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BRU Server FAQ's
You can find additional BRU Server information located in our Knowledge Base.
What is BRU Server for Linux/Mac OS X? BRU Server for Linux/Mac OS X are native Linux/Mac OS X network backup solutions that support client/server-based heterogeneous systems being served by a Linux/Mac OS X server system. Client system software is available to support a variety of system platforms (detail). BRU Server for Linux/Mac OS X are available in three versions (Basic - Network - Enterprise) to provide high value data protection across all networked system configurations. BRU Server is easily and cost-effectively expandable as one's organization grows. The number of supported client systems, out of the box, differentiates the versions. Scalability is seamless and virtually limitless, bounded only by the network architecture. Is BRU Server supported on Intel Macs? Yes! BRU Server, BRU LE, and TOLIS Tape Tools all work with Intel based Mac. Is BRU just a "glorified" tar? Absolutely not. In fact, the development of BRU technology's logical data format was germinated by tar's inherent inability to reliably support the backup/restore operation. While BRU is not, many mainstream commercial backup tools are based on the tar, cpio, and MTF formats - formats that are basically flawed in their ability to reliably support data restore. BRU Server does use a tar-like syntax when used from the command line, as do most other true Unix tools. Read the White Paper on how BRU is clearly differentiated from tar. Proof of tar's backup Achilles heel; the same concept applied to cpio and MTF. Must BRU Server be installed on the network server system? The server component of BRU Server can reside on the network primary server, or on another system attached to the network to serve as a discrete backup system server. BRU Server incurs very little overhead, yet when the network server is task intensive it is advisable to attach an inexpensive Linux box (Linux requirements), or a Mac OS X box (Mac OS X requirements) to the network to serve as the BRU Server backup system server. Creating a discrete backup system increases the availability of the primary server and the primary network server is simply treated as a client system, and its data is fully protected. What Linux distributions does BRU Server support? There are many Linux distributions available, and all of the popular versions are supported. Users implementing specialized Linux versions are invited to download the fully functional BRU Server demo to proof its support. The only stipulation is that the system run a SCSI-stable kernel. Just because you received a kernel with your distribution doesn't mean that it's been tested against all possible hardware configurations. We have tested over 30 different 2.4 kernels from the vendors and from Kernel.org and have found that 2.4 kernels before 2.4.24 do not properly handle tape and library communications. If you must retain an older 2.4 kernel on your system for support issues, you will need to install 2.4.25 or 2.4.26 as a secondary kernel for use with BRU Server (or any other tape backup software for that matter) if you want consistently successful backup operations. If using a 2.6 series kernel, 2.6.24 or later is required. Does BRU Server provide 64-bit support? Yes. BRU technology has a long track record of 64-bit support that dates back to 1992. In 1996, BRU began its support of 64-bit filesystems under Linux in preparation for the 64-bit support being added to the ext2 filesystem. This level of support continues with BRU Server today. What is the BRU Server client system license policy? The client system software is attached to a "seat" or "node", and not to the particular operating system type. No additional licenses must be purchased should client systems be replaced with systems based on a different platform. Simply install the appropriate platform agent and continue operation. The system running BRU Server is considered a client system. Incremental licenses needed in addition to those included with each BRU Server version are available in cost-effective packs of 5, 10, 25 and 100. Incremental single licenses are also available. Please contact for more information and prices. What client system platforms are supported by BRU Server? The list of supported client system platforms is continually being expanded. Contact TOLIS for availability of a particular client system platform that is not listed under "Supported Platforms" by emailing . What is the maximum number of recommended clients per BRU Server copy? The number of supported client systems is a function of the available network bandwidth. While each system topology has its own nuances, the following guidelines should be helpful when configuring the BRU Server backup system: 10baseT = 25 clients, 100baseT = 250 clients, 1000baseT (Gigabit Ethernet) = 1000 clients. Do I have to be a Unix guru to administer BRU Server? The operation of BRU Server for Linux and Mac OS X have been designed to be intuitive, so Unix expertise is not a requirement at all. What is meant by BRU Server's "intuitive" interfaces? BRU Server provides graphical and character-based interfaces that lead the user through a logical flow to protect data. Both interfaces provide access to BRU Server's robust functionality (screenshots). BRU Server is also fully scriptable from the command line. How flexible is BRU Server backup scheduling? Scheduling is fully definable to support the exacting need of the organization. For example, full, incremental, or differential backups can be scheduled hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or during specific days of the week - whichever way makes the most sense. Can BRU Server be administered remotely? BRU Server's character-based management console and operation from the command line provide local and remote control including the ability to manage "headless" backup and restore operations via telnet and ssh sessions. The BRU Server Console can be installed on any number of systems. Does BRU Server verify backups without access to the original data? Yes. Unlike other backup tools, BRU technology calculates checksums on both the metadata and actual data and each checksum is included with the backed-up data on the media. By using BRU's unique Anytime Verify™ feature, backups can be 100% proofed in an out-of-band process that does not require continued access to the original data. The end result is the network server can resume its normal operation immediately following the backup. BRU Server supports bit-level comparison as well. What is the likelihood my existing hardware will be supported? The likelihood is exceptionally high. BRU Server complies with computing standards, is transport layer agnostic, and provides native support of tape drives and tape libraries without the need for special drivers. As long as the component pieces of a system and its attendant network work together, BRU Server will perform reliably. Disk Staging (D2D) allows an administrator to direct backups to a defined volume, or volumes, of hard drives attached to the server to accelerate the speed of backups. The Disk Stage can be used as the sole backup target device, or as a cache that ultimately writes to tape (D2D2T) devices (detail). BRU Server can also be configured to back up directly to tape (D2T). What are the limitations to implementing Disk Staging? The Disk Stage can be a RAID configuration or a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks) of any size. The only limitation is the practical number of parallel client system data streams being directed to the Disk Stage on the server, dictated by the available network bandwidth. Is Disk Staging a replacement for tape backup? It depends upon the value you ascribe to your data. For high value data, it is not. Trauma to the server could destroy primary storage and the Disk Stage, resulting in the irretrievable loss of data. Disk Staging provides dynamic redundancy, and unless configured to be the same size as primary storage, older data can be overwritten. Implementing tape as part of a backup strategy, and keeping tape copies off-site, provides heightened peace of mind that your data is safely protected. Does BRU Server write to multiple tape devices? Yes, BRU Server can write to multiple drives within a tape library simultaneously, and can also write to multiple tape libraries attached to the BRU Server system. Why doesn't BRU Server use the full tape capacity when writing to a tape previously used with Retrospect®? To use Retrospect® tapes with BRU Server, use Retrospect's "erase" function to return the tape to their original, unformatted state. Then, BRU Server can utilize the full capacity of the tape cartridge. What is "Intelligent Cataloguing"? It is BRU server's logical approach to restore selected files for recovery that uses minimal server system resources to provide maximized accessibility. Does BRU server interleave client data? No, it does not. The interleaving of client data intersperses bits of client system data with other client system data. This mandates a layer of complexity at the software level to manage the bits, and the recovery of data for a particular client system is slow. Also, when interleaved data is archived on tape and a tape is lost, the data of multiple client systems will be lost. Exceptionally high. BRU Server uses the NIST Advanced Encryption Standard (AES 256-bit symmetric cipher) algorithm for network transmission data encryption and the Secure Remote Password Protocol (RFC2945) to manage access to the data. What is the value of placing catalogs on both the server hard drive and tapes? In short - huge if the catalogs on the backup server hard disk are either lost or altered. The catalogs are the roadmap to your data. When lost, they must be manually re-created - a painful and time-consuming effort. If the catalog is lost when using BRU, simply use BRU Server's Scan feature and the catalogs will be automatically re-created on the server's hard disk from the catalogs contained on the tapes. The process takes minutes versus the hours/days of manual re-creation that can suffer from human error. Like most Unix-based operating systems, Linux and Mac OS X use shared files. These files are always active and are critical to system operation. A system crash can be a very real occurrence when trying to restore (overwrite) an active shared file. Before BRU attempts to restore a shared file it will move the existing file with its text busy flag (whether set, or not) and its memory pointers to a temporary location so the system can continue to operate. BRU then places the file being restored in the original location. The moved file is then removed from its temporary location when the system is rebooted. How do I backup live databases with BRU Server? On Unix systems (Linux, Mac OS X), pre and post-scripts may be run to freeze the state of a database running on that client system, or export its state to an intermediate file. For Windows platforms, use TOLIS Group's Open File Manager (OFM) module to perform line database backup of applications such as Exchange, Outlook , Filemaker, etc. Only one (1) OFM license is needed when multiple database applications are running on one Windows Server. What is BRU Server's disaster recovery capability? Speed is the primary requirement when recovering a system following a disastrous failure. The combination of reloading a system's baseline OS and then fully restoring the system from a BRU archive takes less time than that needed by the disaster recovery CDs created by other tools to merely boot the system. This holds true when recovering Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-core systems. Additionally, the comprehensiveness of BRU backups assures the system is completely and accurately restored to its pre-failure state. bruCLONE™ is available to perform disaster recovery on Mac OS X desktop systems. My Library or drive is not seen by BRU Server During the Hardware Scan, what gives? If you are running a Red Hat based distribution, the provided kernel does not scan SCSI LUN's during boot. Please note that this is NOT a BRU Server problem, but rather an issue in the fact that Red Hat doesn't seem to have much concern for their customers using Tape devices. To resolve this, you must enable LUN support. This can be achieved by either of two mechanisms:
If a newer kernel and the /proc file system is running, a non-busy device can be removed and installed 'on the fly'.
Where: For example, to add a tape drive at LUN 1 on ID 6 on your first SCSI bus, you could use:
If you now re-run BRU Server's hardware scan, the missing device will be found. For more information, please refer to the Linux SCSI Programming How-To. Can I UpStage a SINGLE Staged archive? There is no way in the 1.x product to upstage a single archive directly in the GUI, but you can use the following process from the command line console and a terminal: In the UI:
This will result in only that single staged archive being upstaged. My backup job seems stuck and the GUI Monitor window isn't showing any output. Use the command line tool and see if there's an output string that the GUI is somehow missing. The GUI's job is to take the standard output that you would see in the command line tool and format it (make it pretty) for user consumption. Every once in a while (or goodness forbid a bug crops up :) ), we could miss a string, or the server could spit out a string that the GUI wasn't expecting. By running in the command line, things are as pretty, but you see EVERYTHING. To get into a command line for this type of troubleshooting, we recommend the bru-server.cmd tool from Terminal (vs. using an Xterm under X11 on the Mac). You use it like this:
You won't get a prompt for your password, just a blank line. Enter your BRU Server admin password and hit [ENTER]. The prompt is:
From there, you can control the processes. To see what a job's doing, use a combination of 'what' and 'attach': input: You then attach to the job (in this case 318):
You'll see all of the wonderful I/O output that the GUI masks. But more importantly in the event of an apparent hang, any diagnostic messages will be visible that the GUI might have missed. Also, it's always good to check the server and agent logs on the appropriate systems (/var/log/bru_agent.log and /var/log/bru_server.log) for any important error or warning messages. This is information that the support team will request when you call in, so please be prepared to share it. I need to reset the admin user password on my BRU Server server. To reset the admin user's password, you must have administrative access to the server system. Follow these steps to change the password: Open a Terminal window and type:
You will be prompted for a new BRU Server admin password. We do not recommend that you make this the same as your system's admin user password. Do not worry if you get it mixed up - you can simply re-run the command and change it again. Once you've changed the password, you will need to stop and restart the server daemon as follows:
(wait 2 minutes)
Note that there is no '--' argument for the second command. Your new password will be in effect and you will be able to login to the system via the GUI or the command line tools. I wish to create a single bruxpat file for ALL of my clients that are similar. How can I do this? By default, BRU Server requires a bruxpat exclude pattern file for each client system. The can create an issue if you have a number of like platforms that could easily share a common bruxpat file. There is a relatively easy way to accomplish providing a common bruxpat file for a given platform through the use of an available web server, the client-side "pre" command, and the "wget" command that is available on most systems. Create a safe path to store your bruxpat files on the web server:
Create a subdirectory for each platform's xpat file:
Add the bruxpat file for each platform into the appropriate directory. Your resulting hierarchy should look something like this: $ /bruserver-xpats/macosx/bruxpat-desktop In the pre script for each of the client systems, add lines similar to the following: $ cd /tmp wget http://server-address/bruserver-xpats/linux/bruxpatWhen the actual backup of this client system is executed, the recently copied bruxpat file will be referenced to determine the files or paths that should be excluded. This method allows you to create a single bruxpat file that is maintained on the server that the client system will automatically update each time a backup job is run. You can be More specific with this and generate different bruxpat files and then check which one to retrieve with the wget command as part of the script. For example, you could have a separate set of exclusions for the full backup and then a different set of exclusions for the incremental or differential backups, or even base the retrieved file by the day of the week. Does BRU Server support the ZFS filesystem? Yes, BRU Server provides seamless support of the ZFS filesystem. |
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