Backing up Linux logical volumes and MD devices

Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5 can back up virtual machines that have logical volumes (also known as LVM volumes) or MD devices (also known as Linux Software RAID).

You can choose between backing up these machines at a hypervisor level (by using Agent for ESX(i) or Agent for Hyper-V) or by installing Agent for Linux inside the guest operating system.

Backing up at a hypervisor level

This is your natural choice if you back up entire machines and recover them onto the same platform (ESX(i) or Hyper-V). You do not need to install multiple agents or create bootable media in this case.

Since Agent for ESX(i) or Agent for Hyper-V cannot access the file system of a logical volume or MD device, they back up the underlying disks or partitions sector-by-sector. Non-LVM volumes are backed up in the normal mode, by backing up their file systems. All backed up data can be recovered back to the original place without any problem.

Limitations

Sector-by-sector backup of logical volumes results in the following limitations:

• If the root directory is located on a logical volume, Acronis Universal Restore cannot access the drivers located in this directory. Therefore, the system may fail to boot after recovery to hardware or to a different platform (ESX(i) or Hyper-V). Please be aware of this, since recent Linux distributions, such as Fedora or RHEL, place the root directory on a logical volume by default.
• When creating a backup plan, you cannot select a logical volume or MD device. Select either the entire machine or all of the partitions that make up the volume group or device.
• File backup and file recovery from a disk-level backup are not possible for files located on logical volumes and MD devices.
• Resizing of a logical volume during recovery is not possible.

The common limitation of hypervisor-level backup is that you cannot execute pre/post backup or pre/post data capture commands within the guest operating system.

Installing the agent into the guest system

For advanced operations, install Agent for Linux in the guest system and back up the logical volumes/MD devices as the ones of a physical machine. By doing this, you will overcome all of the above limitations.

Universal Restore will even work on logical volumes enabling virtual-to-physical and virtual-to-virtual machine conversion. Using Linux-based bootable media, you will be able to recover logical volumes/MD devices "as is". For more information about backing up logical volumes and MD devices on physical machines, see User Guide for Advanced Editions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11.5.