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.

Use the instructions below as a general guideline. The options and workflow are slightly different when deploying directly on ESX versus using a vSphere client or a web client.

 

  1. Locate the .ova installation file. For example, for version 8.5.4, the installation file name might be dtvra_8.5.4.1124.0.ova. If necessary, copy this file to a location that is accessible from your vSphere client.
  2. 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.
  3. Review the OVF template details and click Next to continue.
  4. If you are connected to a vCenter, review the OpenText 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Select the ESX host where you want to install the appliance. This is your target ESX host. Click Next to continue.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
    • 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.
  10. Click Next to continue.
  11. 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.
  12. 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 carbonite.
    • 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, OpenText Availability and OpenText Migrate 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.
  13. Click Next to continue.
  14. Review the Deployment settings. If you want to make any changes, click Back. If not, enable the Power on after deployment option, and click Finish.
  15. After the appliance deployment is complete, click Close.
  16. If you did not use vCenter, log in to the appliance to finish configuring the settings you could not complete above. You will have ten minutes to complete the configuration process. If you do not complete it within that time period, reboot the appliance and start again.

After the appliance has been installed, you will need to install the OpenText Replication Console on a Windows machine, if you haven't already. See the instructions Installing the OpenText Replication Console. 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.

You should not change the hostname after deployment because the name change will not be persisted if the appliance is rebooted.

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.

If you want to use your own secure certificate, you should obtain a certificate from an enterprise or commercial Certificate Authority. Once a certificate is available on your Linux server, you will need to update /opt/dbtk/etc/dtssl.conf with the path and file name of your certificate and the certificate password, if your certificate file has a password. If you want to enable verification, you will need to identify your PEM file or the directory that contains all certificates in the verification chain. See the instructions in the dtssl.conf file. You will be responsible for updating an expired certificate as needed. If you want to revoke a certificate, you must remove it from the server. If a specified certificate is expired or revoked, OpenText Availability and OpenText Migrate will not replicate data.

 

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

  • Operating system—The virtual machine must be running a 64-bit version of one of the following operating systems.
    • Ubuntu version 20.04.1 through 20.04.3
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS version 7.7 through 7.9
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS version 8.4 through 8.7
    • SUSE Linux Enterprise version 15.0 through 15.4

    A SUSE appliance can only protect source servers running a OpenText Availability and OpenText Migrate supported SUSE version. You cannot protect other Linux operating systems to a SUSE appliance.

    You cannot protect Btrfs to a Red Hat or CentOS appliance.

     

  • Memory—The virtual machine must have at least 4 GB of virtualized physical RAM.
  • CPUs—The virtual machine must have at least two CPUs (two virtual sockets, not two virtual cores).
  • Disk space—The virtual machine must have at least 16 GB of disk space available.
  • SCSI controller—The virtual machine should be configured to use paravirtual SCSI controllers. A single virtual recovery appliance, with four paravirtual SCSI controllers, can migrate a maximum of 10 sources or jobs with a maximum of 255 disks.
  • Networking—The virtual machine must have a valid, working network configuration, including DNS.
  • Function—The virtual machine must be dedicated to OpenText Availability and OpenText Migrate processing only. Do not use the virtual machine for any other activity (web server, database server, and so on).
  • Volume group name—If your virtual machine is running Red Hat or CentOS and is using an LVM setup, you must make sure the volume group on the virtual machine is using a unique name. If the same volume group name is used as any volume group name from a protected source, failover will fail because of a name conflict. Refer to your Red Hat documentation for details on renaming a volume group.

  • SELinux policy—SELinux is supported on the source and appliance.

  • Packages—You will need specific packages installed on your appliance depending on the operating system of your source servers.
    • Ext—If the source server you will be protecting has the ext file system, you must have the e2fsprogs package on your appliance.
    • Xfs—If the source server you will be protecting has the xfs file system, you must have the xfsprogs package on your appliance.
    • LVM—If the source server you will be protecting has an LVM setup, you must have the lvm2 package on your appliance.
    • Btrfs—If the source server you will be protecting has the Btrfs file system and you are using an Ubuntu appliance, the appliance must have the btrfs-tools package. If the source server you are protecting is SLES 12.x with Btrfs and you are using a SLES appliance, the btrfsprogs package should already be on the SLES appliance by default. You cannot protect Btrfs to a Red Hat or CentOS appliance.

Make sure you review the Linux User's Guide for any other requirements not specifically defined here.

 

  1. Locate the .deb or .rpm installation file either on your OpenText Availability and OpenText Migrate DVD or from the location where you downloaded it. For example, for version 8.5.4, the installation file might be doubletake_8.5.4.1124.0_amd64.deb If necessary, copy the installation file to a location that is accessible from your virtual machine.
  2. Install the .deb or .rpm file on your virtual machine.

After the appliance has been installed, you will need to install the OpenText Replication Console on a Windows machine, if you haven't already. See the instructions Installing the OpenText Replication Console. Make sure you select the Client Components Only installation option.

If you want to use your own secure certificate, you should obtain a certificate from an enterprise or commercial Certificate Authority. Once a certificate is available on your Linux server, you will need to update /opt/dbtk/etc/dtssl.conf with the path and file name of your certificate and the certificate password, if your certificate file has a password. If you want to enable verification, you will need to identify your PEM file or the directory that contains all certificates in the verification chain. See the instructions in the dtssl.conf file. You will be responsible for updating an expired certificate as needed. If you want to revoke a certificate, you must remove it from the server. If a specified certificate is expired or revoked, OpenText Availability and OpenText Migrate will not replicate data.