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PowerProtect Data Manager 19.9 File System Agent User Guide

File System agent prerequisites

Review the following prerequisites before installing and using the File System agent in PowerProtect Data Manager.

Windows and Linux prerequisites

  • Ensure that your host is a 64-bit system. PowerProtect Data Manager supports only 64-bit hosts.
  • Ensure that your host is a supported operating system version.

    Software compatibility information for the PowerProtect Data Manager software is provided in the eLab Navigator, available at https://elabnavigator.emc.com/eln/modernHomeDataProtection.

  • Both the PowerProtect Data Manager server and client must be a minimum version of 19.3 in order to perform centralized and file-level restore of file systems in PowerProtect Data Manager.
  • Ensure that all clocks on both the host and PowerProtect Data Manager are time-synced to the local NTP server to ensure discovery of the backups.
  • Ensure that the host and the PowerProtect Data Manager network can see and resolve each other.

    If PowerProtect Data Manager and the File System agent are registered in a different domain, in order to ensure that asset and copy discovery complete successfully, you must add host entries (IP address and FQDN) on both the client and server. This prerequisite applies to both Windows and Linux clients. For example, on PowerProtect Data Manager, you would be required to add the File System agent host entries, and on the File System agent, you would be required to add the PowerProtect Data Manager host entries:

    1. Browse to the path of the hosts file. For example, on Windows C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts, and on Linux /etc/hosts.
    2. Add an entry to the hosts file, as in the following:
      IP address     FQDN            common name
      10.10.100.100  yourdomain.com  yourdomain
  • LVM/VxVM partitions or volumes are supported.
  • Physical partitions are supported only when using file-based backups.
  • Each volume group on LVM2 or VxVM must have at least 10% free space for a block-based backup to succeed. For successful Windows VSS snapshot during block-based or file-based backup, the free space requirement is 20%.
  • For file-based backups, ensure that the drive on which the File System agent is installed has adequate free space for the metadata record files that are created during a backup. Provide about 250 MB free space for each million files that you are backing up.
  • For any ESXi version 6.5 or earlier host with PowerStore storage attached, the Windows operating system deployment or installation cannot proceed. If the DiskMaxIOSize parameter is not configured with the proper value, the File System agent backup and restore operations fail. Ensure that you set the DiskMaxIOSize to 1024 KB.
  • Review the limitations in the section File System agent limitations.

Linux prerequisites

  • File system discovery requires an ext3, ext4, XFS, or BTRFS file system type.
  • On the Linux hosts that have the UEFI Secure Boot option enabled, block-based backup drivers do not load, and the error message insmod: ERROR: could not insert module /lib/ modules/ 3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64/ extra/nsrbbb.ko: Required key not available appears. As a workaround, you can disable the Secure Boot option.
  • Ensure that the file system has the /etc/fstab entry. Without the /etc/fstab entry, discovery fails.
  • To enable file-level restores, complete the following:
    1. Log in to the system you are restoring from as root.
    2. Install iSCSI client packages.

      See the Operating System documentation for the installation procedure.

    3. For Service Start, choose Manually, and then click OK.
  • Install the lsb_release package.

    See the Operating System documentation for the installation procedure.


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