UrBackup Plugin- Client Image Restore Report

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    In an effort to migrate away from WHS (Windows Home Server, Ver 1, and the 2nd Ver "2011" - support for which was dropped):


    I went looking for a replacement OS/NAS package with similar capabilities and ease of operation. That search led me to OMV. Where services were concerned, OMV proved to be superior to WHS in every way with the exception of a client backup with a "bare metal" restoration utility, that is easy to use.
    ("Bare Metal restore" meaning the ability to restore the preexisting OS, to a working client platform with a functional hard drive.)


    That changed with the inclusion of UrBackup in OMV 3. UrBackup is available as a plugin. It's an open source, locally archived, cross platform backup solution.


    However, in many cases, users (myself included) are backing up their network clients without verifying that a full "bare metal" restore is possible.


    The purpose of this test was to verify that bare metal UrBackup Client restorations are easy to perform and without ugly surprises.
    ______________________________________________


    The test was performed using;


    OMV 3.0.80
    Core i3 - 12GB RAM - USB boot drive
    Urbackup Server 2.1.19
    Urbackup Restoration CD 2.0.2
    (While the server has a 1GB NIC, the speed of the test was limited by the client, with a 100MB NIC.)


    Windows Vista - SP2
    AMD Athelon - Dual Core 4450E
    3GB RAM
    250GB HD


    The drive image was approximately 54GB and was restored to a single partition. Drive partitioning was not required.
    _____________________________________________


    The restore CD boot process took roughly 3 minutes which included a network - UrBackup server discovery process, logging onto the UrBackup server (user name "admin" and password), and selecting the appropriate image for restoration. With the "OK's" and dialog box choices, about 5 operations were required to select an image and start the restoration. It was very straight forward.


    The entire restore operation took a bit less than 32 minutes. Considering the 100MBS NIC choke point, performance is good.
    Based on the clients 100MBS NIC and the image size of 54GB, the restoration of a 500GB image over a 1GB NIC shouldn't take longer than 3 or 4 hours.


    The restoration CD software simply stated that it was "complete" and prompted for a reboot. That was it. There were no issues.
    _____________________________________________


    Even with Windows Home Server taken into account; this was, by far, the simplest "Bare Metal" client restoration I've ever performed. The restoration CD seemed to have everything required to get the job done, to include network adapter drivers to activate the client's NIC.


    If I was to be critical of anything noted during this restoration, it would be that the "status" (as in percent complete bar) displayed by the server lags behind the true status. Also, during the restoration, the Client CD software jumped from an indicated 8 or 9% complete, to completely finished.


    This same observation seems to be true during standard backups as well, but not to such a drastic degree. As it appears, the servers Web GUI doesn't update the status frequently.


    In the bottom line:
    With OMV's standard features and the Urbackup plugin, WHS is no longer needed (or wanted).

  • Thank you for your report! Very interesting.



    How did you create the image of the Windows system? Is urbackup capable to create it in the background while the system is normaly running? Or is it necessary to use a boot cd also on the PC side?

    OMV 3.0.100 (Gray style)

    ASRock Rack C2550D4I C0-stepping - 16GB ECC - 6x WD RED 3TB (ZFS 2x3 Striped RaidZ1) - Fractal Design Node 304 -

    3x WD80EMAZ Snapraid / MergerFS-pool via eSATA - 4-Bay ICYCube MB561U3S-4S with fan-mod

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    How did you create the image of the Windows system? Is urbackup capable to create it in the background while the system is normaly running? Or is it necessary to use a boot cd also on the PC side?

    Part of the UrBackup system is installing a client module on network clients. Client modules for Windows, the Mac and Linux can be found here.
    After that, and making specific backup selections or exclusions (defaults work fine), the Urbackup server backs up clients when they're on-line, in the background. It does both file backups and drive images by default.


    The boot CD is only for disaster recovery. It's used when the client hard drive is either blank or unbootable.
    ____________________________________________________________________________________


    If you decide to use UrBackup, the OMV server installation will attempt to put the UrBackup storage folder on your boot drive. It will be necessary to relocate the backup directory to your data drive, in a manner similar to what is shown below.
    (In my case, I dedicated a drive to testing client backups. )



    **After the UrBackup plugin is installed.**
    To redirect backups to another location, it's necessary to create the directories (below) before making the change shown (above).


    The first directory I created on the dedicated drive was BACKUP with the following attributes:


    Then a sub-directory under the above, urbackup, was created with the following permissions:



    Other than this bit of manual configuration, to get client backups off of the boot drive, setting up the UrBackup plugin is straight forward.

  • Thank you @flmaxey for your detailed explanation. I have the Urbackup plugin already installed in my OMV system, but not yet configured finally.

    OMV 3.0.100 (Gray style)

    ASRock Rack C2550D4I C0-stepping - 16GB ECC - 6x WD RED 3TB (ZFS 2x3 Striped RaidZ1) - Fractal Design Node 304 -

    3x WD80EMAZ Snapraid / MergerFS-pool via eSATA - 4-Bay ICYCube MB561U3S-4S with fan-mod

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Honestly, I was stunned at the lack of fine details required to do a bare metal restore with UrBackup. Windows Home Server 2011, for example, requires you to dig out NIC and USB drivers to start the restore process and restore operations took a l-o-n-g time. That's another area where UrBackup seemed to shine. The speed of the restoration, for a 100 mbs connection, was quick.
    ___________


    To give the Urbackup test some balance, I attempted to do a backup and restore with Duplicati. However (on the same Vista client) the Duplicati client connector forced me to install M$ .NET 4.5, as a dependency, before it would install. Afterward, the client connector continually crashed and I have no idea why. The client has a nearly bare Vista OS install, with no extraneous add-on hardware. Maybe I missed something but, given the non-stop crashing, I abandoned the effort.
    ___________


    Here's to hoping others on the forum will do similar accounting's as they test server packages, to include those who use and like Duplicati.

  • Hi.
    I have been running OMV4 for a couple months now and have been doing manual backups. I have 3 Disks set up, one of which contains a shared folder named Backups to which I have been manually backing up. I want to give UrBackup a try, but can't get the configuration working. I created a folder called urbackup inside the Backups folder which I want to use, but I can't find the full disk & folder path like you show in the photos (I right-clicked on the Backups folder and went to properties). Is there a setting I need to check for it show like that or am I just not looking in the right place? I have a Windows 10 machine and a Mac.
    Another thing, I do not have the folder permissions set to public, I created a guest user account with a password. Is there a way to enter those details into UrBackup for it to log on?


    Edit: Nevermind, I think I figured it out. I replaced the disk-by-label with the disk label in Disks. I also found the ACL permission box.

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von D.Spamers () aus folgendem Grund: Resolved my error.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Good. I think you'll be happy with UrBackup. Once you get the web interface down, it's easy to use, fully automated, and reliable.


    Figuring out how to do a selective restore from the Web GUI may take a few minutes, but it works well.
    The Urbackup web site has a good admin doc, a community for odd ball issues, and other documentation if you need it.

  • If you decide to use UrBackup, the OMV server installation will attempt to put the UrBackup storage folder on your boot drive. It will be necessary to relocate the backup directory to your data drive, in a manner similar to what is shown below.
    (In my case, I dedicated a drive to testing client backups. )


    Could you remind me how we get the disk-by-label value? I went thorough this the first time I setup, but forget where I found that value, just that I had to look for it or do something to be able to see it (I'm on OMV4). Thanks!

  • I think it depends if you have given a label to the drive or not. OMV (Debian?) uses several methods to describe a path. So it can be that the path looks different in your case.

    OMV 3.0.100 (Gray style)

    ASRock Rack C2550D4I C0-stepping - 16GB ECC - 6x WD RED 3TB (ZFS 2x3 Striped RaidZ1) - Fractal Design Node 304 -

    3x WD80EMAZ Snapraid / MergerFS-pool via eSATA - 4-Bay ICYCube MB561U3S-4S with fan-mod

  • Thanks, as I recall from the last time I set it up, there was either a location in omv where you could see the label or a switch to turn on so you could see it, or somewhere in the properties of the disk or share or whatever... I thought I'd saved the info on where that is in my notes (as I'm the furthest thing from a competent linux guy) but I apparently did not.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    MickBurke
    The follow assumes you're using OMV4. (UrBackup running in a Docker is another matter.)

    You'll need to navigate to the location using something like WinSCP or PuTTY. Then copy and past the location (from the Address box below) into UrBackup's storage path shown in your post above. (A new folder for the storage location can be created, if needed.)




    You'll also need to check permissions on the storage location. In this case I checked the properties of the folder urbackup (in the right window). Note that permissions assigned to the group urbackup. (This user / group is created when UrBackup is installed.)


    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Thanks, as I recall from the last time I set it up, there was either a location in omv where you could see the label or a switch to turn on so you could see it, or somewhere in the properties of the disk or share or whatever... I thought I'd saved the info on where that is in my notes (as I'm the furthest thing from a competent linux guy) but I apparently did not.

    In the following check the Mount Point box. Under mount point, you'll see the drive mount location. Then put /srv in front of that and you'll have the path to the drive. If you want a new sub-dir to store backups you'll have to do that with WinSCP, or read up for creating it and assigning permissions on the CLI.


  • That was it! Thanks so much for your prompt replies!! Looks like I'm set!

    Now, since I was just rebuilding it, and my goal with using 4x was because I wasn't sure how to do it (or ANYTHING) with docker. If I do a quick rebuild with OMV5, get docker enabled and URBackup installed and running (which I managed to do on the first test), can I still find and use the 'mount point' from OMV?

    All things being equal, I'd rather be on the latest version and start learning how to use docker...


    Either way, thanks again for your help!

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    can I still find and use the 'mount point' from OMV?

    I believe so. I haven't checked this particular detail in OMV5 but, functionally and with few exceptions, OMV5 works the same as OMV4 did.

    When it comes to UrBackup in a docker, a bind or mount point will be required to go from a location inside the Docker, to the storage location outside of the Docker. It shouldn't be too difficult. (But, depending, permissions could get tricky.)

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    The UrBackup plugin in OMV4 does not do anything special. You can as well install UrBackup on Debian along OMV5.

    That is what I did. Everything else is running in docker, but UrBackup I kept like this. Why? I don't really know.

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