Setup Confirmation, select Yes.
The Virtio setup process window will appear. DO NOT DO ANYTHING HERE YET. CONTINUE READING THE BELOW INSTRUCTIONS. WAIT FOR THE VM TO BOOT AND GO TO THE CONSOLE OF THE VIRTUALIZED PROTECTED SYSTEM. COMPLETE THE INSTALLATION OF VIRTIO DRIVERS WITHIN WINDOWS.
If this is a UEFI system, you will be presented with the UEFI BIOS screen. Select Continue from the BIOS menu and press
The protected system will boot to the Windows startup menu. Select Safe Mode to load windows faster without unnecessary components at this stage.
Log into the Windows protected system with a user account that has local admin rights. If this is a Domain Controller you will need the Active Directory Restore user and password.
If the system displays a request to Reboot, Select Restart Later.
From Control Panel open Device Manager.
Expand Other Devices and select SCSI Controller. Right-click and select Update Driver Software.
Select Browse My Computer for Driver Software.
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Click the Browse button and navigate to the attached CD Drive image.
Expand the drive containing the ‘viostor’ drivers and navigate downward to the correct operating system and architecture for the Protected System.
Select the appropriate folder containing the correct drivers and click OK.
Click Next to begin the driver installation process.
Windows will present you with a security warning to verify driver software installation. Select Install to proceed.
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You should receive a successful install prompt when driver installation has completed. Click Close
At this point, the protected system needs to be rebooted once to complete installation of the new drivers and commit registry changes to disk. DO NOT PERFORM A SHUTDOWN! REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU ARE SETTING UP VIRTIO IN TEST MODE OR LIVE MODE, YOU MUST CHOOSE RESTART, NOT SHUTDOWN, AT THIS POINT. Wait for the system to reach the BIOS POST screen before proceeding. Once the system has started a new boot cycle you may continue.
The Virtio drivers are now installed. Go back to the Replibit Appliance/Vault Web Interface and select “Finish” at the Virtio setup process window. This will shut down the VM and switch the disks to the Virtio SCSI Controller. Be patient while the VM powers off. Once the system is powered off, you may power on the VM normally and it will be using the Virtio drivers. If you performed the setup in Test Mode, the VirtIO drivers and configuration will be present for ONE boot cycle and then revert back to the standard IDE driver configuration. If you performed the setup in Live Mode, the VirtIO drivers and configuration will remain persistent for THIS recovery point unless they are manually cleared from the device on the backend by Replibit Support.
Once the Protected System has booted into Windows, open Computer Management from Control Panel, expand Storage and select Disk Management. If any disks are listed as Offline, Right-Click the disk name and select Online. (Windows attaches newly discovered SCSI disks Offline by default)
To change the default disk policy, perform the following on the Protected System o Open an elevated Command prompt o Run ‘diskpart’ o Enter ‘san policy=onlineall’ o Exit diskpart and capture a new snapshot of the Protected System
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Using VirtIO with UEFI If the protected system you are virtualizing is using a UEFI BIOS, Follow these additional steps.
The EFI BIOS emulation currently does not auto-detect the VirtIO SCSI controller as a bootable device, and will not automatically boot from it. The following steps will be required each time you power on a UEFI based virtual server with VirtIO drivers installed in order to manually add the protected system’s hard drive to the boot order and select it. Because of this limitation, Replibit does not recommend using VirtIO for UEFI based systems.
Select Start VM and wait for the EFI BIOS console to appear Select Boot Maintenance Manager and press Enter Select Boot Options and press Enter Select Add Boot Option and press Enter Locate the bootable hard drive and hit Enter Select EFI and Press Enter (If EFI is not present, this is the wrong drive) Select Boot and press Enter Select bootx64.efi (or bootx86.efi whichever is present) and press Enter Select Input the Description and press Enter Type ‘Microsoft Windows’ and press Enter Select Commit Changes and Exit and press Enter Select Boot Options and press Enter Select Change Boot Order and press Enter Select Change the Order and press Enter Highlight Microsoft Windows and press ‘+’ several times to place it just after EFI Floppy Press Enter Select Commit Changes and Exit and press Enter Select Go Back to Main Page and press Enter Press ESC Select Continue and press Enter Windows should now boot
Remember, the Boot Order settings are persistent only as long as the virtual machine is not powered off. They will be retained through a warm reboot, but if the system is shut down and then restarted this configuration process will have to be repeated in order to set up the EFI BIOS boot settings.
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Windows Directory Services Restore Mode Operations On first boot, press and select Directory Services Restore Mode. You will need the original Directory Services Restore Mode Administrator password created when this server was promoted to a domain controller. If the customer does not have this password, contact Microsoft for support.
Log in as Administrator and open an elevated command prompt IMPORTANT: Verify that Time, Time Zone, and Date are correct on the server before proceeding! Incorrect time settings can cause USN Rollback corruption of the Active Directory being recovered.
Run the following commands to perform an Authoritative Restore
Ntdsutil activate instance ntds authoritative restore
To restore the entire Directory:
restore database To restore a particular Directory tree or Organizational Unit:
restore subtree (i.e. restore subtree dc=nwtraders,dc=com,ou=boston)
To restore a specific Directory Object or User:
restore object (i.e. restore object dc=nwtraders,dc=com,ou=boston,cn=bsmith)
Repeat to restore additional subtrees or objects Enter quit in the NTDSUTIL console until back at the command prompt, then reboot the server in normal mode. Complete any remaining recovery steps, like changing drive letters, assigning correct IP addresses, hardware detection and driver discovery, etc. Use Active Directory Sites and Services to force replication with all Domain Controllers and verify that your changes have been successfully applied.
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Troubleshooting and Support Replibit Support To receive assistance from the Replibit Support team you may visit our support web site https://support.replibit.com and open a ticket. First time users will need to create an account, then log in to the site. When creating a new ticket, please provide a short ticket title that accurately describes the nature of the problem you are experiencing. Fill in the form data at the top of the ticket to securely provide us with the URL addresses and login credentials for the affected Appliance or Vault, as well as the Management Portal so that our technicians will be able to remotely troubleshoot and assist with the resolution of the issue. In the body of the ticket, please provide all relevant details about the issue you are experiencing and any troubleshooting steps that have already been performed attempting to resolve it. Once the ticket has been created, you will be notified via email whenever there is any update. You may reply to any ticket related email to update it with your response. Replibit does not recommend providing passwords and access credentials via email. Please log in to https://support.replibit.com to update the ticket securely whenever you are providing passwords, as there is no guarantee that emails will not be sent over the Internet in clear text.
Knowledgebase Available within the Replibit Support ticket portal at https://support.replibit.com is a self-help knowledgebase. Answers to many questions regarding installation, deployment, administration, best practices, troubleshooting, and repair may be found within the knowledgebase.
Troubleshooting Common Issues Backup Failures The vast majority of backup failure issues are caused by underlying problems with Microsoft Volume Shadowcopy Services (VSS). Common VSS issues include: Not enough free space on the volume to take a snapshot; VSS Writers in a broken or failed state; Third-Party applications interrupting VSS snapshot creation; or other snapshot creation errors. For assistance with backup failure issues, first open a ticket with Replibit Support. Note the ticket ID created and then download and run the Replibit Analysis Tool on the affected Protected System from http://ftp.replibit.net/isodownload/RepAnalysisTool.exe. Enter the ticket ID when requested. The Replibit Analysis Tool with gather diagnostic information and perform a series of tests on the Protected System, then upload the results into the ticket for examination by our support engineers.
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Replication Issues Issues with stalled replication to the Vault affecting only a single Appliance can generally be resolved by rebooting the Appliance. Issues with recovery points that have been delivered to the Vault but are still waiting to be received can sometimes be resolved by rebooting the Vault. After a vault reboot wait one or two hours. If the recovery points are still waiting to be received, open a ticket with Replibit Support for assistance.
Issues with Boot VM Checks There are many possible causes and symptoms related to Boot VM Checks. If you are experiencing an issue with Boot VM testing, please open a ticket with Replibit Support and describe in detail the problem that you are experiencing and any troubleshooting steps already performed. It is likely when troubleshooting Boot VM issues that access to the live protected system will be required for troubleshooting. Be prepared to assist our engineers gain access to the protected system using our remote desktop sharing tools.
Other Issues For other issues or general assistance and support, please open a ticket with Replibit Support at http://support.replibit.com Be sure to provide a concise, descriptive ticket title and fill in all of the form fields at the top to provide our engineers with access credentials and URL addresses of the affected systems and the Management Portal. Populate the body of the ticket with a detailed description of the issue and any troubleshooting steps already performed attempting to resolve it.
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