New in Veeam Backup & Replication v10: Linux Repositories with XFS support

One of enhancements in Veeam Backup & Replication v10, is possibility to use XFS file system and FastClone, which is similar that Veeam has utilized with ReFS for years already.

But how to set-up it? First of all, you need to have Linux server that meet's requirements.

Basically what you need is:

• Ubuntu 18.0.4 or later. For other distributions, Fast Clone support is experimental.
• XFS file system
• Cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is enabled
• The minimum supported data block size is 1 KB. The maximum supported block size is 4KB

And you can format your disk like this:

mkfs.xfs -b size=4096 -m reflink=1,crc=1 /dev/sdb1

This is how it looks:

Now we can add our repository to Veeam Backup & Replication, in console, go to Backup Infrastructure -> Backup Repositories -> Right click -> Add backup repository.

(Wan't to do it with PowerShell? Scroll to end of page)

Select "Direct attached storage"

Select Linux

Give name and description for your repository

If you have already added your Linux machine as managed server to Veeam, you can just select it from drop down menu, if not, click "Add new"

Enter FQDN or IP-address of Linux machine. Notice, that you need to have SSH and Perl installed.

Select credentials to use, typically it is best to use dedicated service account. If you have not previously entered account info, you can do it with "Add..."

Validate SSH key fingerprint

And in a short moment you see that server has been added

Now back in "New Backup Repository" wizard, your newly added server will be automatically selected.

Click browse, to select path that is used for this repository

Select folder..

Select "Use fast cloning on XFS volumes" checkbox

Select mount server. Notice, that you cannot use Linux repository as a mount server, it has to be a Windows machine. I'm using my Backup & Replication machine in this example.

You can review your settings

And when you click Apply, your new repo will be added

Finally you will see a summary page that confirms that new repository has been successfully created

We can, of course, do the same thing by using PowerShell, with just couple of lines.

First we get our credentials and then add Linux machine to Backup & Replication. If you already have Linux machine added, you can skip this step. As you can see, I was a bit lazy, and used screenshot from previous post, since process of adding Linux machine does not differ, if it's used as a Proxy or a Repository

Then we configure it as a repository. As you can see, we first read information about mount server and Linux server to variable, and then use them as parameters when we add repository.

You also need to set folder, type and use "-EnableXFSFastClone" to enable Fast Cloning in XFS volumes.

Actual code:

$credential = Get-VBRCredentials -Name <YOURCREDENTIALNAME>
Add-VBRLinux -Name <FQDN OF LINUX MACHINE> -Credentials $credential
$mountserver = Get-VBRServer -Name <YOURMOUNTSERVER>
$reposerver = Get-VBRServer -Name <YOURREPOSERVER>
Add-VBRBackupRepository -Name <YOURREPONAME> -Description <YOURDESCRIPTION> -Server $reposerver -MountServer $mountserver -Folder <YOURFOLDER> -Type LinuxLocal -EnableXFSFastClone