EVault Software
Agent for Linux (64-bit)
Version 8.11.5251
Release Notes, November 30, 2016
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Contents
1	Overview
1.1	Release History
1.2	Supported Platforms
2	NEW FEATURES
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Requirements
3.2	Licensing
3.3	Install
3.4	Upgrade
4	FIXES and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Fixes
4.2	Known Issues
5	PRODUCT SUPPORT
5.1	Technical Support
5.2	Product Updates
5.3	Documentation
______________________________________________________________________
1	Overview
This document contains release notes for the 64-bit Linux Agent 8.11.
The Linux Agent is installed on each 64-bit Linux computer that you want to protect. Using Portal or Windows CentralControl, you can manage the Agent, back up data to a vault, and restore data from the vault. A Plug-in for protecting Oracle databases on Linux is also available.
This version of the Agent is supported with:
·	Portal version 8.0 or later, or Windows CentralControl version 8.10
·	Director version 7.11 or later
The Agent is optimized for use with Director 8.0 vaults, when available.
1.1	Release History
Version 8.11.5251, November 30, 2016
Version 8.10.5250a, October 18, 2016
Version 8.10.5249, July 27, 2016
1.2	Supported Platforms
This Agent is supported on the following 64-bit Linux platforms: 
·	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (SP1)
·	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SP 3)
·	SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SP 3)
·	openSUSE Leap 42.1
·	openSUSE Linux Enterprise Server 13.2
·	openSUSE Linux Enterprise Server 13.1
·	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 7 (Update 2)
·	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 7 (Update 2)
·	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 (Update 6)
·	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 (Update 6)
·	CentOS 7 (Update 2)
·	CentOS 6 (Update 6)
·	Oracle Linux Server 7 (Update 2)
·	Oracle Linux Server 6 (Update 6)
·	Ubuntu Server 16.04
·	Ubuntu Server 15.04
·	Ubuntu Server 14.10
·	Ubuntu Desktop 14.10
·	Ubuntu Server 14.04
·	Ubuntu Desktop 14.04
·	Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS
·	Debian 8.5
·	Debian 7.8
·	Debian 6.0.10
The Agent is supported with the following Linux file systems: ext2, ext3, ext4, XFS, GFS, ReiserFS, and JFS.
2	NEW FEATURES
The Agent is no longer installed with default retention types. You must create a retention type before you can create a backup job.
In an upcoming Portal release, default retention types for Agents will be provided by Portal.
If Hotfix 31776 is applied to your Portal instance, you can create a retention type when you create a backup job for an Agent that does not have a retention type. If the Portal hotfix is not applied, you must create a retention type on the Agent’s Advanced tab before creating a backup job.
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Requirements
·	CPU: 64-bit processor (No support for Itanium processors.)
Note: Meet or exceed the hardware requirements of your operating system. 
·	RAM: Minimum of 2 GB
·	Disk space: The Agent requires at least 100 MB of free space for a new (fresh) installation. An upgrade may require more free space. If there is not enough disk space, the system will issue a message.
·	The usrlibacl.so.1 shared library is required and must be installed on the protected system.
·	SELinux must be disabled on the system.
Note: You may see core dumps related to semaphore limits on the system. You can change the semaphore limits through the following kernel configuration parameters. 
Parameter /  Recommended Minimum Limit
semmni    /  128
Defines the number of semaphore identifiers in the kernel. 
This is the maximum number of unique semaphore sets that can be active at any one time. 
semmns    /  32000
Defines the maximum number of semaphores in the system. User processes include jobbed processes, plus all other semaphores required by other software. 
semmsl    /  250
Defines the maximum number of semaphores per identifier list. 
semopm    /  100
Controls the number of semaphore operations that can be performed per semop system call. 
3.2	Licensing
Agent and Plug-in licenses are distributed automatically when the Agent connects to a vault (based on your license quota). To back up and restore data to or from a vault, you need a valid account, username and password. Contact your service provider to obtain the required information.
3.3	Install
The file name of the 64-bit Agent installation kit is: Agent-Linux-x64-8.11.5251.tar.gz
Note: You can only install the 64-bit Linux Agent on a 64-bit system. You cannot install the 64-bit Linux Agent on a 32-bit system.
The Agent kit installs the following binary files:
Binary File 	md5sum Value	
AgtUpgd 	9e133d42faa204dd0d02f060b832a151	
buagent 	23b6208c3ac353618f20846d0cfbc9a9	
libcrypto.so.1.0.0 	3456b183f1cb0fbcca588e7a3b507f16	
libssl.so.1.0.0 	cb0feae5e04b504071c07d531464821e	
VV	32919ca2102dab65cc5bd7f1c4af4f56	
VVAgent	af3746064967b579e05716279be749ce	
xlogcat 	a2cba202e274acfa3a79e034103b9c9c	

To obtain md5sum values, issue the following commands. These commands are examples based on an Agent that has been installed in the default location (i.e., /opt/BUAgent).
 cd /opt/BUAgent
 md5sum *
3.4	Upgrade
You can upgrade the following Linux Agent versions to version 8.11:
·	Version 8.10 or 8.10a
·	Version 8.00
·	Version 7.50
·	Versions 7.2x
To upgrade a previous Linux Agent version to version 8.11, first upgrade the Agent to version 7.2x.
4	FIXES and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Fixes
4.1.1	Fix in Version 8.11
If a network interruption occurs during a backup where over-the-wire encryption is used, TLS messages are logged correctly as information instead of errors. (32559, 30344, 30345, 31958)
4.1.2	Fix in Version 8.10a
The Linux Agent will now allow Portal (in an upcoming release) to schedule and send Daily Status Report notifications for some customers. (32374)
4.1.3	Fixes in Version 8.10
Email notifications now work using CRAM-MD5 authentication. (31838)
After a restore from another computer, the first synchronization for the job succeeds. (25806)
4.2	Known Issues
When a backup is run from the Linux Bash shell, it ends with the following message: User defined signal 2 
WORKAROUND: Trap the signal, which is used to terminate running threads, by beginning the backup script with the following line: trap " USR2 
 (28758)
If your backup selection contains hardlinks outside of your selection, you may receive a backup log warning indicating that some hard links related to these file(s) were not selected and have not been backed up. This will occur even if you exclude these hardlink files. To avoid this warning, include all the hardlink files sharing the same inode. (19795)
When you perform a complete system restore (DR), make sure that there is sufficient disk space for the creation of large recovery logs from the Agent (and other possible logging or auditing from the operating system). File-level logging on a setup containing a large file system can generate a large log, which can potentially fill up the available or allocated disk space. If the logs are on the same partition as the root file system, this may prevent the OS from booting. (19353)
An NFS backup Job for a mounted file system will fail if the NFS mount is disconnected at run time. The error messages for this failure do not explain that the problem is related to NFS. (19215)
When you restore a very large number of files to an alternate location, you may run out of inodes for the file system. This stops the restore process from responding. You must kill the VV process, and defunct processes may remain. Truncated restore logs may also result. The logs will indicate that there is no space left on the device, but this might not be true. Because each file consumes an inode, you cannot restore additional files (regardless of how much space is available). 
Recommendation: Allocate more inodes for the destination file system. (18967)
The command-line log viewer, xlogcat, uses the default language that you select during installation unless the LANG environment variable indicates a different supported language. For example, if German (de-DE) is your selected language, but your LANG value specifies U.S. English (LANG=en_US.utf8), xlogcat will display the log in English. You can override this using the "-l" (lowercase L) command-line parameter, or by adjusting the LANG variable. (18941)
For a backup or restore task on an NFS system to succeed, you need to have proper permissions to read, write, and create files and directories on the mounted Network File System. This includes the remote system allowing operations for an anonymous user. A good test is to try it from the command line first. If you cannot read/write/create files or directories on NFS manually, the Agent backup and restore will also not work. This issue applies to all Linux platforms.
Linux systems may be configured with strong firewall settings (IP tables). These settings may block communication between the Agent and Portal or Windows CentralControl.
The following ports are used by default for the Agent:
  * 808, 8021, 8031 (inbound) - VVAgent control by Windows CentralControl
  * 8086, 8087 (outbound) - buagent registration and control by Portal
  * 25 (outbound) - email notification
  * 2546 (outbound) - VV backup, restore, and synchronization with the Director (Vault)
To allow management of the Agent by Windows CentralControl, open the firewall with a rule similar to this:
  iptables --append <chain-name> -p tcp -m tcp --dport 808 --syn -j --ACCEPT
This rule can be made permanent in the normal way for your distribution.
Certain file systems and directories are excluded from backups. These include the /dev (device) directory (including the devpts file system at /dev/pts), /boot directory, /var/run directory, and the proc file system (usually at /proc). In Linux kernel version 2.6, there is now the sysfs file system to represent the system hardware devices and drivers (usually at /sys). This is also excluded from backups. 
Note: On a complete system backup, /dev and /proc directories are NOT backed up. 
The Linux Agent only protects these locations under their default names. These files must be restored to an alternative location and replaced manually if necessary, as automatic replacement may leave the operating system in an unusable state.
When restoring Linux system files, the boot loader should be reconfigured to find the restored operating system files and kernel in their current positions on the hard drive. When using GNU GRUB (http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/), follow the instructions from the GRUB user manual for installing GRUB natively: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Installation
For other boot loaders, refer to the manual provided by your vendor.
By default, chkconfig does not include VVAgent in the list of services that it manages. If you add VVAgent to chkconfig, the default run levels become 3 and 5. Recommendation: Use 3 and 5 as your default run levels for starting the VVAgent script. (8321)
5	PRODUCT SUPPORT
5.1	Technical Support
Contact information for your provider is available through the:
·	Need Help button in Portal
·	Help menu in Windows CentralControl
5.2	Product Updates
Product updates are available from your service provider. 
5.3	Documentation
The following documentation is available for the Agent:
·	Agent for Linux and Oracle Plug-in Guide
·	Portal online help
·	Windows CentralControl Operations Guide 
·	Windows CentralControl online help 
·	Agent 64-bit for Linux release notes (this document) 
All documentation is available from your service provider.