Acronis Backup Version 11.
Copyright Statement Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014. All rights reserved. “Acronis” and “Acronis Secure Zone” are registered trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. "Acronis Compute with Confidence", “Acronis Startup Recovery Manager”, “Acronis Active Restore”, “Acronis Instant Restore” and the Acronis logo are trademarks of Acronis International GmbH. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. VMware and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc.
Table of contents 1 Introducing Acronis Backup ..............................................................................................9 1.1 What's new in Update 5 ............................................................................................................9 1.2 What's new in Update 4 ............................................................................................................9 1.3 What's new in Update 3 .............................................................
.2.6 4.2.7 4.2.8 4.2.9 4.2.10 4.2.11 4.3 Simplified naming of backup files ............................................................................................55 4.3.1 4.3.2 4.3.3 4.4 Daily schedule ................................................................................................................................................ 61 Weekly schedule .......................................................................................................................................
.1.5 5.1.6 5.2 Recovering BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and vice versa .............................................114 5.2.1 5.2.2 Recovering volumes .................................................................................................................................... 115 Recovering disks .......................................................................................................................................... 116 5.3 Acronis Active Restore ...........................
8.2.5 8.3 8.3.1 8.3.2 8.3.3 8.3.4 8.3.5 8.4 Access credentials for destination ............................................................................................................. 157 Mounting an image................................................................................................................158 Archive selection ......................................................................................................................................... 159 Backup selection.....
11.1.2 11.1.3 Truncating transaction logs ........................................................................................................................ 198 Best practices when backing up application servers ................................................................................ 202 11.2 Recovering SQL Server data ...................................................................................................203 11.2.1 11.2.2 11.2.
13.1.7 13.1.8 13.1.9 Initial Seeding FAQ ...................................................................................................................................... 240 Large Scale Recovery FAQ .......................................................................................................................... 246 Subscription lifecycle FAQ .......................................................................................................................... 247 13.2 Where do I start? .
1 Introducing Acronis Backup 1.1 What's new in Update 5 The most recent operating systems remain bootable when recovered to dissimilar hardware. To simplify the recovery procedure, the Acronis Universal Restore setting is removed from the recovery wizard. A separate Acronis Universal Restore tool is introduced for the cases when installing a custom driver is required. The tool can be downloaded from your account on the Acronis website. The cataloging performance is improved.
Basic support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (p. 32) Install Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. Back up storage spaces and recover them to the original location, to different storage spaces or as ordinary disks. Back up and recover (at a disk level) volumes where the Data Deduplication feature is enabled. Boot a machine from bootable media that is based on WinPE 4. Use bootable media on a machine where UEFI Secure Boot is enabled.
Console The console provides Graphical User Interface to the agents. Usage of the console is not licensed. The console is installed together with the agent and cannot be disconnected from it. Bootable Media Builder With Bootable Media Builder, you can create bootable media in order to use the agents and other rescue utilities in a rescue environment. Bootable Media Builder is installed together with the agent. 1.7.
1.8 About using the product in the trial mode Before buying an Acronis Backup license, you may want to try the software. This can be done without a license key. To install the product in the trial mode, run the setup program locally or use the remote installation functionality. Unattended installation and other ways of installation are not supported. Limitations of the trial mode When working under bootable media: The disk management functionality is not available.
1.10 Technical Support Maintenance and Support Program If you need assistance with your Acronis product, please go to http://www.acronis.com/support/ Product Updates You can download the latest updates for all your registered Acronis software products from our website at any time after logging into your Account (http://www.acronis.com/my) and registering the product. See Registering Acronis Products at the Website (http://kb.acronis.com/content/4834) and Acronis Website User Guide (http://kb.acronis.
2 Getting started Step 1. Installation These brief installation instructions enable you to start using the product quickly. For the complete description of installation methods and procedures, please refer to the Installation documentation. Before installation, make sure that: Your hardware meets the system requirements. You have a license key for the product of your choice. You have the setup program. You can download it from the Acronis website.
Step 5. Recovery Recover (p. 101) To recover data, you need to select the backed-up data and the destination the data will be recovered to. As a result, a recovery task will be created. Recovery of a disk or volume over a volume locked by the operating system requires a reboot. After the recovery is completed, the recovered operating system goes online automatically.
Acronis Backup Management Console - Welcome screen Key elements of the console workspace Name Description Navigation pane Contains the Navigation tree. Lets you navigate to the different views. For details, see Navigation pane (p. 16). Main area Here you configure and monitor backup, recovery and other operations. The main area displays views and action pages (p. 17) depending on the items selected in the menu or Navigation tree. Menu bar Appears across the top of the program window.
How to change the panes' borders 1. Point to the pane's border. 2. When the pointer becomes a double-headed arrow, drag the pointer to move the border. 2.1.2 Main area, views and action pages The main area is a basic place where you work with the console. Here you create, edit and manage backup plans, recovery tasks and perform other operations. The main area displays different views and action pages according the items you select in the menu, or Navigation tree. 2.1.2.
Sorting, filtering and configuring table items The following is a guideline to sort, filter and configure table items in any view. To Do the following Sort items by any column Click a column's header to sort items in ascending order. Click it once again to sort items in descending order. Filter items by predefined column value In a field below the corresponding column's header, select the required value from the drop-down list.
Using controls and specifying settings Use active controls to specify a backup plan or recovery task settings and parameters. By default, such fields as credentials, options, comments, and some others are hidden. Most settings are configured by clicking the respective Show… links. Others are selected from the drop-down list, or typed manually in the page's fields. Action page - Controls Acronis Backup remembers the changes you made on the action pages.
If the option is enabled, the credentials for various locations that you enter during a console session are saved for use during later sessions. In Windows, the credentials are stored in the Windows Credential Manager. In Linux, the credentials are stored in a special encrypted file. If the option is disabled, the credentials are stored only until the console is closed. To clear the credentials cache for the current user account, click the Clear credentials cache button. 2.1.3.
The preset is: Enabled. To make a selection, select or clear the Notify when the management console is connected to a component of a different version check box. Request description when ejecting a tape This option defines whether to display a prompt for you to describe a tape when you eject it from a tape device by using Acronis Backup. For example, you may describe the physical location where the tape will be kept (recommended).
3 Understanding Acronis Backup This section attempts to give its readers a clear understanding of the product so that they can use the product in various circumstances without step-by-step instructions. 3.1 Owners This section explains the concept of a backup plan (task) owner and an archive owner. Plan (task) owner A local backup plan owner is the user who created or last modified the plan. Tasks, belonging to a backup plan, are owned by the backup plan owner.
Backup plan's credentials Any backup plan running on a machine runs on behalf of a user. In Windows By default, the plan runs under the agent service account, if created by a user having administrative privileges on the machine. If created by a regular user, such as a member of the Users group, the plan runs under this user's account. When creating a backup plan, you are only asked for credentials in specific cases.
3.3 User privileges on a managed machine When managing a machine running Windows, the scope of a user's management rights depends on the user's privileges on the machine. Regular users A regular user, such as a member of the Users group, has the following management rights: Perform file-level backup and recovery of the files that the user has permissions to access—but without using a file-level backup snapshot (p. 90). Create backup plans and tasks and manage them.
Service name Purpose Acronis Backing up and Managed recovering data Machine Service on the machine (Main service) Account used by the service Acronis Agent User (new account) or user-specified account Privileges added to the account User rights Log on as a service Adjust memory quotas for a process Replace a process level token Group membership Permissions on registry keys Backup BackupAndRecovery Operators Encryption (for any account) Global Administrators (for new account MMS only) Modify firmwar
3.5 Full, incremental and differential backups Acronis Backup provides the capability to use popular backup schemes, such as Grandfather-Father-Son and Tower of Hanoi, as well as to create custom backup schemes. All backup schemes are based on full, incremental and differential backup methods. The term "scheme" in fact denotes the algorithm of applying these methods plus the algorithm of the archive cleanup.
Differential backup A differential backup stores changes to the data against the latest full backup. You need access to the corresponding full backup to recover the data from a differential backup. A differential backup is most useful when: you are interested in saving only the most recent data state the data changes tend to be small as compared to the total data size.
Linux A volume backup stores all files and directories of the selected volume independent of their attributes, a boot record, and the file system super block. A disk backup stores all disk volumes as well as the zero track with the master boot record. With the sector-by-sector (raw mode) option enabled, a disk backup stores all the disk sectors. The sector-by-sector backup can be used for backing up disks with unrecognized or unsupported file systems and other proprietary data formats. 3.
simple/spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID 0+1, RAID-5) will not change. The target volume size has to be enough to accommodate the backup content. Recovery to disk group unallocated space When recovering a dynamic volume to disk group unallocated space, the software preserves the volume's original type and size. If the disk group configuration does not allow for the original volume type, the volume will be recovered as a simple or spanned volume.
Acronis Backup includes a handy disk management utility which enables you to perform the above operations both under the operating system and on bare metal. To find out more about Acronis Disk Director Lite, see the Disk management (p. 177) section. 3.8 Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks Acronis Backup can back up hard disks with a sector size of 4 KB (known as Advanced Format disks), as well as traditional hard disks that have 512-byte sectors.
Microsoft BitLocker Drive Encryption McAfee Endpoint Encryption PGP Whole Disk Encryption. To ensure reliable disk-level recovery, follow the common rules and software-specific recommendations. Common installation rule The strong recommendation is to install the encryption software before installing Acronis Backup. The way of using Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone must not be encrypted with disk-level encryption. This is the only way to use Acronis Secure Zone: 1.
The value may be "Information", "Warning", 'Error" and "Unknown". "Unknown" is sent only in the test message. Text description of the event Object identifier (OID): 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.0 Syntax: OctetString The value contains the text description of the event (it looks identical to messages published by Acronis Backup in its log). Example of varbind values: 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.1.0:Information 1.3.6.1.4.1.24769.100.200.2.
WinPE 4.0 and WinPE 5.0 Acronis Media Builder can create bootable media based on these versions of Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE). These bootable media support new features of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 (see later in this section). They can boot on machines that use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). To create bootable media based on these versions of WinPE, you need Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK). For more details, see the “WinPE-based bootable media” (p.
3.12 Support for UEFI-based machines Acronis Backup can back up and recover machines that use 64-bit Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in the same way as it does for machines that use BIOS for booting. This applies to both physical and virtual machines, no matter if the virtual machines are backed up at a hypervisor level or from inside a guest OS. Backup and recovery of devices that use 32-bit UEFI are not supported.
4 Backup 4.1 Back up now Use the Back up now feature to configure and run a one-time backup in a few simple steps. The backup process will start immediately after you perform the required steps and click OK. For a long-time backup strategy that includes schedules and conditions, timely deleting of backups or moving them to different locations, consider creating a backup plan. Configuring immediate backup is similar to creating a backup plan (p.
Select the mode the removable device will be used in (p. 148) If the specified location is an RDX drive or USB flash drive, select the device mode: Removable media or Fixed drive. Backup file naming, access credentials, archive comments To access these settings, click Show backup file naming, access credentials, archive comments. File naming (p.
[Optional] Enter a unique name for the backup plan. A conscious name lets you identify the plan among others. Backup options [Optional] Configure parameters of the backup operation, such as pre/post backup commands, maximum network bandwidth allocated for the backup stream or the backup archive compression level. If you do nothing in this section, the default values (p. 79) will be used. After any of the settings is changed against the default value, a new line that displays the newly set value appears.
A file-level backup is not sufficient for recovery of the operating system. Choose file backup if you plan to keep safe only certain data (the current project, for example). This will reduce the archive size, thus saving storage space. In order to recover your operating system along with all the settings and applications, you have to perform a disk backup. 2. In the tree below the Data to back up section, select the items to back up by selecting check boxes next to the items.
Exclude all hidden files and folders Select this check box to skip files and folders that have the Hidden attribute (for file systems that are supported by Windows) or that start with a period (.) (for file systems in Linux such as Ext2 and Ext3). If a folder is hidden, all of its contents (including files that are not hidden) will be excluded. Exclude all system files and folders This option is effective only for file systems that are supported by Windows.
By name By mask (*) By mask (?) F.log Excludes all files named "F.log" F Excludes all folders named "F" *.log Excludes all files with the .log extension F* Excludes all files and folders with names starting with "F" (such as folders F, F1 and files F.log, F1.log) F???.log Excludes all .log files with names consisting of four symbols and starting with "F" Windows By file path C:\Finance\F.log Excludes the file named "F.
By selecting the existing archive, you are meddling in the area of another backup plan that uses the archive. This is not an issue if the other plan is discontinued. However, you should generally follow the rule: "one backup plan - one archive". Doing the opposite will not prevent the program from functioning but is not practical or efficient, except for some specific cases. Why two or more plans should not back up to the same archive 1.
Destination Details FTP, SFTP To back up data to FTP or SFTP, type the server name or address in the Path field as follows: ftp://ftp_server:port _number or sftp://sftp_server:port number To establish an active mode FTP connection, use the following notation: aftp://ftp_server:port _number If the port number is not specified, port 21 is used for FTP and port 22 is used for SFTP. After entering access credentials, the folders on the server become available. Click the appropriate folder on the server.
backup will be performed and select from these days the day of weekly/monthly backup. Then you set the retention periods for the daily (referred to as "sons"), weekly (referred to as "fathers") and monthly (referred to as "grandfathers") backups. The expired backups will be deleted automatically. Tower of Hanoi – to use the Tower of Hanoi backup scheme. This scheme allows you to schedule when and how often to back up (sessions) and select the number of backup levels (up to 16).
Custom retention periods for backups of each type Description Let us suppose that we want to set up a backup plan that will regularly produce a series of daily (D), weekly (W), and monthly (M) backups. Here is a natural way to do this: the following table shows a sample two-month period for such a plan.
Backup type Specifies the types of daily, weekly and monthly backups. Always full - all the daily, weekly and monthly backups will always be full. Full/Differential/Incremental - daily backups are incremental, weekly backups are differential, and monthly backups are full. The first backup is always full. However, this does not mean that it is a monthly backup. It will be kept as a daily, weekly or monthly backup, depending on the day of week it is created.
Back up on: Workdays Weekly/monthly: Friday Keep backups: Daily: 1 week Weekly: 10 days Monthly: 6 months With this scheme, you will have a week to recover a previous version of a damaged file from a daily backup; as well as 10-day access to weekly backups. Each monthly full backup will be available for six months since the creation date. Work schedule Suppose you are a part-time financial consultant and work in a company on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Monthly: indefinitely Backup is thus performed only on Fridays. This makes Friday the only choice for weekly and monthly backups, leaving no other date for daily backups. The resulting “Grandfather-Father” archive will hence consist only of weekly differential and monthly full backups. Even though it is possible to use GFS to create such an archive, the Custom scheme is more flexible in this situation. 4.2.6.
Zone. This setting is not applicable to FTP and SFTP servers. This setting enables deletion of the last backup in the archive, in case your storage device cannot accommodate more than one backup. However, you might end up with no backups if the program is not able to create the new backup for some reason. Apply retention rules Specifies when to apply the retention rules (p. 75).
Monthly full, weekly differential, and daily incremental backups plus cleanup This example demonstrates the use of all options available in the Custom scheme. Suppose that we need a scheme that will produce monthly full backups, weekly differential backups, and daily incremental backups. Then the backup schedule can look as follows.
schedule: a backup task will be run every 1 day at 10 AM) as well as more complex schedules (example of a complex daily schedule: a task will be run every 3 days, starting from January 15. During the specified days the task will be repeated every 2 hours from 10 AM to 10 PM). Thus, complex schedules specify the sessions on which the scheme should run. In the discussion below, "days" can be replaced with "scheduled sessions". Number of levels Select from 2 to 16 backup levels.
Number of levels Full backup every On different days, can go back Roll-back period 2 2 days 1 to 2 days 1 day 3 4 days 2 to 5 days 2 days 4 8 days 4 to 11 days 4 days 5 16 days 8 to 23 days 8 days 6 32 days 16 to 47 days 16 days Adding a level doubles the full backup and roll-back periods. To see why the number of recovery days varies, let us return to the previous example. Here are the backups we have on day 12 (numbers in gray denote deleted backups).
4.2.6.6 Initial seeding This backup scheme is available when Acronis Cloud Storage is selected as the backup destination. A backup is only successful if you have an Initial Seeding license. The Initial Seeding service might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here: http://kb.acronis.com/content/15118. Initial seeding enables you to transfer the first backup, which is full and usually the largest, to the cloud storage on a hard drive instead of over the Internet.
2. Specify: User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain). Password. The password for the account. Confirm password. Re-enter the password. 3. Click OK. To learn more about operations available depending on the user privileges, see the Users' privileges on a managed machine (p. 24) section. 4.2.
Windows 2000 Professional win2000ProGuest Windows 2000 Server win2000ServGuest Windows 2000 Advanced Server win2000ServGuest Windows XP All Editions winXPProGuest Windows XP All Editions (64 bit) winXPPro64Guest Windows Server 2003, All Editions winNetStandardGuest Windows Server 2003, All Editions (64 bit) winNetStandard64Guest Windows 2008 winLonghornGuest Windows 2008 (64 bit) winLonghorn64Guest Windows Vista winVistaGuest Windows Vista (64 bit) winVista64Guest Windows 7 windows7Gu
5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Backup cataloging can be a time-consuming process. It is performed in parallel with the following steps. Post-backup command execution. Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) creation. Conversion to a virtual machine. Backup replication. Cleanup. If the replication took place, or a backup was moved to a different location during the cleanup, all the operations configured for the subsequent locations are performed before continuing to the following steps in the primary location. Validation.
Restrictions When using simplified file naming, the following functionality is not available: Setting up full, incremental and differential backups within a single backup plan.
This is because the full backups created at midnight were replaced by new full backups of the same day. 4.3.2 Backup splitting and simplified file naming When a backup is split according to backup splitting (p. 84) settings, the same indexing is used to also name parts of the backup. The file name for the next backup will have the next available index. For example, suppose that the first backup of the archive MyData has been split in two parts. Then, the file names for this backup are MyData1.
4.3.3.3 Example 3. Hourly backups within a day Consider the following scenario: You want to perform hourly backups of your server's critical files every day. You want to keep older backups in the archive. You want the first backup of each day to be full and to run at midnight; and the subsequent backups of the day to be differential and to run at 01:00, 02:00, and so on. In this scenario, create a backup plan with a daily schedule.
You have two such drives. Either of them has drive letter D in the operating system when attached to the machine. You want to swap the drives each Monday so that one drive contains backups of the current week (Monday through Sunday), and the other drive those of the previous week. In this scenario, you need to create two backup plans as follows: a) When creating the first backup plan: Specify MyMachine as the archive name. Select the Name backup files using the archive name...
The full backup of January 31, 2012, will be stored as ServerFiles[2012-01-31].tib. The following day, February 1, the backups will start with the full backup ServerFiles[2012-02-01].tib. The differential backups will start with ServerFiles[2012-02-01]2.tib. The 10 differential backups of January 31, 2012, will be stored as ServerFiles[2012-01-31]2.tib, ServerFiles[2012-01-31]3.tib, and so on up to ServerFiles[2012-01-31]11.tib. See also “The [Date] variable” (p. 56). 4.
Condition: run the task only if User is idle (a screen saver is running or the machine is locked) Location's host is available The task run time is within the specified time interval All users are logged off The specified period of time has passed since the completion of the last successful backup within the same backup plan The scheduler behavior, in case the event occurs but the condition (or any of multiple conditions) is not met is defined by the Task start conditions (p. 98) backup option.
Examples "Simple" daily schedule Run the task every day at 6PM. The schedule's parameters are thus set up as follows. 1. Every: 1 day(s). 2. Once at: 06:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. The task will be started on the current day, if it has been created before 6PM. If you have created the task after 6 PM, the task will be started for the first time on the next day at 6 PM. To: not set. The task will be performed for an indefinite number of days.
First daily schedule 1. Every: 3 day(s). 2. Every: 4 hours. From: 08:00:00 AM Until: 12:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 09/20/2009. To: not set. Second daily schedule 1. Every: 3 day(s). 2. Every: 2 hour(s). From: 03:00:00 PM Until: 07:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 09/20/2009. To: not set. 4.4.2 Weekly schedule Weekly schedule is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems. To specify a weekly schedule In the Schedule area, select the appropriate parameter as follows: Every: <...> week(s) on: <...
1. Every: 1 week(s) on: Fri. 2. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: 05/13/2009. The task will be started on the nearest Friday at 10 PM. To: 11/13/2009. The task will be performed for the last time on this date, but the task itself will still be available in the Tasks view after this date. (If this date were not a Friday, the task would be last performed on the last Friday preceding this date.) This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme.
1. Every: 1 week(s) on: Mon, Fri. 2. Every: 9 hours From: 12:00:00 PM Until: 09:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. To: not set. Second schedule 1. Every 1 week(s) on: Tue, Wed, Thu. 2. Every 3 hours From 09:00:00 AM until 09:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. To: not set. Third schedule 1. Every: 1 week(s) on: Sat, Sun. 2. Once at: 09:00:00 PM. 3. Effective: From: not set. To: not set. 4.4.3 Monthly schedule Monthly schedule is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems.
Examples "Last day of every month" schedule Run the task once at 10 PM on the last day of every month. The schedule's parameters are set up as follows. 1. 2. 3. 4. Months: . Days: Last. The task will run on the last day of every month despite its actual date. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. Effective: From: empty. To: empty. This schedule is widely used when creating a custom backup scheme.
2. On: 3. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. 4. Effective: From: 11/01/2009. To: not set. Second schedule 1. Months: March, April, May, September, October, November. 2. On: . 3. Every: 12 hours From: 12:00:00 AM Until: 12:00:00 PM. 4. Effective: From: 11/01/2009. To: not set. Third schedule 1. 2. 3. 4. Months: June, July, August. Days: 1, 15. Once at: 10:00:00 PM. Effective: From: 11/01/2009. To: not set. 4.4.
For example, an Error event with Event source disk and Event ID 7 occurs when Windows discovers a bad block on a disk, whereas an Error event with Event source disk and Event ID 15 occurs when a disk is not ready for access yet. Examples "Bad block" emergency backup One or more bad blocks that have suddenly appeared on a hard disk usually indicate that the hard disk drive will soon fail. Suppose that you want to create a backup plan that will back up hard disk data as soon as such a situation occurs.
To view properties of an event, including the event source and event number 1. In Event Viewer, click the name of a log that you want to view—for example, Application. Note: To be able to open the security log (Security), you must be a member of the Administrators group. 2. In the list of events in the right pane, double-click the name of an event whose properties you want to view. 3.
(1) If the user becomes idle before 9PM, the backup task will start at 9PM. (2) If the user becomes idle between 9PM and 11PM, the backup task will start immediately after the user becomes idle. (3) If the user is still active at 11PM, the backup task starts anyway. 4.4.5.2 Location's host is available Applies to: Windows, Linux "Location's host is available" means that the machine hosting the destination for storing archives on a networked drive is available.
(1) if the user logs off between 04:30:00 PM and 10:00:00 PM, the backup task will start immediately following the logging off. (2) if the user logs off at any other time, the task will be skipped. What if... What if a task is scheduled to be executed at a certain time and this time is outside the specified time interval? For example: Event: Daily, Every 1 day(s); Once at 03:00:00 PM. Condition: Fits the time interval, from 06:00:00 PM until 11:59:59 PM.
Example: Run the backup task at system startup, but only if more than 12 hours have passed since the last successful backup. Event: At startup, Start the task on machine startup. Condition: Time since last backup, Time since the last backup: 12 hour(s). Task start conditions: Wait until the conditions are met.
Using Acronis Cloud Backup to protect data from a natural disaster (p. 77) Replicate the archive to the cloud storage by transferring only the data changes outside working hours. Reduced costs of storing the backed-up data Store your backups on a fast storage for as long as a need to access them is likely. Then, move them to a lower-cost storage to keep them there for a longer term. This enables you to meet legal requirements on data retention.
Restrictions Copying or moving backups to and from optical discs (CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs) is not supported. Acronis Cloud Storage can only be the final location. Further copying or moving backups from it is not possible. You cannot specify the same location more than once. For example, you cannot move a backup from one folder to another and then back to the original folder. Copying or moving backups to and from removable devices used in the Removable media mode is not supported. 4.5.
The retention rules are applied after creating a backup. They are applied sequentially in the primary, the second and all next locations. Tower of Hanoi scheme Each backup is retained based on its level (p. 49), and then deleted. You specify the number of levels in Number of levels. The retention rules are applied after creating a backup. They are applied sequentially in the primary, the second and all next locations. Custom scheme Each backup is retained until the rules you specify are met.
You will be able to specify the location where to move the backups and set up retention rules for that location after you click OK. Deleting the last backup in the archive The retention rules are effective if the archive contains more than one backup. This means that the last backup in the archive will be kept, even if a retention rule violation is detected. Please do not try to delete the only backup you have by applying the retention rules before backup. This will not work.
4.5.5 Usage examples This section provides examples of how you can replicate backups and set up retention rules for them. 4.5.5.1 Example 1. Replicating backups to a network folder Consider the following scenario: You want to perform a full backup of your machine manually. You want to store the backups in Acronis Secure Zone (p. 145) on the machine. You want to store a copy of the backups in a network folder. In this scenario, create a backup plan with the Manual start scheme.
You want to occasionally back up your machine to a local folder. You want to keep a copy of the resulting archive off-site in Acronis Cloud Storage. No matter when you start the backup, you want the replication to take place outside working hours, when demand on the Internet connection is lower. In this scenario, create a backup plan with the desired backup scheme. When creating the backup plan, specify a local folder in the Location field.
4.7 Default backup options Each Acronis agent has its own default backup options. Once an agent is installed, the default options have pre-defined values, which are referred to as presets in the documentation. When creating a backup plan, you can either use a default option, or override the default option with the custom value that will be specific for this plan only. You can also customize a default option itself by changing its value against the pre-defined one.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based) Disk backup File backup Disk backup File backup Compression level (p. 85) + + + + Disaster recovery plan (p. 86) + + - - E-mail notifications (p. 87) + + - - Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) + + + + Re-attempt if an error occurs + + + + Ignore bad sectors + + + + Windows events log (p. 89) + + - - SNMP (p. 89) + + - - Fast incremental/differential backup (p.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based) Volume Shadow Copy Service (p. 99) 4.7.1 Disk backup File backup Disk backup File backup + + - - Additional settings Specify the additional settings for the backup operation by selecting or clearing the following check boxes. Ask for the first media while backing up to removable media This option is effective only when backing up to removable media.
For example, if the machine boots from a hard disk drive by default and you select this check box, the machine will be restarted and the operating system will start as soon as the bootable agent has finished creating the backup. 4.7.2 Archive protection This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems and bootable media. This option is effective for both disk-level and file-level backup.
The preset is: Full cataloging. If you select Full cataloging, the backup contents are cataloged to the highest possible level of detail. This means that the following data will be displayed in the catalog: For a disk-level backup - disks, volumes, files, and folders. For a file-level backup - files and folders. You may want to select Fast cataloging if the full cataloging tends to affect the performance of the managed machine or if your backup window is too narrow.
This option is available when an internal (fixed) hard disk of the machine being backed up is selected as the backup destination Backing up to a fixed hard disk (for example, to Acronis Secure Zone) may slow performance of the operating system and applications because of the large amounts of data that needs to be written to the disk. You can limit the hard disk usage by the backup process to the desired level. The preset is: Maximum.
When backing up to a hard disk or a network share: A single backup file will be created if the destination disk's file system allows the estimated file size. The backup will automatically be split into several files if the destination disk's file system does not allow the estimated file size. This might be the case when the backup is placed on FAT16 and FAT32 file systems that have a 4-GB file size limit.
None – the data will be copied as is, without any compression. The resulting backup size will be maximal. Normal – recommended in most cases. High – the resulting backup size will typically be less than for the Normal level. Maximum – the data will be compressed as much as possible. The backup duration will be maximal. You may want to select maximum compression when backing up to removable media to reduce the number of blank disks required. 4.7.
2. Click Browse to specify a location for the DRP files. 4.7.8 E-mail notifications This option is effective for Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media. The option enables you to receive e-mail notifications about the backup task's successful completion, failure or when user interaction is required. The preset is: Disabled. To configure e-mail notification 1. Select the Send e-mail notifications check box to activate notifications. 2.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS encryption types are available for selection. c. Some Internet service providers require authentication on the incoming mail server before being allowed to send something. If this is your case, select the Log on to incoming mail server check box to enable a POP server and to set up its settings: Incoming mail server (POP) – enter the name of the POP server. Port – set the port of the POP server.
4.7.10 Event tracing It is possible to duplicate log events of the backup operations, performed on the managed machine, in the Application Event Log of Windows; or send the events to the specified SNMP managers. 4.7.10.1 SNMP notifications This option is effective for both Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
Use the setting set in the Machine options – to use the setting specified for the machine. For more information refer to Machine options. Log the following event types – to log events of the backup operations in the Application Event Log. Specify the types of events to be logged: All events – log all events (information, warnings and errors) Errors and warnings Errors only Do not log - to disable logging events of the backup operations in the Application Event Log. 4.7.
4.7.13 File-level security These options are effective only for file-level backup in Windows operating systems. In archives, store encrypted files in a decrypted state This option defines whether to decrypt files before saving them to a backup archive. The preset is: Disabled. Simply ignore this option if you do not use the encryption. Enable the option if encrypted files are included in the backup and you want them to be accessed by any user after recovery.
Acronis Bootable Agent and One-Click Restore. The One-Click Restore is the minimal addition to a disk backup stored on removable media, allowing for easy recovery from this backup. If you boot a machine from the media and click Run Acronis One-click Restore, the disk will be immediately recovered from the backup contained on the same media.
This option applies to disk-level backup. This option also applies to file-level backup when the file-level backup is performed by taking a snapshot. (The File-level backup snapshot (p. 90) option determines whether a snapshot will be taken during file-level backup). The option determines whether to take snapshots of multiple volumes at the same time or one by one. The preset is: Enable. When this option is set to Enable, snapshots of all volumes being backed up will be created simultaneously.
4.7.17.1 Pre-backup command To specify a command/batch file to be executed before the backup process starts 1. In the Command field, type a command or browse to a batch file. The program does not support interactive commands, i.e. commands that require user input (for example, "pause".) 2. In the Working directory field, specify a path to a directory where the command/batch file will be executed. 3. In the Arguments field specify the command’s execution arguments, if required. 4.
The option enables you to define the commands to be automatically executed before and after data capture (that is, taking the data snapshot). Data capture is performed by Acronis Backup at the beginning of the backup procedure. The following scheme illustrates when the pre/post data capture commands are executed. <--------------Pre-backup command Pre-data capture command Backup Data capture ---------------> Post-data capture command Post-backup command If the Volume Shadow Copy Service (p.
Preset Perform the data capture after the Perform the data command is capture only after the executed despite command is execution failure successfully executed. or success. Fail the task if the command execution fails. N/A Perform the data capture concurrently with the command and irrespective of the command execution result. * A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero. 4.7.18.2 Post-data capture command To specify a command/batch file to be executed after data capture 1.
moment. The operations that had started before the inactivity time began continue without interruption. The inactivity time affects all locations, including the primary one. The preset is: Disabled. To specify the inactivity time, select the Do not start replication/cleanup within the following time check box, and then select the days and the time period during the day. Usage example You may want to use this option to separate the backup process from replication or cleanup.
If the task fails because of a mistake in the backup plan, you can edit the plan while the task is in the Idle state. While the task is running, you have to stop it prior to editing the backup plan. 4.7.22 Task start conditions This option is effective in Windows and Linux operating systems. This option is not available when operating under bootable media.
Skip the task execution Delaying a backup might be unacceptable, for example, when you need to back up data strictly at the specified time. Then it makes sense to skip the backup rather than wait for the conditions, especially if the events occur relatively often. 4.7.23 Volume Shadow Copy Service These options are effective only for Windows operating systems.
will suspend the database and flush all caches to ensure that all transactions are completed; and specify post-data capture commands that will resume the database operations after the snapshot is taken. About volume shadow copy writers Before backing up the data of VSS-aware applications, make sure that the volume shadow copy writers for those applications are turned on by examining the list of writers that are present in the operating system.
5 Recovery When it comes to data recovery, first consider the most functional method: connect the console to the managed machine running the operating system and create the recovery task. If the machine's operating system fails to start or you need to recover data to bare metal, boot the machine from the bootable media (p. 259) or using Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (p. 176) and configure recovery.
Where to recover This section appears after the required backup is selected and the type of data to recover is defined. The parameters you specify here depend on the type of data being recovered. Disks (p. 106) Volumes (p. 109) Files (p. 112) Acronis Active Restore (p. 118) Applies to: system disk or volume recovery. [Optional] Enable Acronis Active Restore if you need to bring a system online immediately after the recovery is started. Access credentials (p.
2. Selecting data The backed-up data can be selected using the Data view tab, or the Archive view tab. The Data view tab displays all the backed-up data by versions (the date and time of backup creation) within the selected archive location. The Archive view tab displays the backed-up data by the archives. Selecting data using the Data view Since the Data view tab shares the same functionality with the data catalog, selecting data on the Data view tab is performed in the same way as in the catalog.
Location Details Machine name Local machine Local folders If the archive is stored in a local folder on the machine, expand the group and select the required folder. CD, DVD, BD If the archive is stored on optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD), expand the group, then select the required drive. First insert the last disc. Then insert the discs in order starting from the first one when the program prompts.
4. Do any of the following: Select the data to recover in the catalog tree, or in the table to the right of the catalog tree. In the search string, type the information that helps to identify the required data items (this can be a machine name, a file or folder name, or a disk label) and then click Search. You can use the asterisks (*) and question marks (?) wildcards.
To specify credentials 1. Select one of the following: Use the task credentials The software will access the location using the credentials of the task account specified in the Task parameters section. Use the following credentials The software will access the location using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the task account does not have access permissions to the location. You might need to provide special credentials for a network share or a storage node vault.
The selected disks will be recovered to the physical disks of the machine the console is connected to. On selecting this, you proceed to the regular disk mapping procedure described below. New virtual machine If Acronis Backup Agent for Windows or Agent for Linux is installed.
2. Click OK. All the data stored on the target disk will be replaced by the backed-up data, so be careful and watch out for non-backed-up data that you might need. NT signature The NT signature is a record that is kept in the MBR. It uniquely identifies the disk for the operating system. When recovering a disk containing a system volume, you can choose what to do with the NT signature of the target disk.
1. If the disk or volume is recovered to its original location, the mapping process reproduces the original disk/volume layout. The original location for a disk or volume means exactly the same disk or volume that has been backed up. A volume will not be considered original if its size, location or other physical parameters have been changed after backup. Changing the volume letter or label does not prevent the software from recognizing the volume. 2.
Existing virtual machine Available when the Acronis Backup Agent for Hyper-V or Agent for VMware is installed. On selecting this, you specify the virtualization server and the target virtual machine. Then you proceed to the regular volume mapping procedure described below. Please be aware that the target machine will be powered off automatically before recovery. If you prefer to power it off manually, modify the VM power management option.
Be careful! To be on the safe side, it is advisable to assign unique names to the volumes. The Linux-style bootable media shows local disks and volumes as unmounted (sda1, sda2...). Changing volume properties Size and location When recovering a volume to a basic MBR disk, you can resize and relocate the volume by dragging it or its borders with a mouse or by entering corresponding values in the appropriate fields. Using this feature, you can redistribute the disk space between the volumes being recovered.
Volume (partition) alignment Acronis Backup automatically eliminates volume misalignment – a situation, when volume clusters are not aligned with disk sectors. The misalignment occurs when recovering volumes created with the Cylinder/Head/Sector (CHS) addressing scheme to a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD) drive that has a 4-KB sector size. The CHS addressing scheme is used, for example, in all Windows operating systems earlier than Windows Vista.
Files and folders will be recovered to the same path(s) as they are in the backup. For example, if you have backed up all files and folders in C:\Documents\Finance\Reports\, the files will be recovered to the same path. If the folder does not exist, it will be created automatically. New location Files will be recovered to the location that you specify in the tree. The files and folders will be recovered without recreating a full path, unless you clear the Recover without full path check box.
By mask (*) By mask (?) 5.1.5 *.log Excludes all files with the .log extension F* Excludes all files and folders with names starting with "F" (such as folders F, F1 and files F.log, F1.log) F???.log Excludes all .log files with names consisting of four symbols and starting with "F" When to recover Select when to start the recovery task: Now - the recovery task will be started immediately after you click OK on the Recover data page.
In addition, the operating system itself is sensitive to the type of firmware. When performing a recovery to a machine that has a type of firmware that is different from the firmware of the original machine, Acronis Backup: Initializes the disk to which you are recovering the system volume either as an MBR disk or as a GPT disk, depending on the new firmware. Adjusts the Windows operating system so that it can start on the new firmware.
If the initialization may result in bootability loss, the software takes the partitioning style from the source volume ignoring the target disk size. In such cases, the software can select the MBR partitioning style for disks whose size is more than 2 TB; however, the disk space beyond 2 TB will not be available for use. If required, you can initialize the target disk manually by using the Disk management (p. 177) functionality.
The ability of the recovered system to boot up in different modes depends on the operating systems installed on the source disk. Operating systems can be convertible i.e. allow changing the boot mode from BIOS to UEFI and back, or non-convertible. For the list of convertible operating systems, see Recovering volumes (p. 115). When a source disk contains one or more operating systems and all of them are convertible, the boot mode can be automatically changed.
Original system Target hardware BIOS UEFI OS: nonconvertible UEFI The target disk will be initialized as the source one (GPT). The target machine must support UEFI. Additional steps 1. Turn on the UEFI mode in BIOS. 2. Boot from a bootable media, and perform the recovery. Recovery to large disks in BIOS After a recovery to a BIOS-based system, the target system disk is initialized as MBR.
Usage scenarios 1. The system uptime is one of the efficiency criteria. Examples: Client-oriented online services, Web-retailers, polling stations. 2. The system/storage space ratio is heavily biased toward storage. Some machines are being used as storage facilities, where the operating system claims a small space segment and all other disk space is committed to storage, such as movies, sounds or other multimedia files.
5.4 Bootability troubleshooting If a system was bootable at the time of backup, you expect that it will boot after recovery. However, the information the operating system stores and uses for booting up may become outdated during recovery, especially if you change volume sizes, locations or destination drives. Acronis Backup automatically updates Windows loaders after recovery. Other loaders might also be fixed, but there are cases when you have to re-activate the loaders.
Solution: Reactivate the boot loader. You might also need to fix the loader configuration file for the reason described in the previous item. The system loader points to the wrong volume This may happen when system or boot volumes are not recovered to their original location. Solution: Modification of the boot.ini or the boot\bcd files fixes this for Windows loaders. Acronis Backup does this automatically and so you are not likely to experience the problem.
The device on which the Linux kernel is located—typically, this is the boot partition or the root partition, such as root (hd0,0) in this example. The path to the kernel on that device and the root partition—in this example, the path is /vmlinuz-2.6.24.4 and the root partition is /dev/sda2. You can specify the root partition by label (such as root=LABEL=/), identifier (in the form root=UUID=some_uuid), or device name (such as root=/dev/sda2). The path to the initrd service on that device. 7.
5.5 Reverting a Windows system to its factory settings If your Windows operating system was deployed by using Acronis Backup for System Builders, you can revert the system to its factory settings. Reverting the system to the factory settings can be started from the management console or at boot time. The second method is useful if the operating system became unbootable for some reason. To start the operation from the management console, click Revert to factory settings in the Welcome screen.
Agent for Windows Bootable media (Linux-based or PE-based) Disk recovery File recovery Disk recovery File recovery Validate backup archive before recovery + + + + Restart the machine automatically if it is required for recovery + + - - Restart the machine automatically after recovery is finished - - + + Check file system after recovery + - + - Windows recovery - - - + Windows recovery - + + + - - Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) + + + +
Set current date and time for recovered files This option is effective only when recovering files. The preset is Enabled. This option defines whether to recover the files’ date and time from the archive or assign the files the current date and time. Validate backups before recovery The preset is Disabled. This option defines whether to validate a backup to ensure that the backup is not corrupted, before data is recovered from it.
When recovery completes successfully. %description% For a machine running Windows, the %description% variable will be replaced by the text that is given in the Computer description field of the machine. To specify this text, either go to Control panel > System or run the following command as an administrator: When recovery fails. When user interaction is required. 3. In the E-mail addresses field, type the destination e-mail address. You can enter several addresses separated by semicolons. 4.
Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode) The preset is: Disabled. With the silent mode enabled, the program will automatically handle situations requiring user interaction where possible. If an operation cannot continue without user interaction, it will fail. Details of the operation, including errors, if any, can be found in the operation log. Re-attempt, if an error occurs The preset is: Enabled. Number of attempts: 30. Interval between attempts: 30 seconds.
Community – type the name of SNMP community to which both the host running SNMP management application and the sending machine belong. The typical community is "public". Click Send test message to check if the settings are correct. Do not send SNMP notifications – to disable sending the log events of the recovery operations to SNMP managers. 5.6.4.2 Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems. This option is not available when operating under the bootable media.
This option is effective only when you select for backup a folder that is higher in the folder hierarchy than the mount point. If you select for recovery folders within the mount point or the mount point itself, the selected items will be recovered regardless of the Mount points option value. Please be aware that if the volume is not mounted at the moment of recovery, the data will be recovered directly to the folder that has been the mount point at the time of backing up. 5.6.
Preset Perform the recovery after the Perform the recovery command is only after the executed despite command is execution failure successfully executed. or success. Fail the task if the command execution failed. N/A Perform the recovery concurrently with the command execution and irrespective of the command execution result. * A command is considered failed if its exit code is not equal to zero. 5.6.7.
6 Conversion to a virtual machine Acronis Backup offers a number of ways of converting a disk backup into a virtual machine. This section helps you choose the method that best fits your needs and provides step-by-step instructions for conversion. 6.1 Conversion methods Depending on your needs, you can choose among the following conversion methods: a) Make the conversion a part of a backup plan When to use. If you want the backup and the conversion to be executed on a schedule.
During conversion which is part of a backup plan (p. 133), the software creates the virtual machine in addition to creating the backup. The virtual machine has the same configuration as the original machine. During recovery to the "New virtual machine" destination (p. 136), the software creates the virtual machine from a backup you already have. You can change the configuration of the virtual machine.
Conversion of logical volumes to basic ones may also prevent the system from booting up. For these reasons, if the machine uses a custom boot loader, you might need to configure the loader to point to the new devices and reactivate it. Configuring GRUB is normally not needed because Acronis Backup does this automatically. Should the need arise, use the procedure described in "How to reactivate GRUB and change its configuration" (p. 121).
Storage Choose the storage on the virtualization server or the folder to place the virtual machine files in. Resultant VMs Specify the name of the virtual machine. The default name is Backup_of_[Machine Name]. You can add more variables to the name.
You can choose the virtual machine type: VMware Workstation, Microsoft Virtual PC, Red Hat Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) or Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV). In the Storage step, you can select the virtual machine path. What is the machine's processing power? Conversion will take the selected machine's CPU resource. Multiple conversion tasks will be queued on that machine and it may take considerable time to complete them all.
If you choose to create the virtual machine on a virtualization server The first conversion creates a new virtual machine. Any subsequent conversion works as follows: If there has been a full backup since the last conversion, the virtual machine is re-created from scratch, as described earlier in this section. Otherwise, the existing virtual machine is updated to reflect changes since the last conversion.
6.2.3.1 Steps to perform To perform a recovery to a new virtual machine 1. Connect the console to the management server, to a machine where an agent is installed, or to a machine booted from a bootable media. 2. Click Recover to open the Recover data (p. 101) page. 3. Click Select data (p. 102). Use the Data view tab or the Archive view tab to select the disks or volumes to convert. 4. In Recover to, select New virtual machine. 5. Click Browse. In the VM/VS Selection (p.
deployed immediately after you click OK. Recovery will be performed by that agent. It will take a license. 3. Click OK to return to the Recover data page. To select the virtual machine type 1. Choose the Save the virtual machine as a set of files option. 2. In the left part of the window, select the virtual machine type. Use the right part of the window to review details on the selected virtual machine type.
Enter the name for the new virtual machine. If the backup was created by Agent for VMware or Agent for Hyper-V, the software takes the name from the virtual machine configuration contained in the backup. Processors Initial setting: if not contained in the backup or if the backed-up setting is not supported by the virtualization server, it is the default server's setting. This is the number of processors of the new virtual machine. In most cases, it is set to one.
6.3.2 Steps to perform To perform a recovery to a manually created virtual machine 1. [Optional] When recovering Windows, prepare Windows drivers that correspond to the target virtualization platform. For machines running Linux, the necessary drivers are normally already present in the operating system. 2. Create a bootable media (p. 166) by using Acronis Bootable Media Builder. 3. Create a virtual machine by using your virtualization product’s native tools. 4.
7 Storing the backed up data 7.1 Vaults A vault is a location for storing backup archives. For ease of use and administration, a vault is associated with the archives' metadata. Referring to this metadata makes for fast and convenient operations with archives and backups stored in the vault. A vault can be organized on a local or networked drive or detachable media. There are no settings for limiting a vault size or number of backups in a vault.
7.1.1 Working with vaults This section briefly describes the main GUI elements of the selected vault, and suggests ways to work with them. Examining information on a vault Information about the selected vault is located at the top pane of the selected vault. Using the stacked bar, you can estimate the vault's load. The vault's load is the proportion of the vault's free space and occupied space. Free space is a space on the storage device where the vault is located.
personal vault available to all users that can log on the system. Personal vaults are created automatically when backing up any of the above locations. Personal vaults can be used by local backup plans or local tasks. Sharing a personal vault Multiple machines can refer to the same physical location; for example, to the same shared folder. However, each of the machines has its own shortcut in the Vaults tree.
vault. Delete a vault Click Delete. The deleting operation actually removes only a shortcut to the folder from the Vaults view. The folder itself remains untouched. You have the option to keep or delete archives contained in the folder. Refresh vault table information Click Refresh. While you are reviewing the vault content, archives can be added to the vault, deleted or modified. Click Refresh to update the vault information with the most recent changes.
7.2 Acronis Secure Zone Acronis Secure Zone is a secure partition that enables keeping backup archives on a managed machine disk space and therefore recovery of a disk to the same disk where the backup resides. Should the disk experience a physical failure, the zone and the archives located there will be lost. That's why Acronis Secure Zone should not be the only location where a backup is stored.
The Acronis Secure Zone cannot be organized on a dynamic disk. To allocate space for Acronis Secure Zone 1. Choose a hard disk (if several) on which to create the zone. The unallocated space and free space from all volumes of the first enumerated disk are selected by default. The program displays the total space available for the Acronis Secure Zone. 2. If you need to allocate more space for the zone, you can select volumes from which free space can be taken.
Acronis Secure Zone is always created at the end of the hard disk. When calculating the final layout of the volumes, the program will first use unallocated space at the end. If there is no or not enough unallocated space at the end of the disk, but there is unallocated space between volumes, the volumes will be moved to add more unallocated space to the end.
7.2.2.2 Decreasing Acronis Secure Zone To decrease Acronis Secure Zone 1. On the Manage Acronis Secure Zone page, click Decrease. 2. Select volumes that will receive the free space after the zone is decreased. If you select several volumes, the space will be distributed to each partition equally. If you do not select any volumes, the freed space becomes unallocated. 3. Specify the new size of the zone by: dragging the slider and selecting any size between the current and minimum values.
When you back up using the Back up now feature or under bootable media, the removable device is always used in the Removable media mode. The difference between the two modes is mostly related to retention and replication of backups. Functionality Fixed drive Removable media If there is insufficient space to continue backing up, the software will prompt you to... ...manually free up disk space. ...insert new media. You can set retention rules (p. 74) for backups stored on the device.
8 Operations with archives and backups 8.1 Validating archives and backups Validation is an operation that checks the possibility of data recovery from a backup. Validation of a file backup imitates recovery of all files from the backup to a dummy destination. Validation of a disk or volume backup calculates a checksum for every data block saved in the backup. Both procedures are resource-intensive. Validation of an archive will validate all the archive's backups.
Credentials (p. 152) [Optional] Provide credentials for accessing the source if the task account does not have enough privileges to access it. When to validate Start validation (p. 152) Specify when and how often to perform validation. Task parameters Task name [Optional] Enter a unique name for the validation task. A conscious name lets you quickly identify the task among the others. Task's credentials (p. 153) [Optional] The validation task will run on behalf of the user who is creating the task.
To select a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them. To select a folder stored on NFS share, expand the NFS drives group and click the folder. To select FTP or SFTP server, expand the corresponding group and click the appropriate folder on the server.
Specify the appropriate parameters as follows: Date and time - the date and time when to start the task. The task will be started manually (do not schedule the task) - select this check box, if you wish to start the task manually later. On schedule - to schedule the task. To learn more about how to configure the scheduling parameters, please see the Scheduling (p. 60) section. 8.1.6 Task credentials Provide credentials for the account under which the task will run. To specify credentials 1.
Example. When backing up data to a remote location through an unstable or low-bandwidth network connection (such as backing up through WAN using VPN access), you may want to save the initial full backup to a detachable media. Then, send the media to the remote location. There, the backup will be exported from the media to the target storage. Subsequent incremental backups, which are usually much smaller, can be transferred over the network.
To access the Export page first select a validation object: an archive or a backup. 1. Select a vault. For this click the Vaults icon in the Navigation pane and select the vault expanding the vaults tree in the Vaults view or directly in the Navigation pane. 2. To select an archive, select a vault, and then in the Vault view select the Archive view tab and click the archive name. 3.
2. In the table to the right of the tree, select the archive. The table displays the names of the archives contained in each location you select. While you are reviewing the location content, archives can be added, deleted or modified by another user or by the program itself according to scheduled operations. Use the Refresh button to refresh the list of archives. 3. Click OK. 8.2.2 Backup selection To specify a backup(s) to export 1. At the top of the window, select the respective check box(es).
To export data to a network share, expand the Network folders group, select the required networked machine and then click the shared folder. If the network share requires access credentials, the program will ask for them. Note for Linux users: To specify a Common Internet File System (CIFS) network share which is mounted on a mount point such as /mnt/share, select this mount point instead of the network share itself.
The software will access the destination using the credentials you specify. Use this option if the task account does not have access permissions to the destination. Specify: User name. When entering the name of an Active Directory user account, be sure to also specify the domain name (DOMAIN\Username or Username@domain). Password. The password for the account. 2. Click OK.
Select volumes to mount and configure the mount settings for every volume: assign a letter or enter the mount point, choose the read/write or read only access mode. When you complete all the required steps, click OK to mount the volumes. 8.3.1 Archive selection To select an archive 1.
2. Click OK. According to the original FTP specification, credentials required for access to FTP servers are transferred through a network as plaintext. This means that the user name and password can be intercepted by an eavesdropper using a packet sniffer. 8.3.4 Volume selection Select the volumes to mount and configure the mounting parameters for each of the selected volumes as follows: 1. Select the check box for each volume you need to mount. 2.
To perform operations with archives and backups 1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault whose archives you need to manage. 2. In the vault view, select the Archive view tab. This tab displays all archives stored in the selected vault. 3. Proceed as described in: 8.4.1 Operations with archives (p. 161) Operations with backups (p. 161) Operations with archives To perform any operation with an archive 1. In the Navigation pane, select the vault that contains archives. 2.
2. On the Archive view tab of the vault, select the archive. Then, expand the archive and click the backup to select it. If the archive is protected with a password, you will be asked to provide it. 3. Perform operations by clicking the corresponding buttons on the toolbar. These operations can also be accessed from the '[Backup name]' actions item of the main menu. The following is a guideline for you to perform operations with backups.
8.4.3 Converting a backup to full When the chain of incremental backups in an archive becomes long, conversion of an incremental backup to a full one increases the reliability of your archive. You may also want to convert a differential backup if there are incremental backups that depend on it. During the conversion, the selected incremental or differential backup is replaced with a full backup for the same point in time. The previous backups in the chain are not changed.
Please be aware that consolidation is just a method of deletion but not an alternative to deletion. The resulting backup will not contain data that was present in the deleted backup and was absent from the retained incremental or differential backup. There should be enough space in the vault for temporary files created during consolidation. Backups resulting from consolidation always have maximum compression.
9 Bootable media Bootable media Bootable media is physical media (CD, DVD, USB flash drive or other removable media supported by a machine BIOS as a boot device) that boots on any PC-compatible machine and enables you to run Acronis Backup Agent either in a Linux-based environment or Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), without the help of an operating system.
When a machine is booted with a PE-based bootable media, you cannot select optical media such as CD, DVD, or Blu-ray Discs (BD) as a backup destination. 9.1 How to create bootable media Acronis offers a dedicated tool for creating bootable media, Acronis Bootable Media Builder. Bootable Media Builder does not require a license if installed together with an agent. To use a media builder on a machine without an agent, you need to enter the license key or have at least one license on the license server.
User name and password to be entered on the console side at the connection to the agent. If you leave these boxes empty, the connection will be enabled without specifying credentials. e. [Optional] Network settings (p. 169): f. TCP/IP settings to be assigned to the machine network adapters. [Optional] Network port (p. 169): The TCP port that the bootable agent listens for incoming connection. g.
Specifies the video mode to be used by the bootable media's graphical user interface. The mode number is given by mode_number in the hexadecimal format—for example: vga=0x318 Screen resolution and the number of colors corresponding to a mode number may be different on different machines. We recommend using the vga=ask parameter first to choose a value for mode_number. quiet Disables displaying of startup messages when the Linux kernel is loading, and starts the management console after the kernel is loaded.
9.1.1.2 Network settings While creating Acronis bootable media, you have an option to pre-configure network connections that will be used by the bootable agent. The following parameters can be pre-configured: IP address Subnet mask Gateway DNS server WINS server. Once the bootable agent starts on a machine, the configuration is applied to the machine’s network interface card (NIC). If the settings have not been pre-configured, the agent uses DHCP auto configuration.
If the port has not been pre-configured, the agent uses the default port number (9876.) This port is also used as default by the Acronis Backup Management Console. 9.1.2 WinPE-based bootable media Bootable Media Builder provides three methods of integrating Acronis Backup with WinPE: Adding the Acronis Plug-in to the existing PE ISO. This comes in handy when you have to add the plug-in to the previously configured PE ISO that is already in use. Creating the PE ISO with the plug-in from scratch.
4. Install Microsoft Core XML (MSXML) 5.0 or 6.0 Parser from this kit. 5. Install Windows AIK from this kit. 6. Install Bootable Media Builder on the same machine. It is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the help documentation supplied with Windows AIK. To access the documentation, select Microsoft Windows AIK -> Documentation from the start menu. 9.1.2.2 Preparation: WinPE 4.0 and WinPE 5.
5. [Optional] Select whether to enable or disable remote connections to a machine booted from the media. If enabled, specify the user name and password to be entered on the console side at the connection to the agent. If you leave these boxes empty, the connection will be disabled. 6. Specify network settings (p. 169) for the machine network adapters or choose DHCP auto configuration. 7. [Optional] Specify the Windows drivers to be added to Windows PE.
Adding VLANs In the Network Settings window, you can add virtual local area networks (VLANs). Use this functionality if you need access to a backup location that is included in a specific VLAN. VLANs are mainly used to divide a local area network into segments. A NIC that is connected to an access port of the switch always has access to the VLAN specified in the port configuration.
9.3.1 Setting up a display mode For a machine booted from media, a display video mode is detected automatically based on the hardware configuration (monitor and graphics card specifications). If, for some reason, the video mode is detected incorrectly, do the following: 1. In the boot menu, press F11. 2. Add to the command prompt the following command: vga=ask, and then proceed with booting. 3.
9.4 List of commands and utilities available in Linux-based bootable media Linux-based bootable media contains the following commands and command line utilities, which you can use when running a command shell. To start the command shell, press CTRL+ALT+F2 while in the bootable media's management console.
grub poweroff vconfig gunzip ps vi halt raidautorun zcat hexdump readcd hotplug reboot 9.5 Acronis Startup Recovery Manager Acronis Startup Recovery Manager is a modification of the bootable agent (p. 259), residing on the system disk in Windows, or on the /boot partition in Linux and configured to start at boot time on pressing F11. It eliminates the need for a separate media or network connection to start the bootable rescue utility.
10 Disk management Acronis Disk Director Lite is a tool for preparing a machine disk/volume configuration for recovering the volume images saved by the Acronis Backup software. Sometimes after the volume has been backed up and its image placed into a safe storage, the machine disk configuration might change due to a HDD replacement or hardware loss.
1. Back up the disk on which volumes will be created or managed. Having your most important data backed up to another hard disk, network share or removable media will allow you to work on disk volumes being reassured that your data is safe. 2. Test your disk to make sure it is fully functional and does not contain bad sectors or file system errors. 3. Do not perform any disk/volume operations while running other software that has low-level disk access.
10.5 "Disk management" view Acronis Disk Director Lite is controlled through the Disk management view of the console. The top part of the view contains a disks and volumes table enabling data sorting and columns customization and toolbar. The table presents the numbers of the disks, as well as assigned letter, label, type, capacity, free space size, used space size, file system, and status for each volume.
10.6.1 Disk initialization If you add any new disk to your machine, Acronis Disk Director Lite will notice the configuration change and scan the added disk to include it to the disk and volume list. If the disk is still not initialized or, possibly, has a file structure unknown to the machine system, that means that no programs can be installed on it and you will not be able to store any files there. Acronis Disk Director Lite will detect that the disk is unusable by the system and needs to be initialized.
10.6.2.1 Selecting source and target disks The program displays a list of partitioned disks and asks the user to select the source disk, from which data will be transferred to another disk. The next step is selection of a disk as target for the cloning operation. The program enables the user to select a disk if its size will be sufficient to hold all the data from the source disk without any loss.
You have the following two alternatives to retain system bootability on the target disk volume: 1. Copy NT signature – to provide the target disk with the source disk NT signature matched with the Registry keys also copied on the target disk. 2. Leave NT signature – to keep the old target disk signature and update the operating system according to the signature. If you need to copy the NT signature: 1. Select the Copy NT signature check box.
Dynamic disk conversion: MBR to GPT Acronis Disk Director Lite does not support direct MBR to GPT conversion for dynamic disks. However you can perform the following conversions to reach the goal using the program: 1. MBR disk conversion: dynamic to basic (p. 184) using the Convert to basic operation. 2. Basic disk conversion: MBR to GPT using the Convert to GPT operation. 3. GPT disk conversion: basic to dynamic (p. 183) using the Convert to dynamic operation. 10.6.
System disk conversion Acronis Disk Director Lite does not require an operating system reboot after basic to dynamic conversion of the disk, if: 1. There is a single Windows 2008/Vista operating system installed on the disk. 2. The machine runs this operating system.
safe conversion of a dynamic disk to basic when it contains volumes with data for simple and mirrored volumes in multiboot systems, bootability of a system that was offline during the operation 10.6.7 Changing disk status Changing disk status is effective for Windows Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 operating systems and applies to the current disk layout (p. 178).
Store backups (images) of other volumes/disks on a special volume; Install a new operating system (or swap file) on a new volume; Add new hardware to a machine. In Acronis Disk Director Lite the tool for creating volumes is the Create volume Wizard. 10.7.1.1 Types of dynamic volumes Simple Volume A volume created from free space on a single physical disk. It can consist of one region on the disk or several regions, virtually united by the Logical Disk Manager (LDM).
and is able to overcome the physical disk size limitations with a higher than mirrored disk-to-volume size ratio. 10.7.1.2 Create volume wizard The Create volume wizard lets you create any type of volume (including system and active), select a file system, label, assign a letter, and also provides other disk management functions.
To create a RAID-5 volume: Select three destination disks to create the volume on. After you choose the disks, the wizard will calculate the maximum size of the resulting volume, depending on the size of the unallocated space on the disks you chose and the requirements of the volume type you have previously decided upon.
If you are creating a basic volume, which can be made into a system volume, this page will be different, giving you the opportunity to select the volume Type — Primary (Active Primary) or Logical. Typically Primary is selected to install an operating system to a volume. Select the Active (default) value if you want to install an operating system on this volume to boot at machine startup. If the Primary button is not selected, the Active option will be inactive.
10.7.3 Set active volume If you have several primary volumes, you must specify one to be the boot volume. For this, you can set a volume to become active. A disk can have only one active volume, so if you set a volume as active, the volume, which was active before, will be automatically unset. If you need to set a volume active: 1. Select a primary volume on a basic MBR disk to set as active. 2. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Mark as active in the context menu.
an application volume, DATA — a data volume, etc., but it does not imply that only the type of data stated with the label could be stored on such a volume. In Windows, volume labels are shown in the Explorer disk and folder tree: LABEL1(C:), LABEL2(D:), LABEL3(E:), etc. LABEL1, LABEL2 and LABEL3 are volume labels. A volume label is shown in all application dialog boxes for opening and saving files. If you need to change a volume label: 1. Right-click on the selected volume, and then click Change label. 2.
10.8 Pending operations All operations, which were prepared by the user in manual mode or with the aid of a wizard, are considered pending until the user issues the specific command for the changes to be made permanent. Until then, Acronis Disk Director Lite will only demonstrate the new volume structure that will result from the operations that have been planned to be performed on disks and volumes.
11 Protecting applications with disk-level backup This section describes how to use a disk-level backup to protect applications running on Windows servers. This information is valid for both physical and virtual machines, no matter if the virtual machines are backed up at a hypervisor level or from inside a guest OS.
If the application databases are located on a number of machines, back up all of the machines on the same schedule. For example, include all of the SQL servers belonging to a SharePoint farm in a centralized backup plan running on a fixed schedule. Use Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) should be used to ensure consistency of the database files in the backup.
option is effective on a physical machine and on a virtual machine where Agent for Windows is installed. Other available solutions include: 1. Truncating the logs manually or by using a script. For more information, see "Truncating transaction logs" (p. 198) 2. For Microsoft Exchange Server, using the dedicated Agent for Exchange. 3. For Microsoft SQL Server, using Agent for SQL. Application-specific recommendations See "Best practices when backing up application servers" (p. 202). 11.1.
Create Table ##temp ( DatabaseName sysname, Name sysname, physical_name nvarchar(500), size decimal (18,2), FreeSpace decimal (18,2) ) Exec sp_msforeachdb ' Use [?]; Insert Into ##temp (DatabaseName, Name, physical_name, Size, FreeSpace) Select DB_NAME() AS [DatabaseName], Name, physical_name, Cast(Cast(Round(cast(size as decimal) * 8.0/1024.0,2) as decimal(18,2)) as nvarchar) Size, Cast(Cast(Round(cast(size as decimal) * 8.0/1024.0,2) as decimal(18,2)) Cast(FILEPROPERTY(name, ''SpaceUsed'') * 8.0/1024.
Tracks how far Exchange has progressed in writing logged information to the database file. To find out the database file and log file paths, proceed as follows.
11.1.1.4 SharePoint database files SharePoint stores content, auxiliary SharePoint services' data and farm configuration in Microsoft SQL Server databases. To find database files in SharePoint 2010 or later 1. Open Central Administration site. 2. Select Upgrade and Migration > Review database status. You will see the SQL instance and database name for all of the databases. 3. Use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to identify the files of the necessary database.
Log file shrinking. Log file shrinking reduces the physical size of a log file by removing the inactive virtual log files. Shrinking is most effective after log truncation. For more information about shrinking refer to the following article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178037(v=sql.105) Log truncation by using SQL Server Management Studio When you switch a database to the Simple Recovery Model, transaction logs are truncated automatically. 1.
Where: myServer - name of the server instanceName - name of the instance C:\myScript.sql - path to the script file created in the step 1. To automate transaction log truncation and shrinking for multiple SQL instances If you have more than one instance on the machine and want to apply the above procedure to these instances, proceed as follows. 1. Create a separate script file for each instance (e.g. C:\script1.sql and C:\script2.sql). 2. Create a batch file (e.g. C:\truncate.
1. Dismount the database (in Exchange 2010) or all databases of the storage group (in Exchange 2003/2007). For more information, see: Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123903 Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123587.aspx Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124936(v=exchg.80) Exchange 2003: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996179(v=exchg.65) 2.
2. In the mounted volumes, determine which logs have been committed to the database by using the Eseutil tool. The procedure is described in step 1 of "Log truncation of online databases" above. 3. In the respective online database or storage group, delete all the log files whose numbers are less than the number of the current log file in the backup. 4. Unmount the mounted volumes by using the umount command. 11.1.3 Best practices when backing up application servers 11.1.3.
The volumes where the Active Directory database and the transaction logs (p. 197) are located The volume with the SYSVOL folder. The default location of this folder is %SystemRoot%\SYSVOL.
To bring a backed-up database back to production, recover the database files from a disk backup. For details, see "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 204). If you only need temporary access to the backed-up databases for data mining or data extraction, mount a disk backup and access the required data. For details, see "Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 204). 11.2.
5. 6. 7. 8. b. Select the volume(s) containing the SQL Server database files. For the instructions on how to find out the database paths, refer to "SQL Server database files" (p. 195). c. Choose the Read/write access mode. d. Specify drive letters that will be assigned to the mounted volumes. After the volumes are mounted, use instructions from the "Attaching SQL Server databases" (p. 205) section to attach the databases directly from the mounted volumes.
By using Acronis Backup, you can recover Exchange database files from a disk backup. To bring a database online, mount it. For details, see "Mounting Exchange Server databases" (p. 206). If you need to perform granular recovery of individual mailboxes or their items, mount the restored database either as a recovery database (RDB) in Exchange 2010, or to a recovery storage group (RSG) in Exchange 2003/2007. For details, see "Granular recovery of mailboxes" (p. 207). 11.3.
11.3.3 Granular recovery of mailboxes RDB (RSG) is a special administrative database (storage group) in Exchange Server. It lets you extract data from the mounted mailbox database. The extracted data can be copied or merged to the existing mailboxes without disturbing user access to the current data. For more information about RDB and RSG, refer to the following articles: Exchange 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876954 Exchange 2007: http://technet.microsoft.
Steps to perform If the domain has other domain controllers, you can perform nonauthoritative restore of a lost domain controller in either of these ways: Recover a domain controller from a backup by using a bootable media. Ensure that there is no USN rollback problem (p. 210). Recreate a domain controller by installing the operating system and making the machine a new domain controller (by using the dcpromo.exe tool). Both operations are followed by automatic replication.
Changes to Active Directory that occurred after the backup had been made will be lost. Re-creation of the domain controller is not an option. Even a backup with an expired tombstone lifetime can be used. You need to recover the volumes that store Active Directory database files (p. 197). If these volumes store other valuable data except Active Directory, copy this data to a different location before the recovery. To recover a domain controller when no other domain controllers are available 1.
5. 6. 7. 8. d. On the General tab, click Start. After the service starts, click OK. Details. This change is needed because the Acronis agent service on a domain controller runs under a domain user account, but domain user accounts are unavailable in Directory Services Restore Mode. Start Acronis Backup and recover the database files from the backup. If necessary, also recover the SYSVOL folder. Details. For paths to these files and folders, see "Active Directory backup" (p. 202).
A USN rollback is unlikely to occur when you recover an entire domain controller from a VSS-based disk-level backup. A USN rollback is highly probable if any of the following is true: A domain controller was recovered partially: not all disks or volumes were recovered or only the Active Directory database was recovered. A domain controller was recovered from a backup created without VSS. For example, the backup was created by using bootable media or the Use VSS option (p.
Value name: Database restored from backup Value data: 1 6. Restart the domain controller in normal mode. 7. [Optional] After the domain controller restarts, open Event Viewer, expand Application and Services Logs, and then select the Directory Services log. In the Directory Services log, look for a recent entry for Event ID 1109. If you find this entry, double-click it to ensure that the InvocationID attribute has changed. This means that the Active Directory database has been updated. 8.
3. If you have recovered the database to a non-original SQL server of the original SharePoint farm, attach the recovered database to the farm. To do this, run the following command on a front-end Web server: In SharePoint 2010 or later: Mount-SPContentDatabase -DatabaseServer -WebApplication In SharePoint 2007: stsadm.
stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url -databasename -databaseserver 11.5.2 Recovering configuration and service databases Configuration and service databases must be synchronized with other databases. Hence, it is recommended to recover configuration and service databases either along with content databases or to the latest point in time (if content databases do not need recovery). The configuration database contains hostnames of the farm's servers.
c. To change the server on which you want to stop the service, in the Server list, click Change Server, and then click the required server name. d. By default, only configurable services are displayed. To view all services, in the View list, click All. e. To stop a service, click Stop in the Action column of the relevant service. f. Click OK to stop the service. 2. Recover the database files as described in "Recovering SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 204). 3.
To recover SharePoint items from an unattached database 1. Attach the content database to an SQL Server instance as described in steps 1-5 of "Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 204). 2. Recover the data as described in http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh269602. 3. Detach the database and unmount the previously mounted volume as described in steps 7-8 of "Accessing SQL Server databases from a disk backup" (p. 204).
12 Administering a managed machine This section describes the views that are available through the navigation tree of the console connected to a managed machine and explains how to work with each view. This section also covers supplementary operations that can be performed on a managed machine, such as changing a license, adjusting Machine options, and collecting system information. 12.1 Backup plans and tasks The Backup plans and tasks view keeps you informed of data protection on a given machine.
To Do View details of a plan/task Click Details. In the respective Plan Details (p. 226) or Task Details (p. 227) window, review the plan or task details. View plan's/task's log Click Log. You will be taken to the Log (p. 227) view containing the list of the log entries grouped by the plan/task-related activities. Run a plan/task Backup plan 1. Click Run. 2. In the drop-down list, select the plan's task you need run.
To Do Edit a plan/task Click Edit. Backup plan editing is performed in the same way as creation (p. 35), except for the following limitations: It is not always possible to use all scheme options, when editing a backup plan if the created archive is not empty (i.e. contains backups). 1. It is not possible to change the scheme to Grandfather-Father-Son or Tower of Hanoi. 2. If the Tower of Hanoi scheme is used, it is not possible to change the number of levels.
2 Running At least one task is running. No action is required. Otherwise, see 3. 3 Waiting At least one task is waiting. Otherwise, see 4. Waiting for condition. This situation is quite normal, but delaying a backup for too long is risky. The solution may be to set the maximum delay (p. 98) after which the task will start anyway or force the condition (tell the user to log off, enable the required network connection.) Waiting while another task locks the necessary resources.
A task changes to the Running state when the event specified by the schedule occurs AND all the conditions set in the backup plan are met AND no other task that locks the necessary resources is running. In this case, nothing prevents the task from running. Waiting A task changes to the Waiting state when the task is about to start, but another task using the same resources is already running. In particular, more than one backup tasks cannot run simultaneously on a machine.
Deploying of a backup plan to multiple machines You want to use the same backup plan on multiple machines. Export this plan from one of the machines and deploy it as a file (p. 224) to the other machines. Adjusting credentials Before exporting a backup plan that will further be imported to a different machine, check the user account under which the plan runs (Edit > Plan parameters > Show task credentials, comments, label > Plan's credentials).
To change the encrypted password 1. In the command line, run the acronis_encrypt utility: acronis_encrypt UserPassword#1 (here UserPassword#1 is the password you want to encrypt). 2. The utility outputs a string, for example "XXXYYYZZZ888". 3. Copy this string and paste it into the tag as follows: XXXYYYZZZ888 The acronis_encrypt utility is available on any machine where Acronis Backup Management Console or Acronis Backup command-line utility (acrocmd) is installed.
1. Add the tag with "disks" or "files" value, depending on the type of the template you need. 2. Add the tag. 3. Inside the tag, add the with the required template. The template must correspond to the directly specified item. For example, if the specified item has the "disks" value, you can use the [SYSTEM], [BOOT] and [Fixed Volumes] templates; but you cannot use the [All Files] or [All Profiles Folder] templates.
folder, the agent imports the backup plan from that file. If you change (or delete) an .xml file in the dedicated folder, the agent automatically changes (or deletes) the appropriate backup plan. Editing the export file A backup plan imported in such way cannot be edited through the graphical user interface. You can edit the export file (p. 222) with a text editor either before or after the deployment.
12.1.5 Backup plan details The Backup plan details window (also duplicated on the Information panel) aggregates all information on the selected backup plan. The respective message will appear at the top of the tabs, if execution of the plan requires user interaction. The message contains a brief description of the problem and action buttons that let you select the appropriate action or stop the plan.
Name - name of the archive. Location - name of the vault or path to the folder, where the archive is stored. Archive comments - comments on the archive (if provided). 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th location - names of the locations to which the archive was copied or moved (if specified in the backup plan). Settings The Settings tab displays the following information: Backup scheme - the selected backup scheme and all its settings with schedules.
Select multiple log entries non-contiguous: hold down CTRL and click the log entries one by one contiguous: select a single log entry, then hold down SHIFT and click another log entry. All the log entries between the first and last selections will be selected too. View a log entry’s details 1. Select a log entry. 2. Do one of the following: Double click the selection. Click Details. The log entry's details will be displayed. See Log entry details for details of the log entry's operations.
Code - It can be blank or the program error code if the event type is error. Error code is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem. Module - It can be blank or the number of the program module where the event has occurred. It is an integer number that may be used by Acronis support service to solve the problem. Owner - The user name of the backup plan owner (p. 22). Message - The event text description.
12.4 Changing a license By changing the license, you switch a product from trial mode to full mode or switch to a different product. The following table summarizes the available options. Switching a license Why you may need it Trial > Full After trying the product, you decided to buy a license. Full > Full, different product You want to upgrade from Acronis Backup to Acronis Backup Advanced in order to use the centralized management capability.
12.6 Adjusting machine options The machine options define the general behavior of all Acronis Backup agents operating on the managed machine, and so the options are considered machine-specific. To access the machine options, connect the console to the managed machine and then select Options > Machine options from the top menu. 12.6.1 Additional settings Specify what to do if the machine is about to be shut down while a task is running This option is effective only for Windows operating systems.
When enabled, you can specify the keeping period for the accepted alerts. The accepted alerts older than this period will be deleted from the table automatically. Automatically move inactive alerts to "Accepted alerts" This option defines whether to accept all the alerts that become inactive and move them to the Accepted alerts table automatically. The preset is: Disabled. When enabled, you can specify the alert types to apply this option to. 12.6.3.
b. Use encryption – you can opt for encrypted connection to the mail server. SSL and TLS encryption types are available for selection. c. Some Internet service providers require authentication on the incoming mail server before being allowed to send something. If this is your case, select the Log on to incoming mail server check box to enable a POP server and to set up its settings: Incoming mail server (POP) – enter the name of the POP server. Port – set the port of the POP server.
This option is not available when operating under the bootable media. The option defines whether the agent(s) operating on the managed machine have to send the log events to the specified Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) managers. You can choose the types of events to be sent. You can override the settings set here, exclusively for the events that occur during backup or during recovery, in the Default backup and recovery options.
Linux To receive SNMP messages on a machine running Linux, the net-snmp (for RHEL and SUSE) or the snmpd (for Debian) package has to be installed. SNMP can be configured using the snmpconf command. The default configuration files are located in the /etc/snmp directory: /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP SNMP agent /etc/snmp/snmptrapd.conf - configuration file for the Net-SNMP trap daemon. 12.6.5.3 Windows event log This option is effective only in Windows operating systems.
When the option is enabled, the program compares the actual log size with the maximum size after every 100 log entries. Once the maximum log size is exceeded, the program deletes the oldest log entries. You can select the amount of log entries to retain. The default 95% setting will keep most of the log. With the minimum 1% setting, the log will be nearly cleared. This parameter can also be set by using Acronis Administrative Template. 12.6.
13 Cloud backup This section provides details about using the Acronis Cloud Backup service. This service enables you to back up your data to Acronis Cloud Storage. Acronis Cloud Backup might be unavailable in your region. To find more information, click here: http://www.acronis.com/my/cloud-backup/corporate To configure backup to the cloud storage or recovery from the storage, follow the regular steps described in the corresponding sections: Creating a backup plan (p.
Example You might want to use the following backup strategy for a file server. Back up the critical files twice a day on a schedule. Set the retention rule "Delete backups older than" 7 days. This means that after every backup the software will check for backups older than 7 days and delete them automatically. Run backup of the server's system volume manually as required. For example, after the operating system updates. Manually delete the backups that you do not need. 13.1.
Windows Vista – all editions except for Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium (x86, x64) Windows 7 – all editions except for the Starter and Home editions (x86, x64) Windows 8/8.1 – all editions except for the Windows RT editions (x86, x64) Virtualization products (host-based backup of virtual machines) VMware ESX(i) 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5 (Host-based backup is available only for paid licenses of VMware ESXi.
13.1.6.4 What if a network connection is lost during cloud backup or recovery? The software will try to reach the cloud storage every 30 seconds. The attempts will be stopped as soon as the connection is resumed OR a certain number of attempts are performed, depending on which comes first. The default number of attempts is 300 when backing up and 30 when recovering. You can change the number of attempts and the interval between the attempts in the Error handling > Re-attempt, if an error occurs option.
Acronis uploads the backup to the cloud storage. After that, you can add incremental backups to this full backup, either manually or on a schedule. The hard disk drive is sent back to you but it is not possible to recover from it. However, recovery from a locally attached device is possible with the Large scale recovery (p. 246) option. 13.1.7.2 Why would I want to use Initial Seeding? This service helps you save time and network traffic during the initial full backup.
13.1.7.8 How do I perform initial seeding? Preparing 1. Ensure that you have activated an Acronis Cloud Backup subscription on the machine where you will do initial seeding (skip this step if you have a volume subscription). 2. If you are currently using a trial subscription, ensure that you also have a paid subscription available and assigned to this machine. Do not use the Initial Seeding service if you do not have a paid subscription. 3. Decide on the media (p. 241) that you will send. 4.
Hard drive types Acronis accepts hard disk drives of the following interface types: IDE, ATA, SATA, USB connected drives. SCSI drives are not accepted. Packaging If possible, use the original packaging. Otherwise, packaging materials can be obtained at any shipping outlet or stationary store. You should also include all necessary cables or adapters to the drive. Acronis will not be able to process your initial seeding request if there are no cables included.
Step 4 Using the website of the shipping company that you chose, prepare and print two prepaid shipping labels: 1. Shipping label for sending your hard drive. This label is placed on the top of the box. You should send your package to one of the Acronis data centers. The data center address can be obtained on the Initial seeding / Recovery tab of your account management page by clicking Datacenter address.
Step 5 Securely seal the box with a sturdy tape. Then, stick the shipping label for sending your hard drive to the top of the box, so the label does not wrap around the edge of the package. 13.1.7.10 How do I track an Initial Seeding order status? On the Acronis website, the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab shows you the status of all your orders. In addition, you will receive e-mail notifications about the most important events. Available – The license is available for using on any machine.
specified). If a prepaid shipping label was not provided with the media, the media will be discarded. [Occasional] The order is on hold – Your order was placed on hold due to technical difficulties processing the order. Acronis is working on resolving these issues. [Occasional] The order has been cancelled – The order had been cancelled before the media was shipped, so returning the media is not required. [Occasional] The order has been cancelled.
13.1.8.7 How to buy a Large Scale Recovery license? You can buy a Large Scale Recovery license from an Acronis partner or from the Acronis online store. Having purchased a license from an Acronis partner, you receive a confirmation e-mail with a registration code. Log in to your Acronis account and enter the registration code in the product registration section. The registered license appears on the Initial Seeding / Recovery tab on your account management webpage.
13.1.9.1 How do I access my account management webpage? Go to http://www.acronis.com/my/cloud-backup/corporate and log in to your account (create one if you are not registered). To access this webpage from Acronis Backup: 1. On the Actions menu, click Back up now or Create backup plan. 2. Click Location, and then click Buy or manage your subscriptions. 3. Log in to your account (create one if you are not registered). 13.1.9.
Volume subscriptions To renew a volume subscription, go to the account management webpage, click Renew next to the volume subscription, and then follow the on-screen instructions. The new expiration date will appear in the Expires column. If the new subscription has the same storage quota as the old one, the subscription periods will be added together. If the new subscription has a larger storage quota, the resulting subscription period will be recalculated.
13.1.9.8 Can I cancel my subscription? Just wait until the subscription expires. Refunds are not available for the cloud backup subscriptions. 13.2 Where do I start? Go to http://www.acronis.com/my/cloud-backup/corporate and log in to your account (create one if you are not registered). This is your account management webpage. Here you can get a trial subscription, locate an Acronis partner or buy subscriptions online.
Install Acronis Backup on the machine you want to back up, start the product, click Back up now or Create backup plan, click Location, and then click Get trial subscription. Log in to your account (create one if you are not registered yet). A trial subscription will be automatically created and assigned to the machine. 13.4 Activating cloud backup subscriptions Activating a subscription on a machine means allowing the machine to back up to the cloud storage.
Example The diagram below shows what happens if you reassign a subscription to a different machine. Let's assume Machine 1 has four backups in Subscription 1. Machine 2 has two backups in Subscription 2. At that point, you reassign Subscription 1 to Machine 2. Machine 2 does its third backup to Subscription 1. Depending on your settings, this backup will be either full or incremental. But its size is not likely to be less than a full backup size.
2. On the Options menu, click Machine options. 3. Click Cloud backup proxy. 4. Enter the proxy server settings. For detailed information (p. 236) about the settings please refer to the context-sensitive help. 13.6 Retrieving files from the cloud storage by using a web browser By using a web browser, you can browse Acronis Cloud Storage, view contents of file-level archives, and download the selected files and folders.
13.7 Limitations of the cloud storage Unlike other types of storage available in Acronis Backup, the cloud storage has the following limitations. Operations The following operations are not possible.
Assign a subscription to a machine Reserve a subscription for a particular machine in order to renew its current subscription. Assigned subscription A subscription that has been assigned to a machine. Available subscription A subscription that is not assigned to any machine. Extra service A service that you can use in addition to cloud backup subscriptions. Increase storage quota Replace a subscription with another one that has a greater storage quota.
Renew a subscription Assign a subscription of the same type and with the same or a larger storage quota as the current, activated subscription. This subscription will become activated as soon as the current subscription expires. Storage quota The amount of storage space that can be occupied according to the subscription. Subscription Permission for a machine or for multiple machines to use a specific amount of space in the cloud storage, for a specific period of time.
14 Glossary A Acronis Active Restore The Acronis proprietary technology that brings a system online immediately after the system recovery is started. The system boots from the backup (p. 262) and the machine becomes operational and ready to provide necessary services. The data required to serve incoming requests is recovered with the highest priority; everything else is recovered in the background.
Activity An action performed by Acronis Backup for achievement of some user goal. Examples: backing up, recovery, exporting a backup, cataloging a vault. An activity may be initiated by a user or by the software itself. Execution of a task (p. 268) always causes one or more activities. Agent (Acronis Backup Agent) An application that performs data backup and recovery and enables other management operations on the machine (p. 266), such as task management and operations with hard disks.
the backup archive (p. 258) name and location [optionally] additional operations to perform with the backups (replication (p. 268), validation (p. 269), conversion to a virtual machine) the backup options (p. 258). the backup scheme (p. 259). This includes the backup schedule and [optionally] the retention rules (p.
access and back up the data that has survived in a corrupted system deploy an operating system on bare metal create basic or dynamic volumes (p. 264) on bare metal back up sector-by-sector a disk that has an unsupported file system back up offline any data that cannot be backed up online because of restricted access, being permanently locked by the running applications or for any other reason. Built-in group A group of machines permanently located on a management server (p. 266).
Centralized vault A networked location allotted by the management server (p. 266) administrator to serve as storage for the backup archives (p. 258). A centralized vault can be managed by a storage node (p. 268) or be unmanaged. The total number and size of archives stored in a centralized vault are limited by the storage size only. As soon as the management server administrator creates a centralized vault, the vault name and path to the vault are distributed to all machines registered (p.
The centralized catalog available on the management server (p. 266) contains all data stored on its storage nodes (p. 268). Physically, data catalog is stored in catalog files. Every vault uses its own set of catalog files which normally are located directly in the vault. If this is not possible, such as for tape storages, the catalog files are stored in the managed machine's or storage node's local folder.
Disk backup (Image) A backup (p. 258) that contains a sector-based copy of a disk or a volume in a packaged form. Normally, only sectors that contain data are copied. Acronis Backup provides an option to take a raw image, that is, copy all the disk sectors, which enables imaging of unsupported file systems. Disk group A number of dynamic disks (p. 263) that store the common configuration data in their LDM databases and therefore can be managed as a whole.
LDM Metadata partition 1 MB Dynamic disks organized on MBR (Disk 1) and GPT (Disk 2) disks. For more information about dynamic disks please refer to the following Microsoft knowledge base articles: Disk Management (Windows XP Professional Resource Kit) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457110.aspx 816307 Best practices for using dynamic disks on Windows Server 2003-based computers http://support.microsoft.com/kb/816307 Dynamic group A group of machines (p.
In case the storage medium is stolen or accessed by an unauthorized person, the malefactor will not be able to decrypt the vault contents without access to the storage node. Encrypted archives (p. 264) will be encrypted over the encryption performed by the agent (p. 258). Export An operation that creates a copy of an archive (p. 258) or a self-sufficient part copy of an archive in the location you specify. The export operation can be applied to a single archive, a single backup (p.
Indexing can be thought of as "deduplication at target", as opposed to "deduplication at source" which is performed by the agent (p. 258) during the backup operation (p. 258). A user can suspend and resume indexing. L Local backup plan A backup plan (p. 258) created on a managed machine (p. 266) using direct management (p. 262). Local task A task (p. 268) created on a managed machine (p. 266) using direct management (p. 262). Logical volume This term has two meanings, depending on the context.
Management server (Acronis Backup Management Server) A central server that drives data protection within the enterprise network. Acronis Backup Management Server provides the administrator with: a single entry point to the Acronis Backup infrastructure enterprise-wide monitoring and reporting functionality an easy way to protect data on numerous machines (p. 266) using centralized backup plans (p. 260) and grouping the ability to create centralized vaults (p.
Replenishable pool A tape pool that is allowed to take tapes from the Free tapes pool when required. Replication Copying a backup (p. 258) to another location. By default, the backup is copied immediately after creation. A user has the option to postpone copying the backup by setting up replication inactivity time. This feature replaces and enhances the dual destination backup feature, which was available in Acronis Backup & Recovery 10. Retention rules A part of backup plan (p.
Tower of Hanoi A popular backup scheme (p. 259) aimed to maintain the optimal balance between a backup archive (p. 258) size and the number of recovery points (p. 267) available from the archive. Unlike the GFS (p. 265) scheme that has only three levels of recovery resolution (daily, weekly, monthly resolution), the Tower of Hanoi scheme continuously reduces the time interval between recovery points as the backup age increases. This allows for very efficient usage of the backup storage.
