NDMP appliances

Requirements for NDMP appliance Backup and Restore

• Amanda server must be running  Linux distribution listed on the Zmanda Network Supported Platforms page.
• Amanda Enterprise 3.1 (including dependencies) must be installed on the Amanda server.
• The Amanda server includes the NDMP application. The NDMP backup can be performed only from the Amanda server not from an Amanda client.

Installation

• No additional packages are required for NDMP application. Amanda server includes all necessary software.
• NDMP is a licensed application. All product licences from Zmanda are in a single license file. If you have bought licenses recently, you will have to download the license file from Zmanda Network. The license file should be installed as /etc/zmanda/zmanda_license on the Amanda server. It should be owned by amandabackup user and disk group with file permissions 755.

Configuring NDMP volumes/directories for Backup

Configuring NDMP backups requires configurations steps using Zmanda Management Console and some manual steps.

• Zmanda recommends creation of separate backup set for NDMP DLEs.
• Create a backup set for the NDMP appliance in the Zmanda Management Console.
• Configure the backup set in the Backup What page.

The Host Name for NDMP DLE must be always 127.0.0.1 because the backups are initiated from the Amanda server. The Share Name must have //<name or ip address of the filer or appliance>/<volume name or directory name> format. In the above example, 172.17.47.2 is the IP address of the filer.  The Network Domain must be the IP address or the name of the filer.  The Username and Password are the user credentials for performing backup and recovery from the filer using NDMP.

• Modify the NDMP appliance/Netapp filer authentication file in /etc/amanda/<backup set name>/cifs_network_shares . This file should have the ip address or the name of the filer/appliance, DLE name, user name and password of the backup user.  The last field should be TEXT if ndmpd.authtype is plaintext and should be md5 if the ndmpd.authtype is challenge. The ndmpd options can be checked in Netapp filer using options ndmp command on the filer.

This authentication file should be readable only by amandabackup user. An example cifs_network_shares file is shown below:

172.17.47.2 /vol/vol1/data "root" "root_password" TEXT

172.17.47.2 is the IP address of the Netapp filer. /vol/vol1/data is the DLE.  root is the user on the Netapp filer used for the backup operations and password for the user is root_password. The password must not be encrypted.

• Please modify /etc/zmanda/zmc_aee/zmc_dumptypes configuration file.

Edit define dumptype zmc_ndmp_app definition. Add the following:

data-path directtcp

Edit define application-tool app_amndmp definition. Make the following changes:

#property "AMANDAPASS" "cifs_network_shares"
property "PASSFILE" "/etc/amanda/<backup set name>/cifs_network_shares"
property "PORT"  "10000"

property "BU-TYPE" "dump"

• If you are configuring Backup devices that are connected to the Amanda server for this backup set, use the Admin Devices and Backup Where pages to configure the devices. This should be done in Remote NDMP configurations. For configuring tape changers accessible using NDMP, please see next section.
• Before scheduling backups, it is important to verify the backup set configuration. Run the amcheck command to verify the configuration.

$ amcheck -c <backup set name>

Please resolve any configuration errors found.

Configuring NDMP tape changer

Scheduling backups of NDMP appliance

You can schedule backups using Zmanda Management Console Backup When page or run immediate backups for the backup set from the Backup Activate page.

The status of the backup are shown in the Monitor page. Backup reports will be available under the Report tab in the Zmanda Management Console.

Performing NDMP appliance Restores/Recovery using command line

This section describes how to use Amanda recovery command amrecover to perform NDMP volume/directory restoration. 

1. Run amrecover command on the Amanda server as root user. You will need to provide the backup set name as a parameter. The values for options -t and -s will not change.
   
       # amrecover -C <backup set name> -t localhost -s localhost
    
2. Set the host to localhost and the disk to DLE name that was used in the backup set configuration. The DLE name will have //<ip address or the name of filer>/<name of the guest VM>.

amrecover> sethost localhost

200 Dump host set to localhost.

amrecover> setdisk //netapp1.company.com/vol/vol3

200 Disk set to //netapp1.company.com/vol/vol3

3. You can list the files in the backup using ls command. Add all the files or specific files to be restored and run extract command to restore the files.

amrecover> ls

2010-03-03-17-22-35 MyData
2010-03-03-17-22-35 MyMusic
...

amrecover> add *
Added file /rhel4-32.vmx
Added file /rhel4-32.vmdk

amrecover> extract

4. The amrecover command ask you to load the necessary tapes to the tape changer. Confirm that the tapes are loaded. The files will be restored to the original location. Please note that existing files in the original location will be deleted.