Installing a Linux virtual recovery appliance

Use these instructions to install a Linux virtual recovery appliance by installing an OVF (Open Virtualization Format) pre-packaged virtual machine or installing the software on your own pre-formatted virtual machine.

If you already have an existing Linux virtual recovery appliance that you want to upgrade, use the instructions Installing the appliance manually to install the latest .deb files on your existing appliance.

Deploying the OVF virtual machine

Locate the .ova installation file. For example, for version 7.1, the installation file name might be dtvra_7.1.0.1124.0.ova. If necessary, copy this file to a location that is accessible from your vSphere client.
From your vSphere client, select the root of your tree, select File, Deploy OVF Template, and specify the dtvra_<version_number>.ova file. Click Next to continue.
Review the OVF template details and click Next to continue.
If you are connected to a vCenter, review the Vision Solutions license agreement. You must accept the license agreement by clicking Accept. If you do not have vCenter, you will need to accept the license agreement when the appliance first starts. Click Next to continue.
Specify the name and location where you want to install the appliance. This should be the same datacenter where your target ESX host is located. Click Next to continue.
Select the ESX host where you want to install the appliance. This is your target ESX host. Click Next to continue.
If desired, select the resource pool where you want to install the appliance. You will not have this option if you do not have resource pools. Click Next to continue.
Select the datastore where you want to store the appliance files. Make sure the datastore has at least 16 GB of space available. Click Next to continue.
Select the type of disk to create. The names you see displayed will be dependent on your vSphere client.
- Flat or Thick Provision Lazy Zeroed—This disk type allocates the full amount of the disk space immediately, but does not initialize the disk space to zero until it is needed. This option is only available for ESX version 5 and later.
- Thick or Thick Provision Eager Zeroed—This disk type allocates the full amount of the disk space immediately, initializing all of the allocated disk space to zero.
- Thin Provision—This disk type does not allocate the disk space until it is needed.
Click Next to continue.
If your selected ESX host has multiple networks, map the network on the appliance to a network on your ESX host, and click Next to continue.
If you are connected to a vCenter, assign the virtual machine and networking properties. If you do not have vCenter, you will need to configure these settings after the appliance starts.
- Root password—Set a password for the root login. If you do not make a change, the default password will be used. The default password is vision.
- Time zone setting—Select the virtual machine's time zone. The default setting is UTC.
- Hostname—Specify the hostname or full qualified domain name to assign to the virtual machine. If you leave this option blank, Double-Take will use reverse DNS lookup for the identification.
- Default gateway—Specify the virtual machine's default gateway.
- DNS server—Specify the virtual machine's DNS server.
- Network IP address—Specify the IP address to assign to the virtual machine. You must use an IPv4 address.
- Network subnet mask—Specify the subnet mask for the assigned IP address.
vCenter 4.x will display your deployment password in visible text. To avoid a security risk, you should use the default password or set a temporary password, and then after the appliance deployment is complete, you should change the default or temporary password to a new secure password.
Click Next to continue.
Review the Deployment settings. If you want to make any changes, click Back. If not, enable the Power on after deployment option (which is only available for ESX version 5 and later), and click Finish.
After the appliance deployment is complete, click Close.

After the appliance has been installed, you will need to install the Double-Take Console on a Windows machine, if you haven't already. You can use the .exe file located in the service/uvra/installers/windows/ directory on your appliance, or see the instructions Installing the Double-Take Console to install the console from the DVD or a web downloaded file. In either case, make sure you select the Client Components Only installation option.

Once the appliance has been installed and configured, you should not need to access or use it. However, if you need to change any network settings, you can modify them using the Configure Network menu on the appliance or by using the web interface by going to https://ip_address:5480, where ip_address is the current IP address of the appliance. Keep in mind if you change the network settings using the web interface, you will lose your connection to that interface because it will still be using the original IP address.

The appliance menu runs as root, so make sure you take advantage of VMware security to restrict access to the appliance. See your VMware documentation for details on limiting access to the appliance's console.

Installing the appliance manually

Before you begin the manual appliance installation, you must have an existing VMware hosted virtual machine that meets the following requirements.

The virtual machine must be running Ubuntu 10.04.x AMD64 edition.
The virtual machine must have at least 4 GB of virtualized physical RAM.
The virtual machine must have at least two CPUS (two virtual sockets, not two virtual cores).
The virtual machine must have at least 16 GB of disk space available.
The virtual machine must have a valid, working network configuration, including DNS.
If your source servers that you will be protecting have the XFS file system, the virtual machine must have the xfsprogs and xfsdump packages installed.
The virtual machine must be dedicated to Double-Take processing only. Do not use the virtual machine for any other activity (web server, database server, and so on).
Make sure you review the Double-Take for Linux User's Guide for any other requirements not specifically defined here.

Locate the .deb installation file either on your Double-Take DVD or from the location where you downloaded it. For example, for version 7.1, the installation file might be doubletake_7.1.0.1124.0_amd64.deb If necessary, copy the installation file to a location that is accessible from your virtual machine.
Install the .deb file on your virtual machine.
If you are going to push the Double-Take installation from your appliance to your source servers, you will also need to install the installers package. Locate the .deb installers file either on your Double-Take DVD or from the location where you downloaded it. For example, for version 7.1, the installation file name might be doubletake-installers_7.1.0.1225.0_all.deb. Note that the version number will be different than the first .deb file. If necessary, copy this file to a location that is accessible from your virtual machine.
Install the installers .deb file on your virtual machine.
If you are going to push the Double-Take installation from your appliance to your source servers, the root user must also use the SSH client at least once before push installations can be completed. You can establish an ssh connection from the appliance to any other server or to itself. This only has to be done once on the appliance.

After the appliance has been installed, you will need to install the Double-Take Console on a Windows machine, if you haven't already. You can use the .exe file located in the service/uvra/installers/windows/ directory on your appliance (if you installed the installers package), or see the instructions Installing the Double-Take Console to install the console from the DVD or a web downloaded file. In either case, make sure you select the Client Components Only installation option.