A step by step, illustrated guide to using Veeam to back up to an external HDD

Topic

New Reply

[Ascaris]

Veeam Agent for Linux is currently the only backup program of which I am aware that can write full image-style backups from within Linux, while you work.  It is free for the basic edition, though you do have to register with your email to get the link.  Be aware that the EULA is intended for business customers, and says that Veeam can send someone to inspect your PC for license verification purposes “within normal business hours.”  Apparently, these types of audits and the EULA code that enables them are boilerplate when it comes to enterprise software, but for home users who don’t have a license (the unlicensed version is the free version), there would be nothing to inspect.  I’m not worried about it, but be aware that it is there.  They are free to come see my PC during my normal business hours, and since I don’t have a business, there are no business hours.

Veeam is a powerful program with many options, but you don’t have to concern yourself with that.  Linux sysadmins will likely use scripts to automate this stuff, but we regular folks can just use the program’s quasi-graphical interface.

Veeam agent does not have a GUI, or graphical user interface.  It uses the character-based display of the terminal, but that does not mean you will have to be typing in commands or struggling to remember how to do so.  It’s a wizard-style menu, which most everyone will be familiar with.  The only thing is that you have to use the keyboard, not the mouse.  Not to worry; this is not going to be as bad as you might think.

Installing Veeam is another topic, but let me run through it really quick anyway.  Go to the Veeam site, and select to download Veeam Agent for Linux free.  You will have to create a Veeam account or log in with a social media account, unfortunately, but you can use a throwaway one if you like.  Once you log in, you should be able to download a version for your Linux distro.  The only one I have tried is the one for Ubuntu (which is also the one for Mint, Neon, Zorin, and the other Ubuntu derivatives). Download the .deb file, then run it.  A .deb file is an installer for Debian-based distros (like Ubuntu).  That will install the Veeam repo into your software/package manager.  Refresh the package list, then look for ‘veeam’, and install that.  It might take a little while for it to show in Synaptic or other graphical programs, and if it does, you can type these lines (hit enter after each one) from the terminal to get it sooner:

sudo apt update

sudo install veeam

Then, to start the program, type:

sudo veeam

and press enter.  That will start the program.  It is possible to set it up to run directly from your main or start menu with not much fuss, but that’s also another topic.  For now, let us just do it with the command above!

The first thing you will see will be the license acceptance agreement.  To place an X in the place where they want you to check, move the selection cursor to the place you want to mark and hit the space bar.  It should already be on the first box it wants you to select.  After the first box is marked, use the TAB key to move to the next one and hit the space again.  TAB will always move the cursor to the next field, and when it gets to the last one and you press TAB again, it will start at the beginning again.  You can use SHIFT TAB to go backwards.  Press and release TAB until the cursor is on the NEXT button at the bottom.  It should look like this:

Press ENTER to activate the buttons at the bottom.  You can use [Prev] just like any wizard in Windows to go to the previous page.  When you move to a new page, notice the > symbol in the left panel moving down to indicate where you are in the list.

The next page will ask if you want to add drivers to the recovery media.  I’ve never needed this, but it is possible you will need that to make the recovery work if you have somewhat uncommon hardware.  For now, let’s skip that part and move on.

Press and release TAB until the cursor is on the NEXT button, as shown:

Then it will ask you for the license file, if you have a paid edition.  It will look like this:

Press and release TAB until the cursor is on FINISH, then press Enter.

Now the program is ready to do some work.  It will thank you for installing it:

Press C to start the backup process, as the option on the bottom shows (configure).

Into the box, enter the name you wish to use for your backup.  You can call it anything you like, or just keep the default name.  This will be the “job,” which just means the specific backup you want to make. In this version, we can only have one job defined at a time.

When you have finished entering the name, press TAB and release it as many times as it takes to get the cursor to NEXT, and press enter.

The next page will ask what you want to back up.  For this tutorial, I’m going with the default option of backing up everything. It will look like this:

Then, keep tabbing it until you get to NEXT, and hit enter.

I’m out of attachments for this post, so I will leave a reply to this one and continue.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

• This topic was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Ascaris.
• This topic was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Ascaris. Reason: I wasn't done
• This topic was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Ascaris.

8 users thanked author for this post.

grahamperrin, AlexEiffel, jburk07, Slowpoke47, Just Lurking, SueW, LHiggins, PKCano

Reply | Quote

Replies

Part 2 of the Veeam how-to:

Did you notice I put the same image in there twice?  Ugh.

Ok, so we just got done selecting the “entire machine” for backup.  Now it wants to know where we are going to save the backup itself:

The default option is local, and that is what we want.  If that’s what you see, tab over to NEXT, and press enter.  If not, use TAB to get the cursor back into the destination box (where it says Local), and use the arrow keys to select within that box.  Then you can tab over to NEXT and hit enter.

Now you will see a text entry box, where you can enter a path to the backup medium, or you can use the Browse button.  As always, hit TAB until you are in the right place, in this case [Browse], then hit enter.  You will see a file-picker, but if you are not that familiar with Linux, it may look bewildering.  Not to worry!  If you’re using an external hard drive, the Ubuntu family will automount it and place it in /media.  So use the down arrow key and find media, then hit enter.

Select your username the same way; when it is highlighted, hit enter.  You should see the name or model number of your external drive.  Select that, then navigate in this same way to the folder (directory) you want to save to, or you can create a new one by pressing TAB until you are on the [Create Dir] option, then hit enter, and give it a name.  Veeam will automatically create and enter your new directory.

When you have the desired folder (directory) selected, tab over to Ok, and press enter.  You will see how much space is left on the drive, and how big it is in total, which is there to help you judge if you have enough room.  The type isn’t something we need to worry about now, so just tab over to NEXT and hit enter.

The next page will be the advanced options.  In this tutorial, we’re not using these, but they are there if you wish to use them.

Tab over to NEXT, and press enter.

More in the next reply.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

3 users thanked author for this post.

grahamperrin, jburk07, Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

And now for the third and final episode of Veeam agent, the tutorial!

We just hit NEXT after the advanced options, and now it wants to ask us when to schedule the backups.    You can leave it scheduled to automatically do the backup job if you want.  The scheduling options are selected in the same manner as the other things we have done here.

If you just want to run the backup manually, press the space bar when the selection cursor is on “Run the job automatically” to toggle off the X, and then tab to NEXT.  It will look like this at that point:

Make sure the box next to “Start job now” is marked with an X.  If it is, tab to Finish and hit enter, and the backup process will start.  If it is not marked, tab over to it, then press space to toggle the X on.  Then tab to Finish, and hit enter.

That’s it!  The backup should now proceed without issue, subject to the usual issues (like running out of space on the target drive, which will make the process fail, of course).

Now you should have an idea of how to work the UI, so you can explore the other options and make use of them, if you wish.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

3 users thanked author for this post.

grahamperrin, jburk07, Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Many thanks for this rescue!  The multitude of backup choices out there is staggering- I really hope to make this one work.

Reply | Quote

Ascaris: Thank you so very much for this tutorial. I have a question: what is the practical difference (that visitation aside), as far as the home user that is prepared, ready and able to make this sort of whole-disk image backup is concerned, between the “Enterprise” and the “free” versions?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

Reply | Quote

For Veeam, I am not really sure.  I know the server version allows multiple jobs configured at once, a feature I think all versions should have (or at least all paid versions, if they want to use that as a carrot to get people to pay for it), but the pricing is far too high for consumers (hundreds per year, on a subscription basis).  Otherwise, I really don’t know!

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

Reply | Quote

Most of it is related to central management for multiple devices… which makes sense with the minimum quantity 10 if you buy directly from Veeam.

Service reseller Veeam partners are able to split those batches of 10 to their individual clients, it seems. That’ll be cheaper if you only have one PC, even with the reseller markup… also then the reseller / service provider could be authorized to start a single file restore for you remotely.

A bit steep for a small business’s single PC still.

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

Reply | Quote

@Ascaris- words are insufficient for this ray of sunshine through the backup maze.  There are several details in your tutorial that are not self-evident, any one of which could (and did) stop me in my tracks.

These backups are all system images.  Would you suggest doing images only, given a weekly schedule, or using another program for weekly user file backups and using Veeam on a longer, say, monthly, schedule and starting those manually?  The new disk I’ll use is 1tb and current disk usage is 30GB on Mint (but sure to grow) and 80GB on the Win7 disk.

I’m guessing that to start a manual backup, I would command  sudo veeam – konsole and toggle through the screens to get to a start now option?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Ascaris

Reply | Quote

I do monthly (or when I make major changes like installing programs or an upgrade) images just before Patch Tuesday. Never can tell when you are going to run into trouble.

I do a User file back with irregular frequency. It just depends on how much change I make. If I only change one field in a spreadsheet, I don’t go to the trouble. But at the end of the month when I’m paying bills and downloading statements, I may do it two days in a row.

2 users thanked author for this post.

jburk07, Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Slowpoke47 wrote:

These backups are all system images. Would you suggest doing images only, given a weekly schedule, or using another program for weekly user file backups and using Veeam on a longer, say, monthly, schedule and starting those manually? The new disk I’ll use is 1tb and current disk usage is 30GB on Mint (but sure to grow) and 80GB on the Win7 disk.

If you use the option I recommended in the tutorial, the Entire Machine option, it will back up the system and all of your user data, and it should even back up your Windows volumes.

I can’t really suggest a backup time interval without knowing how much things change on your PC or what your comfort level is with how far you would have to roll back if something happened.  It’s a personal choice, and only you know what is on your PC and how much it would bother you if you were to lose everything between your latest backup and now.

Veeam will automatically create incremental backups if it finds a backup image already in the target folder (as long as you have not changed the job name).  These take up less room than full images, depending on how much has changed since the last backup.  The more change, the bigger the incremental backup files.  Each incremental backup builds on the backups that came before, starting with a full backup first, and then the incrementals after that.  The whole thing together is called a backup chain.  Don’t delete any bit of the chain, or it won’t work when it is time to restore!

Scheduled backups are good for a lot of people because otherwise they will forget or put it off until it is too late, but I am fairly obsessive with backups, so I just do them manually. I’m pretty obsessive over this stuff, so I don’t forget, but everyone’s different. Having great backup software and lots of space for backups does you no good if you don’t use it!

For backups to external drives, you have a dilemma, if you want to use scheduled backups.  If you leave the drive plugged in so that the backup program can back up to it whenever it needs, you run the risk of something happening to that backup if, say, a power surge takes out the PC in question– and all things plugged into it.  That’s the exact kind of thing you want backups for, but if the backups are online with that PC all the time, the same thing that took out the main hard drive could take out the external too.  It negates some of the protection you would otherwise have, and there should be an offline backup somewhere too, in case that very thing happens.  The more redundancy and separation you have between the backups, the better prepared you are for disaster.

The way I do backups to my external drives is to plug them in, do the backup, then unplug (remember to safely remove them with the USB icon in the system tray first!) and put them in a fire-resistant box.  I have two drives that I rotate for my Veeam (image) backups, and I use my backup server (really just a PC with a lot of hard drives… I think it has 10 or 11 TB total) in addition to that. It spends most of its time sleeping, but it wakes up if I try to contact it over the network.

I use Timeshift on a third external drive before a big Linux update or before I am going to try something with the operating system that could be risky, and just every so often too.  I use KDE Neon as my distro, and it has frequent updates of Plasma (the desktop environment), KDE frameworks, Qt, and other things that often result in large numbers of files being downloaded.  When I see one of those, I run a quick Timeshift backup just in case.  I’ll also do that if I am trying something potentially risky with the OS, which I do fairly frequently, on purpose.  I know I can get things back one way or another, so I try things I would never do if I didn’t have the backups.  If it does break something, I usually try to fix it (often requiring some internet searching to find out how to fix it!) without resorting to backups first, which I usually can.  If I am short on time or just tired of messing with it, I restore from backup to get my PC working again as soon as possible.

I just use Timeshift for the system folders, not /home or my personal data.  I use Veeam for that, with encryption turned on, in case someone comes and steals my external drives or backup server.  Unlikely, but not impossible.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Ascaris wrote:

If you use the option I recommended in the tutorial, the Entire Machine option, it will back up the system and all of your user data, and it should even back up your Windows volumes.

My plan exactly.  I was wondering if the Win7 OS would be saved also.

Ascaris wrote:

Veeam will automatically create incremental backups if it finds a backup image already in the target folder (as long as you have not changed the job name). These take up less room than full images, depending on how much has changed since the last backup. The more change, the bigger the incremental backup files. Each incremental backup builds on the backups that came before, starting with a full backup first, and then the incrementals after that. The whole thing together is called a backup chain. Don’t delete any bit of the chain, or it won’t work when it is time to restore!

That’s just what I had in mind, but since I haven’t yet started the install (tomorrow’s project) I didn’t know that Veeam follows up a full image with incrementals.  This is sounding better as we go.

As for scheduling, I could go that route or not- I’m pretty careful about backups, too.  But if the target drive is not connected at the set time, what does Veeam do?  I was advised way back that it’s risky to leave the backup drive connected 24/7, and I don’t do that.

Looks to me like I can use Veeam for my only backup utility.  I think the target drive, at 1tb, is plenty big enough to hold several backups in the chain, back to a full image, and I like weekly backups.  Possibly that drive could be partitioned to hold backup chains from our laptop, too- even less data than the desktop.  But I will use a different ext. disk if that’s a safer option.

When the drive (folder) gets near full, are there automatic deletions of old backups, or do I need to monitor that?

Reply | Quote

Well, I verified it just to be sure, but Veeam does indeed back Windows up with the Entire Machine option.  It should, given that Windows is part of the entire machine, but now I can say that it does for sure.

Now, a caveat: I’ve become aware that there is a bug in the recovery (rescue) media of the Linux version of Veeam.  The Veeam rep on their site says they are working on it, so it should be fixed in time, but I do not know when that will be.  Currently, a restoration from an external hard drive requires using the command line, as the bug is preventing the rescue media from seeing USB drives at present.  It’s a simple task for those of us who are familiar with the command line to select the option in the Veeam rescue drive to go to the command line, mount the drive (often /dev/sdb, on a single-drive PC with a SATA hard drive or SSD), and point the Veeam program at the backup image, after which the veeam program can be restarted, and now it will be able to restore from the USB drive normally.  For people not familiar with the command line, it may be necessary to get some assistance (which I would be happy to provide).

The creation of the backups to a USB drive works fine, and so does backup to and restoring from network shares (which is what I usually use for restore, so I never discovered the bug before) via the normal means. It’s specifically USB drives and possibly other external drives that trigger the bug in the recovery media.

This will only become an issue if you wish to restore entire partitions or the whole disk, as you can still recover files from the disk image right from Linux without having to use the rescue media at all.  If you choose to make backups with Veeam now, with any luck, the bug will be fixed by the time (if ever) you would need to restore the backup.  Still, there is the possibility that something could happen catastrophically before Veeam fixes the bug, and while it will still be possible to restore your data, it will take a few typed commands to make it work.

I just wanted everyone to be aware of this issue when I found out about it.  All software can have bugs, but Veeam seems particularly slow in dealing with them.  They do fix them, though, just not quickly.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

3 users thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth, jburk07, Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Just finished (I think) installing Veeam, although with a couple of zits on which I shall elaborate after a (gasp) trial backup to be launched shortly from the Terminal.  Light a candle for me…

1 user thanked author for this post.

jburk07

Reply | Quote

Backup now running, started from Terminal.  Spent considerable time today getting this installed, but between Ascaris’ tutorial, the Veeam user guide (some thick reading there), some luck and common sense, I think the backup is happening.  Tried and failed to burn a Veeam Recovery Media and went around in circles through a couple of pages- couldn’t get the target thumb drive recognized.  On the automatic scheduling screen, I was unable to uncheck any days of the week except Monday, could not highlight or select any other days- but that’s OK because i’d rather start backups manually anyway.

No idea how long this will take- user files, both OS’s, about 110GB plus system files.  And, no idea how to know when the process is finished.

Reply | Quote

Seems like the backup is finished, because the free space figure on the drive has not changed for about 15 minutes, and the space used seems about right.  Haven’t found any sort of message that the backup is complete, but perhaps I’m not looking in the right place?

Just now tried to view the backup files via a right click- message generated, no program available to read binary files.   File size shows as about 80GB, which is well under the 110GB total of the Mint and Win7 systems.  Not really sure what has in fact been backed up.  I did go with the “entire machine” backup option on setup.

EDIT- just found that a terminal command of sudo veeamconfig ui shows several choices, including for… configuring! also that the backup job completed successfully in about 1 1/2 hours.  Plan to try again to burn that recovery media tomorrow.

Reply | Quote

Congrats!

The image should be smaller than the data on the drives, since Veeam (like Reflect, True Image, and the other common Windows backup programs) uses compression to save space on the backup drive.  Things like videos and pictures are already compressed and won’t compress any further in the backup, but programs will generally compress quite a bit, often to about 50% of the original size, while text files typically compress even more than that.

In the terminal window, it should list the backup job on the left side, and right by that, the state of the backup, which should say “Success.”  Here is a screenshot of the test backup I made on the Swift to verify that Windows gets backed up too:

I put a red box around the “success” message.  If you already closed Veeam, you can restart it again with ‘sudo veeam’ and it should show you a screen like that one.  As you make more and more backups, they will all be listed here for quick reference.

This backup included my LUKS encrypted volume, and that appears as being completely full to an imaging backup program, no matter how much space is actually used, so that’s why the time was so long (and the image itself was ~650 GB).

I am guessing it would not let you get rid of all of the days of the week because the box for scheduling backups was selected, and if scheduled backups are selected, it has to be on at least one day of the week.  If you tab over to the box for scheduling the backups and press space, it should toggle off the whole calendar display, letting you know that the scheduling is off.

As to why the ISO write failed… I don’t know why that would not work.  Mint has its own handy bootable USB maker that always worked nicely for me when I used Mint, but now I use the GNOME disk utility (the thing just called ‘disks’ in the menu).  Can you try another .iso and see if that works?

I had a similar problem earlier,  except in Windows 10.  I have a bunch of USB drives that I regularly repurpose for various things.  I tried to have the Windows version of Veeam make a rescue drive to see if it would work with the Linux backup files (it didn’t), but I could not get Windows to write to the USB drive.  When I tried with Veeam itself, it failed every time, so I tried using diskmgmt.msc (the Windows disk management tool), which also failed.  Curious, I tried my other PC that has Windows 10, and it failed too.  I tried another USB drive, and it failed too, even though both had worked fine with Linux for all the time I have had them.

If I was to continue using Windows, I would try using something like EaseUS Partition Master to try to make the flash drive work, but I found it easier just to write the rescue media to an .iso file and send that to my Neon desktop, then write it to the USB drive from there.

It worked perfectly… why two separate installations of Windows 10 (different builds too) both failed, I do not know.  The Win 10 installation on the Swift is basically as it was when I got it out of the box… I hadn’t removed the bloatware or let it update or anything like that before I installed the SSD and put Linux on it.  It’s still at 1607, while my G3’s is a lot newer, and has the bloatware and most of the UWP stuff removed.  I did let the Swift update just for the heck of it, though I don’t think it’s done yet.  When it wanted to reboot, I just went to Linux instead.  It will probably want to do more updating before it lets Windows be used.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Ascaris wrote:

Congrats!

Thank you- it was mostly all your doing!

Ascaris wrote:

n the terminal window, it should list the backup job on the left side, and right by that, the state of the backup, which should say “Success.”

Yep, saw that screen yesterday.

Ascaris wrote:

I am guessing it would not let you get rid of all of the days of the week because the box for scheduling backups was selected, and if scheduled backups are selected, it has to be on at least one day of the week. If you tab over to the box for scheduling the backups and press space, it should toggle off the whole calendar display, letting you know that the scheduling is off.

Actually, I played with that from various angles, and the “magic cursor” moved me out of that field when I unchecked Monday, regardless of any other elements or checked boxes.  But, as stated, I’m better off to do it manually anyway- I still would have to connect the drive at the appointed time.

Ascaris wrote:

As to why the ISO write failed… I don’t know why that would not work. Mint has its own handy bootable USB maker that always worked nicely for me when I used Mint, but now I use the GNOME disk utility (the thing just called ‘disks’ in the menu). Can you try another .iso and see if that works?

I’m not exactly clear on just how an iso works- I understand it is an image- but of what elements?  And in this case, how does it figure into a recovery?  Of course, a backup is useless if you can’t deploy it for a recovery.

Should I install a program to read the backup (binary) files?

Now that I have an idea of how Veeam works (cruised the user guide, too), looks like it’s feasible to make two partitions on the 1tb ext. disk, for backing up both computers, once I get the laptop set up with Mint (this week, I hope).  If I can’t get that done myself, I’ll be back to pester you.

Reply | Quote

Slowpoke47 wrote:

I’m not exactly clear on just how an iso works- I understand it is an image- but of what elements?

In the context of what we’re doing here, an .iso is a way of distributing a bootable DVD or USB thumb drive.  If you downloaded an .iso for Windows 7, which you can get from Microsoft, it would be an image of a Windows 7 install disc (which can be written to a USB drive too).  When you install a Linux distro, it’s usually provided in the form of an .iso for the Linux install DVD, and so on.

In this case, the .iso is an image of the Veeam rescue media, which is a stripped down version of Linux with just the bits we need to perform the restore included.

And in this case, how does it figure into a recovery? Of course, a backup is useless if you can’t deploy it for a recovery.

If you have to do a restoration of the whole hard disk or of one or more of the partitions on it, you would need the Veeam rescue DVD or USB drive to boot from and write the backup image to your hard drive.

If Linux still works and you only need to recover a file or folder that accidentally got deleted, or something like that, you can use the Veeam program already installed in Linux to do that.  From the Veeam menu, just use the option ‘R’, for Recover Files.  It will ask you which Veeam backup you want to mount.  When you mount a backup in that way, you’re making it act like the hard drive that it is a copy of, so you can then navigate to the drive location using whatever file manager you like (the default one in Mint MATE is Caja, though it’s probably just called “Files” in the menu), and copy files from the mounted backup image to your actual hard drive.

Should I install a program to read the backup (binary) files?

Veeam itself (whether the installed version on your hard drive or the rescue media) is all that you would need.  Like most backup programs, Veeam uses its own format, so no other program is able to make sense of the data inside the backup.  You can copy the backup image it like a regular set of files with whatever program you want, as long as you get the whole folder so you get the whole backup chain, but you would need Veeam itself to restore the backup.

Now that I have an idea of how Veeam works (cruised the user guide, too), looks like it’s feasible to make two partitions on the 1tb ext. disk, for backing up both computers, once I get the laptop set up with Mint (this week, I hope).

You can make additional partitions for that if you like, but you don’t have to.  You can just make different folders for different PCs on the same partition of the external drive… that’s how I do it.  That way, you don’t have the possible issue of one of the volumes running out of space while the other still has some.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Ascaris wrote:

For backups to external drives, you have a dilemma, if you want to use scheduled backups. I

I see that might be a problem.
What happens if a scheduled backup starts when the external drive is off?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

wavy wrote:

What happens if a scheduled backup starts when the external drive is off?

It will fail to find the backup target location and fail with an error message.  I don’t know if it will keep trying or just wait until the normal scheduled time again (which could be a week away).

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

wavy

Reply | Quote

Well not just crashing is a good thing

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

Reply | Quote

If you keep the backup target disconnected except when using it (in my mind, a good practice), you need to connect it in time for the scheduled backup- why not start the backup manually while you’re at it, and dispense with scheduling?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Cybertooth

Reply | Quote

Just tried and failed to get back into the screen that generates the Recovery Media.  No option in the menu to get there.

No choices bottom of screen bring me to a means to burn the drive.

Reply | Quote

Need just a little coaching re creating the Veeam Recovery Image- without which, of course, the HDD with backups on it is basically a paperweight…

Here’s the Veeam page that walks through the procedure:

https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/agentforlinux/userguide/recovery_media_create.html?ver=30

The genisoimage package is installed.  I plan to do this via Terminal.  Previous attempts have failed due to my not knowing the correct names for <input path> and <output path> to insert in the commands.

I want the rescue file to be on a thumb drive.  When plugged into the pc, the system sees it and generates, as Location, </media/steve/310F-8A18>  but I don’t understand how to determine the two paths requested.

Reply | Quote

Several places in the Veeam docs refer me to the Veeam site to download a generic recovery media.  I have looked on their site more than once, snooped around, and can’t find any such download.  No luck with their search box either.  In the current installation, I can’t find a function to burn the media.

I’m now entertaining the strategy of starting over- removing and reinstalling the entire program file- to try again to burn the recovery media during the new install.  Any wisdom on this appreciated.

Reply | Quote

Slowpoke47 wrote:

Several places in the Veeam docs refer me to the Veeam site to download a generic recovery media.  I have looked on their site more than once, snooped around, and can’t find any such download.  No luck with their search box either.

Look in http://repository.veeam.com/backup/linux/agent/veeam-recovery-media/x64/ ?

Hm, not having the downloader in the interactive interface after first run is a bit of a bother…

Slowpoke47 wrote:

In the current installation, I can’t find a function to burn the media.

Yeah, that’ll be a bit more dependent on specifics. A .iso should be burnable to optical media with any number of tools, graphical and command line. I don’t know what the Mint default tool for that is…?

And as for usb … yeah, that doesn’t need anything fancy, works with dd. At least the standard Veeam iso does.

As in, “sudo dd if=<whatever.iso> of=<usbdevice> oflag=sync bs=…”; if you have a filesystem mounted from the USB device, you need it unmounted but not ejected. Then use the base node, not a partition. (Blocksize isn’t very significant but optimally should match or be a multiple of hardware block, defaults to 512 if left out.)

(These days the best way to list what USB storage devices you have connected but not “ejected” might be “ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb*” – that’ll usually give you descriptively named links to /dev/sd* devices. Or you can use the long names directly, but the short names are what shows in a list of mounted filesystems so…)

cd /tmp
wget http://repository.veeam.com/backup/linux/agent/veeam-recovery-media/x64/veeam-recovery-media-3.0.2.iso
sudo dd if=veeam-recovery-media-3.0.2.iso bs=4096 oflag=sync of=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-<tab>

As in <tab> key for command line completion, if you have exactly one usb storage device attached it’ll probably get it right the first time… but do check and fix the destination device to be correct and unmounted before hitting enter.

With iso to usb you’ll want the base node for dd, not a partition, but partition 1 is the most likely to be mounted.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

mn– wrote:

Look in http://repository.veeam.com/backup/linux/agent/veeam-recovery-media/x64/ ?

Well- that was too easy!

As far as the rest of your post, the jargon is, unfortunately, beyond my understanding.  What I’m lacking with this Mint system is context- i.e. a basic understanding of how it works, and the differences from the more familiar Win7.  I am awaiting the arrival of a couple of books that I hope will demystify the use of the command line, hope that will be helpful.

 

Reply | Quote

Thanks to mn- I have the Recovery Media file downloaded.  A right click on the file generates this menu:

Near the bottom of that menu, selecting <Send to…> produces this:

Object is to burn the file to a thumb drive.  Before I start experimenting, perhaps someone can guide me here?

BTW- took some trial and error to capture a screenshot of a pop-up that refuses to co-exist with the screenshot pop-up- but, as the evidence shows, I did it…

Reply | Quote

Slowpoke47 wrote:

Object is to burn the file to a thumb drive.  Before I start experimenting, perhaps someone can guide me here?

Not having Mint I can’t say about available graphical tools, but command line I can help with.

I assume the recovery media .iso is in your “Downloads” folder?

So. Please insert the thumb drive in question, open a terminal window, execute the following command and show the output:

ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/usb*

From that we should most likely be able to determine the command(s) that’ll write it to the thumb drive.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Terminal text:

Reply | Quote

[mn--]

Very well. From that we see that you have a multi-type card reader (sdc, sdd, sde, sdf), and one thumb drive (sdg).

We also see that the SanDisk Ultra thumb drive has a partition 1 (sdg1), this command doesn’t tell us whether or not it’s “open” or “mounted”.

1. Please close any applications that have it or files from it open, but do not use “eject”.
2. Now, run

   sudo umount /dev/sdg1

   so that it’s unmounted / closed but remains attached.

3. If that command returned any errors, check with:

   mount |grep /dev/sdg

   – this should not output any lines. If it does, abort procedure and check back – it still had open files that couldn’t be closed automatically.

4. The thumb drive being unmounted but still attached, we can write the image to it. (Note, this is still under the assumption that you saved the downloaded .iso in the most likely default location. Oh and that your language is English – those folder names can get localized.)

   sudo dd if=$HOME/Downloads/veeam-recovery-media-3.0.2.iso bs=4096 oflag=sync of=/dev/sdg1 status=progress

   Assuming that completes with no errors, you should now have a bootable Veeam recovery USB thumbdrive.

 
Optional detailed explanation:

1. Some Linux distributions have the habit of powering down USB devices when told to “detach” them from the file manager, and doing that on “eject” is even expected. Therefore use the “umount” command which does what we need here – it might be availabe through the file manager application but I’m not familiar with Mint’s.
2. Then, verify that the “umount” was successful and there’s nothing open from it, the “mount” command with no arguments lists active mounts; “grep” takes its input and only outputs lines that have the specific text occurring on them, “|” is the redirection pipe. So, /dev/sdg not occurring in the output of “mount” is what we expect.
3. Then finally, the “dd” command. Its feel is different from most other commands, taking name=value pairs and having compatibility features with IBM mainframes…
   • if means input file, value should be the location of your downloaded file. As previously stated, I am assuming that it’s located in “Downloads” under your home directory; $HOME being the environment variable that points to your home directory
   • bs means blocksize, as in how many bytes to transfer at a time. Not absolutely necessary in this case but a good habit to have. (Some other situations require specific block sizes.)
   • oflag means special handling of output. Specifying sync so that dd waits until the data really is on the device and not just “on the way” – slower but safer.
   • of means output file. When writing directly to a device, this is expected to be somewhere in /dev/ … our target device goes here.
   • status is, well, user-friendly status messages or lack thereof, defaults to “none”.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by mn--. Reason: This thing has "heading" selections but they don't work?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

Many thanks- a procedure even I could handle.  The result:

And one final question- since I will be installing the identical Veeam software in our other computer, as soon as the identical Mint OS is installed, will this recovery media work for that machine as well?

Reply | Quote

Slowpoke47 wrote:

since I will be installing the identical Veeam software in our other computer, as soon as the identical Mint OS is installed, will this recovery media work for that machine as well?

This is the unmodified Veeam generic iso that works for “all normal PCs that don’t require specialized drivers”. So yes, at a minimum I’d expect this to work on more PCs than the standard Mint install media does.

I do recommend testing it, and if necessary making the customized ISO; once you have that, “burning” to thumbdrive is the same procedure except for the if= argument for dd.

(The largest group who need that is probably those who have their backups on a network share and are using a Broadcom wireless adapter to connect to that network… because Broadcom doesn’t allow including that driver on normal Linux media.)

2 users thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47, Ascaris

Reply | Quote

In the future, if you wish, you could also select the open with… option and select USB image writer, or whatever the actual text is.  Mint has its own USB writer, or at least it did when I used Mint, and the ‘disks’ program has that ability too (which is what I use in Neon).

Slowpoke47 wrote:

And one final question- since I will be installing the identical Veeam software in our other computer, as soon as the identical Mint OS is installed, will this recovery media work for that machine as well?

It almost certainly will.  There are some cases where additional drivers have to be added, but for a simple setup like yours, they should not be necessary.

Congrats on getting it to work with mn-‘s command line info.  It’s already becoming less intimidating, hopefully!

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

And, if I ever get the scan function straightened out (correct driver and plugin) in this machine, I plan to do the same in our other computer.  For simplicity and ease of use, since we’re starting from scratch with Mint in both, it makes sense to me to set them both up as nearly identically as possible.

Reply | Quote

Slowpoke47 wrote:

For simplicity and ease of use, since we’re starting from scratch with Mint in both, it makes sense to me to set them both up as nearly identically as possible.

I do the same thing with my PCs.  My desktop, my G3, and my Swift are all set up as close to the same as possible with their varying hardware.  When I make a change in configuration to one, I do it to all of them, in general.  There are some exceptions, like that I have not installed TLP (which provides power-saving features for laptops) on my desktop, and most of my games are not installed on the Swift, as it is too slow to run them correctly.  Most things, though, are the same.

 

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

1 user thanked author for this post.

Slowpoke47

Reply | Quote

OP here- to date, several successful Veeam backups, thanks to this tutorial.  Yesterday installed Mint on our other computer using the same stick that I used for this machine, all went well- up and running.

Backup storage is an ext. 1tb drive, several times over what we need.  I would like to use the same HDD for Veeam backups on the second machine.  Do I have to partition this disk beforehand, or will the Veeam installer help me do it?

Reply | Quote

[Slowpoke47]

Today’s backup generated a warning instead of the usual “Success” comment.  Why?  What does “snapshot overflow” mean?  Destination is 1TB ext. drive with about 108GB of data consisting of last 6 backups.  This backup seems to have failed.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Slowpoke47.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by Slowpoke47.

Reply | Quote

@ Slowpoke47

Slowpoke47 wrote:

Why? What does “snapshot overflow” mean?

When you use an imaging program that creates an image file while the OS is actively running, you have the potential of the image creation process of being *corrupted* by activity that is occurring from the OS.

The *Snapshot* is what the image program is taking of the OS so it is *frozen* in time to that particular time.

*Snapshot overflow* means too many changes were occurring during the creation of the Snapshot, and the Snapshot process was overwhelmed by data changes.

Were you still using the OS for other activities during the Image creation process? That would be a likely cause of the problem. It could also be some other background activity such as a *automatic* program update that is occurring while the Image Snapshot creation was occurring.

I would try again, and don’t use the computer until the image backup has completed–multi-tasking (too many programs in use at the same time) may be the problem also.

I personally never use an imaging program from within a live OS for this very reason–the OS activity may interfere with the image program in some way. I always create image backups using whatever standalone *Rescue Media* the image program has to offer. Then the OS is no longer a variable to worry about.

Reply | Quote