Challenge
If a Linux server has EMC PowerPath devices attached, all the underlying block devices representing the network paths to the server will be included into the backup. Therefore, an extra amount of data will be created inside the backup file.Cause
In the current versions of Veeam Agent for Linux, only the DM-Multipath based devices are detected as aggregated. All the block devices with underlying EMC PowerPath aggregated devices are also included into the backup file if ‘Entire machine’ backup mode is selected.EMC PowerPath support will be introduced in the future versions of Veeam Agent for Linux.
Solution
Configure Volume-level backup job in Veeam Agent for Linux and include only aggregated EMC PowerPath devices and regular block devices into the backup, do not include block devices representing the network paths of EMC PowerPath. In this case, no extra data will be stored inside the backup file, only the exact amount of real data. For example, in following output you may see EMC PowerPath aggregated device name and underlying devices:[root@localhost ~]# powermt display dev=all Pseudo name=emcpowerea Symmetrix ID=000343607604 Logical device ID=07BA Device WWN=60000980000262604497023030364553 state=alive; policy=SymmOpt; queued-IOs=0 ============================================================================== --------------- Host --------------- - Stor - -- I/O Path -- -- Stats --- ### HW Path I/O Paths Interf. Mode State Q-IOs Errors ============================================================================== 6 lpfc sdef FA 10f:00 active alive 0 0 5 lpfc sdcm FA 6f:00 active alive 0 0 4 lpfc sdau FA 7f:00 active alive 0 0 3 lpfc sdb FA 11f:00 active alive 0 0In this example there are following devices:
/dev/emcpowerea – aggregated EMC PowerPath device
/dev/sdef, /dev/sdcm, /dev/sdau, /dev/sdb – underlying block devices representing the network paths
Accordingly, to mount table /dev/emcpowerea partitioned and mounted under /data folder:
root@localhost:~# mount | grep emcpowerea /dev/emcpowereap1 on /data type ext4 (rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro,stripe=256,data=ordered)
sdef, sdcm, sdau and sdb should be left unchecked.