EVault Software
Agent for Linux
Version 8.13.5255
Release Notes, June 28, 2017
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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 32-bit Linux Agent 8.13.
The 32-bit Linux Agent is installed on each 32-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.
Important: You can only register Linux Agent 8.13 to Portal version 8.30 or later. However, if an Agent is already registered to a previous Portal version, you can upgrade the Agent to version 8.13 and continue to manage it using the previous Portal version. To determine your Portal version, sign in to Portal and go to Need Help > About.
You can also manage this Agent version with Windows CentralControl version 8.30. Changing job configurations using Portal and Windows CentralControl alternately is not supported. Do not manage the same Agent using both Portal and Windows CentralControl. 
Note: Because important security fixes are available in Portal 8.30, we recommend using Portal to manage the Agent instead of the legacy Windows CentralControl.
Linux Agent 8.13 is supported with Director 8.x vaults. You can also use the Agent with Director 7.11 vaults, but support is ending for Director 7.11 this year.
1.1	Release History 
Version 8.13.5255, June 28, 2017
Version 8.12.5253, June 9, 2017 (available as hotfix)
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 32-bit Linux platforms: 
·	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 (SP1)
·	SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SP3)
·	SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (SP3)
·	openSUSE Linux Enterprise Server 13.2
·	openSUSE Linux Enterprise Server 13.1
·	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6 (Update 9)
·	Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation 6 (Update 9)
·	CentOS 6 (Update 9)
·	Oracle Linux Server 6 (Update 9)
·	Ubuntu Server 16.04
·	Ubuntu Server 14.10
·	Ubuntu Desktop 14.10
·	Ubuntu Server 14.04
·	Ubuntu Desktop 14.04
·	Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS
·	Debian 8.8
·	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 in version 8.1x
•	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.
·	The Agent now contacts Portal every hour to check for vault IP address changes from E2 appliances. When an E2 appliance reports a new IP address, it is updated in Portal for Agents that are registered to the E2.
3	INSTALLATION NOTES
3.1	Installation Requirements
·	CPU: 32-bit x86 or compatible 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 32-bit Agent installation kit is: Agent-Linux-8.13.5255.tar.gz
Note: You can only install the 32-bit Linux Agent on a 32-bit system. You cannot install the 32-bit Linux Agent on a 64-bit system.
The Agent kit installs the following binary files:
Binary File 	md5sum Value	
AgtUpgd 	54bcc13676ba34be876d5c37a05bc2e1	
buagent 	8e3158655b9957592002fe1595b0a83a	
libcrypto.so.1.0.0 	566819f77c2691c689af0f9ab12aed76	
libssl.so.1.0.0 	72c9a4476e0ded2ba508554262f761c3	
VV	1b8495554d0f2d416e523af8e8c6953e	
VVAgent	ce00fdbfa5bbe41cd38aade74771b83c	
xlogcat 	4feb0f5fee3aeb6a43cb932e7b431ec2	

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 8.13:
·	Version 8.10, 8.10a, 8.11 or 8.12
·	Version 8.00
·	Version 7.50
·	Versions 7.2x
To upgrade a previous Linux Agent version to version 8.13, first upgrade the Agent to version 7.2x.
4	FIXES and KNOWN ISSUES
4.1	Fixes
4.1.1	Fixes in Version 8.13
Security improvements have been made, including using SHA-2 for communication between the Agent and Portal.

In some cases, open file descriptors were not closed by the Agent service, causing them to be queued up. The agent now closes these immediately after backup. (33183)
4.1.2	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)	
4.1.3	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)
4.1.4	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:
·	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 for Linux release notes (this document) 
All documentation is available from your service provider.