Running Symantec Backup Exec for Linux

Running Symantec Backup Exec for Linux
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Download

Symantec provides a free evaluation version of Symantec Backup Exec for Linux, which you can download on Symantec’s website. The evaluation version contains all the functionality in the full version but only works for 60 days. After 60 days, you’ll need to buy a license from Symantec.

Installation

Install the “Fuse” driver and the “libfuse” library from your Linux distribution’s software repositories. See your Linux distribution’s documentation for more information on installing software. If you’re using a graphical desktop, the graphical software installation program should have these listed.

Become the root user by typing “su” into a terminal, pressing “Enter,” typing the root account’s password and pressing “Enter.”

Navigate to the directory containing the .bin file from the downloaded archive with the “cd” command. For example, type “cd Downloads” and press “Enter” to enter the downloaded directory.

Make the installer executable by typing “chmod +x Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin” into the terminal and pressing “Enter.”

Start the installer by typing “./Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin” into the terminal and pressing “Enter.”

Press “Page Down” to page through the Symantec Backup Exec for Linux license agreement, then accept it by pressing “Y.”

Select whether to install optional software by pressing “Y” or “N” at the prompts.

Performing Backups

Create a recovery point: “besr -b /dev/sda1 -d recovery_point_1.v2i”

This command creates the recovery point “recovery_point_1.v2i” in the current directory from the contents of the first partition on the first hard drive.

Note: You must become the root user by executing the “su” command before typing this or any other “besr” command.

Restoring Files

You can restore files in Symantec Backup Exec for Linux by mounting a recovery point and extracting the files or by restoring the entire recovery point to a partition. If you restore an entire recovery point, the contents of the partition will be overwritten.

Mount a recovery point: “mount -t v2i /path/to/recovery_point_1.v2i /mnt/recovery”

This command mounts the “recovery_point_1.v2i” file in the “/path/to” directory at “/mnt/recovery.” The contents of the recovery point appear in the “/mnt/recovery” directory, you can access them as you would any other file on the system.

Note: If the above command fails with an error, type “mkdir /mnt/recovery” to create the mount point first.

Restore an entire recovery point: “besr -r -active /path/to/recovery_point_1 -d /dev/sda1”

This path restores the contents of the recovery point to the first partition on the first hard drive in the system. Omit the “-active” portion if the partition you’re restoring to isn’t the system partition.

License Activation or Uninstallation

If you buy a license, you can activate it by typing “besr -addlicense license_key” at a command prompt window, replacing “license_key” with the path to a license key file on your computer.

If you don’t want to use Symantec Backup Exec for Linux anymore, you can uninstall it by executing the “./Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin – –uninstall” command from a terminal in the directory containing the downloaded installer file as the root user

References

Symantec: Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Linux Edition; https://www.symantec.com/business/backup-exec-system-recovery-linux-edition

Symantec: Backup Exec System Recovery 2010 for LINUX User Guide; https://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH76109

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