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Release Notes for Relax-and-Recover version 1.17.2

This document contains the release notes for the open source project
Relax-and-Recover.

Relax-and-Recover website

Github project

ReaR Poll

This document is distributed with the following license: “Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0)”. To read the license deed
go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/

Overview

Relax-and-Recover is a GNU/Linux system administrator tool used to create
disaster recovery images which makes bare metal restore easier. System
administrators use Relax-and-Recover as part of disaster recovery policy
which does not replace in any way a good backup policy.

Product Features

The following features are supported on the most recent releases of
Relax-and-Recover. Anything labeled as (NEW!) was added as the most recent
release. New functionality for previous releases can be seen in the next
chapter that details each release.

The most recent release of Relax-and-Recover is supported on most GNU/Linux
based systems with kernel 2.6 or higher. It provides the following
functionality:

  • Hot maintenance capability. A rescue image can be made online while the
    system is running.

  • Command line interface. Relax-and-Recover doesnot require a graphical
    interface to run, nor in creation mode, nor in rescue mode (console is
    enough).

  • Support included for most common file systems, such as ext2, ext3, ext4
    and reiserfs. Other filesystems like jfs, xfs and btrfs are also
    implemented, but are less tested. (Feedback is appreciated)

  • Selected Hardware RAID and (eg. HP SmartArray) and mirroring solutions
    (eg. DRBD) are supported.

  • LVM root volumes are supported.

  • Multipath support for SAN storage

  • UEFI support

  • Integrates with internal backup solutions such as:

      □ GNU tar (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=tar)
      □ GNU tar (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=tar, BACKUP_TYPE=incremental,
        FULLBACKUPDAY=”Mon”) for using incremental backups with a weekly full
        backup. Be aware, old tar archives will not be removed automatically!
      □ GNU tar with openssl encryption (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=tar,
        BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_ENABLED=1)
      □ rsync on local devices (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=rsync), such USB
        and local disks
      □ rsync over the network (BACKUP=RSYNC, BACKUP_PROG=rsync)
  • Integrates with external backup solutions such as:

      □ Tivoli Storage Manager (BACKUP=TSM)
      □ HP Data Protector (BACKUP=DP)
      □ Symantec NetBacakup (BACKUP=NBU)
      □ Galaxy 5, 6, and 7 (BACKUP=GALAXY)
      □ Galaxy 10 [Commvault Simpana] (BACKUP=GALAXY10) (NEW!)
      □ Bacula (BACKUP=BACULA)
      □ Bareos (BACKUP=BAREOS) (A fork of Bacula)
      □ Rsync Backup Made Easy (BACKUP=RBME)
      □ Duplicity/Duply (BACKUP=DUPLICITY)
      □ EMC Networker, also known as Legato (BACKUP=NSR)
      □ SEP Sesam (BACKUP=SESAM)
  • Integrates with Disaster Recovery Linux Manager (drlm) (NEW!)

  • Udev support (except for some really ancient udev versions) which is the
    base for many new and important features:

      □ kernel drivers for network cards and storage adapters are loaded via
        udev
      □ deal with network persistent names in udev rules
      □ firmware loading
      □ persistent storage device names (though Relax-and-Recover does
        nothing with this)
  • System reconfiguration

      □ enable recovery on hardware, that is not the same as the original
        system
      □ network and storage drivers are adjusted
      □ map hard disks if they do not match (e.g. hda -> sda)
      □ remap network MAC addresses
      □ use another IP address, or using dhcp via templates or from kernel
        command line
      □ rebuild the initial ramdisk if needed (for new storage drivers)
      □ migration to SAN storage (New! Experimental)
  • Support backup software: Bacula, both locally attached tapes (with
    bextract) and network-based backups. Also, in combination with OBDR
    tapes.

  • Create OBDR tapes with method mkbackup and put the backup onto the tape
    to have a single-tape bootable recovery solution

  • Label the OBDR tape with the method format to avoid accidental overwrites
    with OBDR

  • Create bootable disk (eSATA, USB …) media with the backup included:

    BACKUP_URL=usb:///dev/device

    Together with OUTPUT=USB we have now a complete solution on hard disks
    (booting of it and restoring data).

  • DHCP client support (IPv4 and IPv6). Dhcp client activation can be forced
    via the variable USE_DHCLIENT=yes (define in /etc/rear/local.conf). It is
    also possible to force DHCP at boot time with kernel option dhcp

  • USE_STATIC_NETWORKING=y, will cause statically configured network
    settings to be applied even when USE_DHCLIENT is in effect

  • Save layout and compare layouts for easy automation of making
    Relax-and-Recover snapshots (checklayout option)

  • The layout workflow is the default workflow instead of the deprecated dr
    workflow. The dr workflow kept all important system information into a
    directory structure where the new layout workflow use files to keep the
    information centralized. The dr workflow has been removed in rear v1.14!

  • External USB booting now uses extlinux instead of syslinux, and
    therefore, the USB disk must first be formatted with an ext2, ext3, ext4
    or btrfs based file system

  • cron job to check changes in disk layout and trigger rear mkrescue if
    required

  • VLAN tagging support

  • Add timestamp of rear run with rc code to the syslog or messages file;
    sending mail report is also possible

NOTE: Features marked experimental are prone to change with future releases.

Fill in the ReaR poll so we can learn better the wishes of our customers and
users. We hope we can implement or improve our work with this in the future.
We need your input and/or feedback!

Relax-and-Recover Releases

The first release of Relax-and-Recover, version 1.0, was posted to the web in
July 2006. For each release, this chapter lists the new features and defect
fixes. Note that all releases are cumulative, and that all releases of
Relax-and-Recover are compatible with previous versions of Relax-and-Recover,
unless otherwise noted.

The references pointing to fix #nr or issue #nr refer to our issues tracker

Version 1.17.2 (August 2015)

  • Several fixed required to the Debian packaging rules needed so it builds
    correctly on OBS

  • Fixed the NTP startup script (issue #641)

  • Fixed the vfat label issue (issue #647)

  • Improved the DUPLICITY method with finding all required libraries and
    python scripts

  • Added the /run directory to the list of recreating missing directories
    (issue #619)

  • Fix issue with USB disk and rsync as internal backup program (issue #645)

  • Fix rsync restore: –anchored invalid rsync option (issue #642)

  • A new variable was introduced NSR_POOLNAME (issue #640)

  • Replaced almost all temporary files from /tmp/ to $TMP_DIR/ (issue #607)
    Related to security recommendations for Fedora and RHEL:
      □ https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1239009 (f22)
      □ https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1238843 (rhel 7.2)
  • Move nfs-client from depends to recommends in Debian control file (issue
    #633)

  • In packaging/rpm/rear.spec replaced “BuildArch: noarch” with
    “ExclusiveArch: %ix86 x86_64 ppc ppc64” that should tell the user that
    rear is known to work only on %ix86 x86_64 ppc ppc64 and removed
    “Requires: yaboot” for ppc ppc64 because that is the default installed
    bootloader on ppc ppc64 (issues #629 and #631)

  • Support the Oracle Linux 6 ksplice module (issue #605)

  • In script 27_hpraid_layout.sh added the missing
    HPSSACLI_BIN_INSTALLATION_DIR variable to the COPY_AS_IS array (issue #
    630)

  • Modified the packaging Makefile and rules for debian to fix the failing
    OBS Debian builds (issue #604)

  • Syslinux version > 5.00 is now supported (ISO and USB output) - works on
    Debian 8, Ubuntu 15.04 (issue #624)

  • Bail out when syslinux/modules are not found in lib/
    bootloader-functions.sh (issues #467 and #596) You could also define a
    variable SYSLINUX_MODULES_DIR if rear cannot find it automatically
    (should not be necessary)

  • Support was added for SLES11 on PPC64 hardware (issues #616 and #628)

  • Support was added for new hardware - PPC64LE - RHEL and Ubuntu (issue #
    627)

  • FIX the hashed password (SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD variable) and added a missing
    library libfreeblpriv3 (issue #560)

  • Insert a 3 seconds sleep after a volume group restauration to give udevd
    or systemd-udevd time to create needed devices (issue #608 and #617)

  • Variable MANUAL_INCLUDE=YES has been introduced to work with array
    BACKUP_PROG_INCLUDE (issue #597)

  • Add new variable NSR_DEFAULT_POOL_NAME (defaulting to Default) to use a
    different default pool name. Renamed the RETENTION_TIME variable to
    NSR_RETENTION_TIME (issue #640)

  • rear website shows the user guide which is part of the rear software
    (linked to GitHub)

  • new document 10-integrating-external-backup.adoc which explains the steps
    to take for a new backup integration into rear

  • All AsciiDoc documentation changed extention from .txt to .adoc

Version 1.17.1 (June 2015)

  • Removed the plain password in the logs (and output) coming from
    BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_KEY to avoid crib (issue #568)

  • Mount vfat file system without special mount options seems to work much
    better then with these options in recovery mode, therefore, we do not use
    these anymore (especially for /boot/efi) (issue #576)

  • Elilo support has been added for SLES (not fully tested yet) - issue #583

  • Grub2 rescue menu has been added (enable this feature with GRUB_RESCUE=y)
    - issue #589

  • splitted script 31_include_uefi_tools.sh in two pieces:
    31_include_uefi_tools.sh: to grab the UEFI tools (as long as /boot/efi is
    mounted), and 32_include_uefi_env.sh: to dig deeper into the
    configuration when UEFI is active (related to issue #214)

    This is necessary to have to UEFI tools on SLES 11/12 where we cannot
    create an UEFI bootable ISO image. We must boot in BIOS mode, and need
    the UEFI tools to make the system bootable over UEFI.

  • It is now possible to format an USB disk with a vfat and ext3 partition
    (for UEFI booting) - issue #593

    rear -v format -- --efi /dev/<usbdevice>

    However, UEFI booting from an USB disk has not been implemented yet
    (sponsoring?).

  • Simplified the code for ext* fs and added StopIfError calls to prevent
    divide by zero during recovery (issue #598)

  • Syslinux version >6 requires some special handling due to splitting up
    the package (Ubuntu 15.04) (issue #584)

  • Debian 8 support added with ISO booting with latest syslinux release as
    well (issues #596, #599 and #600)

  • Changed the behavior of SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD - now saved as MD5 hash
    password, but backwards compatibility is still respected (issue #560)

  • For EMC NetWorker server/client we added some exclude items to
    COPY_AS_IS_EXCLUDE_NSR (issue #571)

  • Removed the Warning message from main rear script as it was misleading
    (issues #563 and #564)

  • output/ISO/Linux-i386/80_create_isofs.sh: make sure ISO_FILES[@] are
    copied to isofs directory (issue #569)

Version 1.17.0 (March 2015)

  • rear 1.17 introduced a new stage directory (init) which is called before
    any workflow. Can be used for extra initialization code, custom
    configurations and other stuff that should happen each time that ReaR is
    used (was added especially for DRLM as plugin for their DRLM variables)
    (issue #557)

  • RHEL 5 could not mount NFS share as portmap daemon was not started yet.
    Reason was that script verify/NETFS/default/08_start_required_daemons.sh
    was executed after the mount test instead of before. (issue #547)

  • RHEL 6 on PPC64 architecture has problems with seclabel mount option.
    There was a fix which cuts the seclabel mount option (as rear is by
    default not using SELinux) (issue #545)

  • Disaster Recovery Linux Manager (DRLM) is a new Open Source project to
    centrally manage Disaster Recovery for Linux. ReaR 1.17 adds support for
    DRLM with a new configuration option DRLM_MANAGED=y (issue #522)

  • Adding /etc/crypto-policies/ when openssl is requested (prep/NETFS/
    default/09_check_encrypted_backup.sh) - required for https://
    bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1179239 (issue #523)

  • Introduced USING_UEFI_BOOTLOADER in default.conf file and modified all
    the involved scripts to follow the logic (issue #214)

  • Archicture PPC64 has been enhanced (partition recognition issue #536,
    console #537)

  • TSM restore filespace has been enhanced (issue #535)

  • Correct the usage of set -e and StopIfError function (issue #534, #541)

  • With BACKUP_TYPE=incremental disable variable NETFS_KEEP_OLD_BACKUP_COPY
    (mutual exclusive with this mode) (issue #143)

  • Increased to start variable from 32768 to 2097152 in script
    10_include_partition_code.sh (issue #492)

  • Adding /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf (Ubuntu) to rear image when found
    (issue #520)

  • When using /etc/rear/mappings/ip_addresses IPADDR/cidr must be translated
    into IPADDR and NETMASK (for RHEL 5 and 6) (issue #460)

  • mdadm layout code was changed in RHEL 7; code to deal with it (issue #
    518)

  • Adding missing driver xhci_hcd to GNU/Linux.conf (issue #519)

  • Adding findmnt command to GNU/Linux.conf file; request from https://
    bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=908854

  • BTRFS code has been rewritten by J. Meixner/G. D’haese to get SuSe
    rear116 fork back into our master tree of rear. BTRFS is now properly
    recreated on Fedora 20 and 21 and on SLES 12 and OpenSuSe 13 (issue #233,
    #497, #538) See also https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=908854

  • Enhanced the systemd start-up of udev daemons which is different on
    Fedora 20 and 21 (issue #507, #531)

  • BACKUP_PROG_OPTIONS=”–anchored” became a default option in default.conf
    (issue #475)

  • Fixed an issue with auto-detection of the client name in BAREOS (issue #
    542)

  • Ubuntu 14.04 did not detect /dev/sda automatically - added upstart script
    99-makedev.sh to create missing block devices like sda (issue #446)

  • New script usr/share/rear/layout/save/GNU/Linux/34_false_blacklisted.sh
    added as work-around. Sometimes we might see the HP Smart Storage Array
    disk listed as a multipath device. Most likely this device was not
    blacklisted in the blacklist section of the /etc/multipath.conf file (do
    not forget to rebuilt the initial ramdisk after this) e.g. falsempathdev=
    $( multipath -l | grep “HP,LOGICAL” | awk ‘{print $1}’ ) # mpatha

  • Added a systemd service script for SEP Sesam to start sesam client
    automatically (issue #498)

  • Disk Layout Generation with HP SmartArray with more than one Logical
    Drive correction introduced by issue #208 (issue #455)

  • OUTPUT_URL=null was added to avoid 2 ISO images on the local system
    (issue #501, #419)

  • Fix drbd restore code so it can handle multiple volumes in single
    resource (issue #495)

  • Function get_device_name was enhanced to properly translate /dev/vg/lv to
    /dev/mapper/vg-lv (issue #494)

  • Fixed the “lvm wait yes” problem (issue #493)

  • Device name conflict when grep disklayout file without proper space
    (issue #491)

  • Several fixes with mdadm code (issue #480, #489, #490, #508, #539)

  • Several fixes in the 10_include_partition_code.sh script (issue #487, #
    492)

  • Being a bit more careful when deleting the outputfs directory when rear
    finishes (issue #465)

  • Add a new config option USE_STATIC_NETWORKING (issue #488)

  • Resolving library search with duply (issue #482)

  • Improved the RPM package build for SLES, removed the lsb requirement
    (issue #479)

  • Integrated the patch skip_sysconfig_kernel_if_not_exist.diff from SuSe
    (issue #477)

  • Debian 7 reference to grub.conf was corrected (issue #473)

  • Debian packing was improved (issue #474, #484)

  • Commercial backup solution Galaxy 10 support added to rear (issue #471)
    Also, point in time recovery was implemented (issue #472)

  • Fixed the error “unary operator expected with BACKUP_TYPE” (issue #422)

  • lvm release 2.02.72 had already the knowledge of –norestorefile (issue #
    462)

  • Add prefix $OUTPUT_PREFIX to all PXE related files (issue #464)

  • 55-migrate-network-devices.sh: fixed type with /sys/class/net (issue #
    459)

  • Removed Get_Start_Date function with Netbackup because (depending on
    backup strategy) it led to partial restore only (issue #456)

  • 26_crypt_layout.sh: fixed issue when cypher contains : (issue #425)

  • 55-migrate-network-devices.sh: rebuild the array instead of unset (issue
    #452)

  • skel/default/etc/scripts/system-setup : change uname -n by $HOSTNAME to
    avoid short/long hostname problems (issue #439)

  • Added a mkdir for $VAR_DIR/output if dir does not exist (issue #440)

  • 95_check_missing_programs.sh to find REQUIRED_PROGS before proceeding
    (issue #418)

  • Added a fix for autorizing and recognizong the boot flag in the partition
    (issue #443)

  • udev showing error message during startup (issue #442)

  • Prevent “ntpd -q” from waiting forever if, for example, no network is
    available, by killing it after 10 seconds (issue #438)

  • Several improvements around duply and duplicity [Debian related] (issues
    #426, #478)

  • 95_copy_result_files.sh uses now [*] instead of [@] with array (issue #
    431)

  • New variable introduced for TSM in default.conf file called LANG_RECOVER
    (issue #424)

  • Added Pre check script for removing older releases first during upgrade
    (RPM - issue #361)

  • Prevent udev rule rewrites if systemd-udevd is running - issue #405

  • Fix “Networker backup fails if pool name contains spaces” (issue #427 and
    #429)

  • Fix the “More than 128 partitions is not supported” problem (issue #373
    and #428) during recreating the partition layout

  • A new configuration option, USE_STATIC_NETWORKING=y, will cause
    statically configured network settings to be applied even when
    USE_DHCLIENT is in effect (issue #447).

Version 1.16.1 (June 2014)

  • The validate rule for xarg bash -n changed into xarg -n bash -n so that
    rear is working correctly with older bash version 3 as well. Especially
    required for SLES 10, SLES 11 and EPEL 5 (issue #410).

  • Adding an updated rear man page and the correct release notes to the
    1.16.1 sub-release. In rear 1.16.0 these were forgotten.

  • Code style improvements (issue #409).

  • Improvements around btrfs file system recognition and re-creation (issues
    #408 and #415).

  • Important fix for grub2 with OpenSuse 13 (changed LOADER into
    LOADER_TYPE).

  • Added example prep script to verify if extlinux is present (issue #250) -
    this type of script could be cloned for other important executables in
    various workflows.

Version 1.16.0 (May 2014)

As usual lots of bug fixes - see the issue tracker.

  • Network script now deals correctly with VLAN tagging as well

  • Added 2 new variables to default.conf for TSM: TSM_ARCHIVE_MGMT_CLASS
    which defines a backup class to use with TSM, and TSM_RM_ISOFILE which
    triggers (if set to y) to remove the original ISO files from local system
    once the ISO image has been transferred to TSM

  • Guessing the bootloader and saving this in a file in the $VAR_LIB/
    recovery/bootloader (will be picke dup during recovery to assist us in
    selecting the proper bootloader [ grub, grub2, uefi ])

  • Various corrections with BACKYP=RSYNC method (issue #200 and #366). In
    rear 1.16 the old and new style are still recognized, but we might drop
    the old style in later versions.

     OLD STYLE:
     BACKUP_URL=[USER@]HOST:PATH           # using ssh (no rsh)
     with rsync protocol PATH is a MODULE name defined in remote /etc/rsyncd.conf file
     BACKUP_URL=[USER@]HOST::PATH          # using rsync

     NEW STYLE:
     BACKUP_URL=rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/PATH    # using ssh
     BACKUP_URL=rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]::/PATH  # using rsync

  • Checking the bootloader files during savelayout section - see issue #234

  • Backup method BACKUP=DUPLICITY has been fully tested and proven to work
    well (backup and recover). When using duply and automated recovery is
    possible. Several updates were made to make duplicity works as well with
    backup and recover

  • Variable SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD (see default.conf) allows to force a password
    with the rescue image (issue #362)

  • TSM version >=6.4 is now supported (issue #356), and point in time
    restore works better now (issue #358)

  • Fix the order of fs lines in checklayout.conf file when mor ethen 9
    partitions are in use (issue #352)

  • Avoiding CD/DVD type devices to be added in the disklayout.conf file
    during savelayout (issue #257)

  • Removed mingetty executable from REQUIRED_PROGS list as RHEL 7 does not
    ship it anymore. agetty is getting more and more the standard now and
    rear will use this one automatically when mingetty is absent

  • New variable in default.conf file was defined BACKUP_TYPE= (empty is full
    or incremental; only works with the default BACKUP_PROG=tar)

  • Avoid stale NFS hangs with df command (issue #350)

  • For TSM a new variable was introduced in default.conf file:
    TSM_RESULT_SAVE (to disable the TSM saving; can be used when you saved
    the result via $ISO_URL, $OUTPUT_URL, $ISO_DIR or something else)

  • /etc/rear/local.conf is now empty by default and /etc/rear/site.conf now
    contains OUTPUT=ISO setting. This way we are sure that during an upgrade
    of rear we do not loose our original user settings (local.conf tends te
    be overwritten).

  • Fix for hpacucli where the order logicaldrive and array could be wrong
    (issue #208)

  • New variable TMPDIR allows to overrule the default /tmp temporary
    directory (handy when building big ISO images)

  • Added option -iso-level 3 to mkisofs command so we can create ISO image
    bigger then 4 GB (issue #323)

  • detecting ‘out of space’ errors while building huge ISO images

  • Add SEP Sesam external backup integration - issues #324 and #325

  • Add automatic recovery mode for Bareos - issue #311

  • Add incremental backup type with GNU tar with weekly backups, define in /
    etc/rear/local.conf the following (issue #294):

     BACKUP=NETFS
     BACKUP_TYPE=incremental
     FULLBACKUPDAY="Mon"

  • Add support for Gentoo kernels - issue #312

Version 1.15.0 (September 2013)

The references pointing to fix #nr or issue #nr refer to our issues tracker

As usual lots of bug fixes - see the issue tracker.

  • Add EMC NetWorker (Legato) support for doing external backup

  • Add Bareos (Backup Archive REcovery Open Sourced) support for doing
    external backup (bareos is a fork of the open source backup suite Bacula)

  • Align the usage of KEEP_OLD_OUTPUT_COPY and NETFS_KEEP_OLD_BACKUP_COPY
    and make them behave sane. See also issue #192

  • Add the –selinux option to be safe with SELinux context restoration (with
    GNU tar)

  • Add an option to exclude modules on the rescue system

    default.conf: EXCLUDE_MODULES=()

  • Add integrity check when BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=tar with the option
    BACKUP_INTEGRITY_CHECK

  • Add an option to define a root password to allow SSH connection whithout
    a public/private key pair (#272)

    default.conf: SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD=

  • Implement the “splitted backup to iso” feature. To use that, BACKUP_URL
    has to use the iso://[subdirs] scheme but a different OUTPUT_URL has to
    be defined (issues #278 and #287). New parameter ISO_MAX_SIZE introduced.

  • Fix SELinux autorelabelling (issue #270 and #274)

  • Rear supports now more then 9 partitions (see issue #263)

  • systemd support added for Fedora 19/20 and OpenSuse 12.x/13.x

  • Automatic Recover feature on USB devices (label AUTOMATIC RECOVER in rear
    recover menu)

  • Add an option to copy all users and group. It is usefull in the case we
    want to restore ACL of all users. See default.conf:

    CLONE_ALL_USERS_GROUPS=n

  • Example prep script to detect missing lftp (fix #247)

  • Using POSIX output format in df.txt (fix #248)

  • Recognize OracleServer as a Fedora derivate

  • Allow basic network configuration from the command line

  • Create directory $PXE_TFTP_LOCAL_PATH if it does not exist (fix #244,
    issue #244)

  • Support booting syslinux v5 (issue #238)

  • Fix installing grub when /boot is inside the root filesystem (issue #210)

  • Deal with BTRFS subvolumes correctly (issue #233 and #252)

  • Recognize OracleServer as a Fedora derivate

  • Added UEFI integration within rear (including booting ISO images)

  • Improved dataprotector GUI interaction (issue #189)

  • Secure backup was introduced (issue #196)

    Add to /etc/rear/local.conf: BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_ENABLED=1
    BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_KEY=”secretkey”

  • Added fixes recomended by RedHat Bugzilla report #882175

  • OUTPUT_URL scheme approvement (issue #37)

  • Netbackup improvement for xinetd (issue #180)

  • LOGFILE variable can be overruled now (issue #56)

  • Support for RBME restores over NFS

  • Packaging support introduced for Arch Linux

  • Added support for sshfs transport with BACKUP=NETFS (issue #171)

  • Re-introduced /dev/disk/by-id migration which was lost since release
    1.7.22 (issue #22)

  • Updates required for systemd for fedora 18 and 19.

  • Check if ROOT_FS filesystem was mounted with ‘noexec’ attribute (issue #
    150)

Version 1.14.0 (September 2012)

The references pointing to fix#nr refer to our issues tracker

Lots of minor bugs were fixed, and not all of them are listed in current
release notes. For a complete overview see the issue tracker.

  • Added duply/duplicity with one new backup method duplicity (Experimental)

  • Systemd supported on Fedora 17 and OpenSuse 12.2 (fix #115, #126)

  • Create correct yaboot dir on ppc (fix #109)

  • Add new RAMDISK output method. This writes the kernel and the initramfs
    to the location given in OUTPUT_URL.

  • Packaging - introduction of Makefile; cleanup dr workflow (fix #13, #49)

  • Make rear working from checkout of git, w.o.w. path is relocatable (fix #
    53)

  • Add bytes_per_inode information for ext* filesystem to layout.conf (fix #
    86)

  • Fixing ebuild to be Gentoo compliant (fix #93)

  • fix shutdown with upstart (fix #41)

  • multiarch support library support (fix #82)

  • Fix serial console on ubuntu 11.04 (fix #83)

  • Several fixes in layout file (fix #85)

  • Added fix for DAT320 tape drive (fix for #35)

  • Use generic grub code for all distributions (fix for #77)

  • list Xen paravirtualized disks in disklayout.conf (fixes #74 and
    SF3520992)

Version 1.13.0 (April 2012)

  • Support for multipathing was added

  • Several improvements and bug fixes to the layout code (especially with
    parted backwards compatibility).

  • Added support for ext4 file systems

  • The OUTPUT=USB with BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=rsync was corrected to
    avoid duplicate work

  • Fedora and RHEL will now rebuild the initial ramdisk if needed (on
    recovered system)

  • Fix for SF#3475480: datacompression on tape

  • Fix for SF#3481656: missing bacula-console executable for BACKUP=BACULA
    workflow

  • Fix for SF#3479570: /etc/passwd contains :x: without /etc/shadow

  • Added “migrate HWADDR after cloning” code

  • Improved the systemd code (parts required by Relax-and-Recover only) for
    Fedora 16/17

  • The DHCLIENT variables were moved from local.conf to rescue.conf. This is
    done automatically, so the end-user, shouldnot be aware of it.

  • At boot time more kernel options are recognized such as noip, dhcp,
    debug. The noip will give you a rescue environment without any attempt to
    start networking. The dhcp variable will try to start dhclient on any
    network interface it finds activated. The debug variable (which is not
    new by the way) will give you the chance to debug the code of our
    Relax-and-Recover code.

  • Relax-and-Recover works again on IA64 architecture (at least with RHEL
    5.x). Remember, RHEL 6 is not ported to IA64.

Version 1.12.0 (November 2011)

  • Multiple copies of Relax-and-Recover backups (of the same or different
    systems) can be kept on a USB device (with OUTPUT=USB).

  • (NEW!) BACKUP=RSYNC workflow using rsync executable. Both ssh and rsync
    methods are supported. E.g.

      BACKUP=RSYNC
      OUTPUT=ISO
      BACKUP_URL=rsync://username@hostname/path
      BACKUP_PROG=/usr/local/bin/rsync #(instead of the default rsync)

  • Added better named EXCLUDE_ variables, better control over what is
    restored:
      □ EXCLUDE_BACKUP excludes components from backup
      □ EXCLUDE_RECREATE excludes components from the recreate process
      □ EXCLUDE_RESTORE excludes components from the restore process
  • The layout workflow is now the default instead of the dr workflow. Under
    /var/lib/rear/layout all information of the system is kept in files.

  • Arch Linux is now supported with Relax-and-Recover.

  • The labeltape command has been superseded by the format command. This can
    be used with tapes and external (USB, eSATA) devices. Usage:

      rear format [/dev/st0|/dev/sdx]

  • Replaced NETFS_URL and ISO_URL by BACKUP_URL and OUTPUT_URL. However, old
    references will still be recognized and used.

  • Fedora 16 is supported including GRUB 2, and systemd as init replacement.

  • Added the BACKUP_URL=file:///PATH with BACKUP=NETFS method (as described
    in configuration-examples.txt)

  • Improved multipath functionality

  • Optional automatic autofs exclusion

  • (NEW! EXPERIMENTAL!) Basic btrfs file system backup and restore works.
    Advise is not to trust it (yet). At recreation of the btrfs file system
    the UUID number is automatically renamed in all configuration files (such
    as /etc/fstab or /boot/grub/menu.lst).

Version 1.11.0 (May 2011)

  • The mkobdr command has been removed. OBDR-enabled tapes can now be
    created using the mkrescue command and by defining the proper variables
    in /etc/rear/local.conf:

      BACKUP=NETFS
      OUTPUT=OBDR
      BACKUP_URL=tape:///dev/nst0

  • The site configuration file /etc/rear/site.conf has been removed from the
    Relax-and-Recover package, but can still be used if end-users want. The
    purpose of this is to enable sites to distribute this file through RPM or
    DEB packages that do not have a file conflict with the Relax-and-Recover
    package. The distribution /etc/rear/local.conf file contains only
    configuration examples as comments in order to not interfere with
    configurations in site.conf.

  • The rear command is by default quiet, which means if you want the same
    behavior as in previous versions you need to add the verbose option (-v)
    with the rear command

  • The output workflow now runs before the mkbackup workflow especially done
    to make OBDR tape creation possible with the mkbackup workflow as the ISO
    image must be written first on an OBDR aware tape. Please note that this
    is a fundamental change with regard to previous versions of
    Relax-and-Recover. While utmost care has been taken that there would be
    no adverse side effects of this change. We cannot test all possible usage
    scenarios.

  • When using OUTPUT=USB then you have to make sure that the destination
    (USB) disk is formatted as an ext2, ext3, ext4 or btrfs file-system.
    Extlinux is now the only supported boot loader for bootable disks,
    syslinux is not supported any more.

  • The Relax-and-Recover boot now shows a boot menu with options to choose
    from. The actual content of the menu depends on the available syslinux
    version and its modules (like menu.c32, hdt.c32, reboot.c32,
    poweroff.com).

  • Relax-and-Recover does properly recognize IPv6 addresses and uses these
    if configured.

  • NBU backup method now allows to restore to a point in time.

  • Support Fedora 15 (using systemd to boot-up) and RHEL6 and Scientific
    Linux 6.

  • Improved handling of HP SmartArray controllers.

  • Significantly improved error handling, especially when failing on
    subshells.

  • Autologin as root in the rescue media (for upstart and systemd based
    systems).

  • EXCLUDE_MOUNTPOINTS should work correctly now (fixed typo).

  • Support ext4 on RHEL5 and clones.

  • Ignore known errors when using EXTERNAL backup method (set
    EXTERNAL_IGNORE_ERRORS to an array of return codes to ignore).

  • Use original filesystem mount options for recovery, support attr and facl
    tools.

  • Support XEN paravirtualized systems (tested only on RHEL5 so far).

  • Performance improvements (removed checksum calculation, PID-based
    locking).

  • Relax-and-Recover work space is now created with a random part to prevent
    potential security exploits.

  • Control exit tasks and subprocesses better. Kill subprocesses before
    exiting.

  • Support adding Relax-and-Recover boot files to local GRUB environment
    (GRUB_RESCUE) and password protect rescue boot (GRUB_RESCUE_PASSWORD) to
    avoid accidential recovery.

    The default password is REAR.

  • (experimental!) Transfer ISO image to remote URL (ISO_URL). Please note
    that this feature will be extended to cover all output methods. It has
    been renamed to OUTPUT_URL.

  • Removed various warnings, e.g. about NETFS not being a professional
    backup method.

  • Partial support for Arch Linux has been added, more testing required.

  • (NEW!) shell workflow is now really usable.

  • Make 32/64 bit handling much more robust, especially on systems having /
    lib32.

  • NETFS backup and restore with rsync working now (BACKUP_PROG=rsync).

  • Support udev on RHEL4.

  • Development snapshot have now a version like 0.0.REV where REV is the SVN
    revision used to build the development snapshot.

  • Greatly reduced log clutter (lvm warnings about leaked file descriptors,
    which is a bash bug, various irrelevant error and verbose output).

  • checklayout can now also check arbitrary files (through an md5 checksum),
    extend the CHECK_CONFIG_FILES array to use this feature.

Version 1.10.0 (February 2011)

An intermediate release only which fixed some hanging issues of version
1.9.0. Also, a RPM upgrade was fixed by this release from 1.7.25 to 1.9.0,
which failed because of a wrongly CentOS symbolic link. See bugzilla#680664

Version 1.9.0 (February 2011)

With version 1.9.0 some new methods were added, such as:

  • rear mkobdr : to create an OBDR recovery tape (obsolete since 1.11.0)

  • rear labeltape : goes together with OBDR tapes. To avoid accidental
    overwrites we force the creation of a label before rear mkbackup will
    work. (obsolete since 1.11.0)

  • rear checklayout/savelayout : a new method to save the disk layout and
    check if a new rear mkbackup or rear mkrescue is required.

  • New BACKUP methods were added, Bacula (BACKUP=BACULA) and bextract
    (BACKUP=BEXTRACT), both are able to work in conjunction with output=TAPE.
    See under the doc directory (or /usr/share/doc/rear-1.9.0/) the
    configuration-examples.txt text file for beginners instructions.

  • OUTPUT=USB method has been extended with BACKUP=NETFS and NETFS_URL=usb:/
    //dev/<device> which makes it possible that the complete archive is
    stored on the /dev/<device> and Relax-and-Recover will make the USB stick
    (or disk) bootable too.

  • Udev support (except for some really ancient udev versions) which is the
    base for many new and important features, like kernel drivers for network
    cards and storage adapters are now loaded via udev, or deal with network
    persistent names in udev rules, and firmware loading.

  • DHCP client support (IPv4 and IPv6) has been added. Auto detection is
    possible with new variable USE_DHCLIENT=yes (define in local.conf), or
    one can hard-code your special DHCP client with the variables
    DHCLIENT_BIN (for IPv4), and/or DHCLIENT6_BIN (for IPv6).

Relax-and-Recover version 1.9.0 contain fixes for the following defects:

  • Missing support for Scientific Linux, LinuxMint

  • Sourceforge patch ID 2963804 - support for USBFS, but this patch has been
    rewritten afterward to incorporate usb support into the NETFS backup
    method, instead of having a separate USBFS backup method. Now, by using
    NETFS_URL=usb:///dev/<device> and the NETFS backup method we achieve the
    same result.

  • Sourceforge bug 3153027 : support for RHEV virtio device files

  • Novell bugzilla 581292 : cannot load NIC firmware because of missing udev
    support. Version 1.9 does have udev support, but firmware loading was
    broken. The rule in 00-rear.rules has been changed.

Version 1.7.26 (November 2010)

Relax-and-Recover version 1.7.26 fixed RedHat bugzilla defect 657174 : rescue
image freezes during the boot while executing init. This was due the new
upstart mechanism (replaced the sysv init procedure).

Version 1.7.25 (June 2010)

Relax-and-Recover version 1.7.25 fixed RedHat bugzilla defect 600217 : Fedora
link missing in restore, pack and finalize sub-directories. This broke the
proper image building on several Fedora versions.

System and Software Requirements

Relax-and-Recover works on GNU/Linux kernel with version 2.6 and higher. For
lower kernel versions Relax-and-Recover cannot be used, and for these
systems, mkcdrec is still a good alternative.

As Relax-and-Recover has been solely written in the bash language we need the
bash shell which is standard available on all GNU/Linux based systems. The
default backup program Relax-and-Recover uses is GNU/tar which is also
standard available.

Relax-and-Recover is known to work well on x86 and x86_64 based
architectures. Relax-and-Recover has also been ported to ia64 and ppc
architectures, but these are less tested. Use the ‘rear validate’ command
after every successful DR test please and mail us the results.

Choosing the best compression algorithm

The default backup program with Relax-and-Recover is (BACKUP_PROG=tar) GNU
tar and the default compression used with tar is gzip. However, is using gzip
the best choice? We have done some tests and published the results. See
Relax-and-Recover compression tests

Support

Relax-and-Recover (rear) is an Open Source project under GPL v2 or higher
license which means it is free to use and modify. However, the creators of
rear have spend many, many hours in development and support. We will only
give free of charge support in our free time (and when work/home balance
allows it).

That does not mean we let our user basis in the cold as we do deliver support
as a service (not free of charge).

Supported Operating Systems

Rear-1.17 is supported on the following Linux based operating systems:

  • Fedora 20, 21 and 22
  • RHEL 5, 6 and 7
  • CentOS 5, 6 and 7
  • ScientificLinux 6 and 7
  • SLES 11 and 12
  • OpenSuSe 11, 12 and 13
  • Debian 6, 7 and 8
  • Ubuntu 12, 13, 14 and 15

Rear-1.17 dropped officially support for the following Linux based operating
systems:

  • Fedora <20
  • RHEL 3 and 4
  • SLES 9 and 10
  • OpenSuSe <11
  • Debian <6
  • Ubuntu <12

If you require support for unsupported Linux Operating System you must
acquire a rear support contract (per system).

Requests to port rear to another Operating System (not Linux) can only be
achieved with serious sponsoring.

Supported Architectures

Rear-1.17 is supported on:

  • Intel x86 type of processors
  • AMD x86 type of processors

Rear-1.17 may or may not fully work on:

  • Intel Itanium processors
  • PPC processors
  • PPC64LE processors (new)

Rear-1.17 does not support:

  • ARM type of processors
  • Partitions of type gpt_sync_mbr aka. hybrid (synced) MBR

If you feel the need to get a fully functional rear working on one of the
above mentioned type of processors please buy consultancy from one of our
official developers.

Supported rear versions

Rear has a long history (since 2006) and we cannot supported all released
versions anymore. If you have a problem we urge you to install the latest
stable rear version or the development version (available on github) before
submitting an issue.

However, we do understand that it is not always possible to install on
hundreds of systems the latest and greatest version so we are willing to
support previous versions of rear if you buy a support contract. Why do we
change our policy? We cannot handle the big support requests anymore and we
must give paid projects priority, therefore, we urge our customers to buy a
support contract for one or more systems. You buy time with our core
developers…

Known Problems and Workarounds

Issue Description: Debian 8 initramfs-tools: / on LVM gets mounted by initrd
with kernel device name /dev/dm-X instead of /dev/mapper/XXX name

Issue #613 goes deeper into the problem with Debian 8 and LVM on /. The
reporter created also a Debian Bug report #791754 for it.

  • Workaround:

See the fix mentioned in Debian Bug report #791754

Issue Description: BACKUP=NSR on RHEL 6 could break yum

Issue #387 describes a problem seen on RHEL 6 where when rear uses NSR and
afterwards the link /lib64/libexpat.so.1 has been changed.

  • Workaround:

So far there is no workaround for this issue.

Issue Description: usage of an alternative configuration directory is
different in mkbackup or recover mode

Using rear -v -c /etc/rear/mydir mkbackup works fine in production, but when
you try (once booted from rescue image) rear -v -c /etc/rear/mydir recover it
will fail.

  • Workaround:

The configuration files are copied to /etc/rear/ into the rescue image, so
you simply need to type: rear -v recover See issue #512

Issue Description: Is there a possibility to add btrfs subvolume to a rsync
backup

  • Workaround:

At present (release 1.16.1) there is no workaround in place. If you happen to
know how this could be fixed then add your ideas to issue #417

Issue Description: UEFI ISO booting does not work on OpenSuSe 12.x

  • Workaround:

At present (release 1.17.x) genisoimage cannot produce ISO images that can
boot via UEFI on an OpenSuSe distribution (and also SLES).

Issue Description: TSM 7.1.0.0 cp writing dangling symlink
libxmlutil-7.1.0.0.so on SLES SP3

  • Workaround:

To fix the error (you might see):

ERROR [LipCopyTo] Could not copy '/usr/lib64/../../opt/tivoli/tsm/client/api/bin64/libxmlutil-7.1.0.0.so' to '/tmp/rear.10455/rootfs/lib64'

See issue 476 for the resolution.

Issue Description: with RHEL 4 systems extended partitions are recognized as
primary partitions

Error: Expecting a partition number

  • Workaround:

Full details can be read in issue #319. However, you need to edit /var/lib/
rear/layout/disklayout.conf file and change for partition 4 “primary” to
“extended”

Issue Description: System reconfiguration still has some weaknesses.

  • this has to be tested before relying on it, there are too many unknowns
    involved so that we cannot guarantee anything in this area. It has been
    developed mostly as a P2V tool to migrate HP servers to VMware Vms

  • hard disks need to be at least of the same size and amount as in the
    original system, ATM this is a simple 1:1 mapping of old to new disks,
    there is no removal of RAID groups or merging of smaller disks onto a
    bigger one or making stuff smaller.

  • any use of /dev/disk/by-path or /dev/disk/by-id is untested and will most
    likely not work. In some cases Relax-and-Recover will print a warning,
    but we are not able to detect all cases. Typically this leads to
    unbootable systems or bad /etc/fstab files

Issue Description: If SELinux is not disabled during backup (variable
BACKUP_SELINUX_DISABLE= in /etc/rear/local.conf) then we might see errors in
the rear-$(hostname).log file such as:

tar: var/cache/yum/i386/15/updates/packages: Cannot setfilecon: No such file or directory

  • Workaround:

Make sure the BACKUP_URL destination understands extended attributes (CIFS is
out of the question and NFS is problematic). When using local disks (or
external USB devices) make sure the proper mount options are given in the
BACKUP_OPTIONS variable, e.g.:

BACKUP_OPTIONS="rw,relatime,seclabel,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,data=ordered"

(TIP) BACKUP_SELINUX_DISABLE=1 variable has been introduced in the /usr/share
/rear/conf/default.conf file to disable SELinux while the backup is running
(default setting).

Issue Description: Is incremental backup possible?

With our default settings (BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=tar) we support
incremental backups when we add the following extra variables:

BACKUP_TYPE=incremental
FULLBACKUPDAY="Mon"

Issue Description: ERROR: FindStorageDrivers called but STORAGE_DRIVERS is
empty

Above error message might be seen after a fresh installation of the GNU/Linux
kernel. Rear got confused between the running kernel version number and the
actual fresh kernel available.

  • Workaround:

Reboot your server before using rear again, which is a good practice anyway
after upgrading the GNU/Linux kernel.

ReaR on Google+
