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  1. Home
  3. NetBackup™ Installation Guide
  5. Installing server software on UNIX systems
  7. Installation requirements for UNIX and Linux
NetBackup™ Installation Guide

Installation requirements for UNIX and Linux

Table: NetBackup requirements for UNIX and Linux describes the requirements to prepare your UNIX and Linux systems for NetBackup installation. Use this table as a checklist to address each item.

For the most up-to-date information about installation requirements, Veritas recommends use of the SORT website. More information about SORT is available.

See About Veritas Services and Operations Readiness Tools.

Table: NetBackup requirements for UNIX and Linux

Check

Requirement

Details

 

Operating System

  • For a complete list of compatible UNIX and Linux operating systems, refer to the Software Compatibility List (SCL) at the following website:

    http://www.netbackup.com/compatibility

    https://sort.veritas.com/netbackup

Memory

Use the information that is shown to correctly size your server:

  • The SORT website. See About Veritas Services and Operations Readiness Tools.

  • General details on how to size your NetBackup environment. See Size guidance for the NetBackup primary server and domain.

  • Detailed information about planning and tuning your NetBackup environment are available. These details are found in the NetBackup Backup Planning and Performance Tuning Guide.

 

Disk space

  • The exact amount of space that is required depends on the hardware platform. More information about this topic is available.

    NetBackup Release Notes for 10.1.1

  • NetBackup catalogs contain information about your backups that become larger as you use the product. The disk space that the catalogs require depends primarily on the following aspects of your backup configuration:

    • The number of files that are backed up.

    • The frequency of your backups.

    • The amount of time that you set to retain your backup data.

If space is an issue, you can install NetBackup on an alternate file system. The installation lets you select an alternate install location, and creates the appropriate link from /usr/openv.

Note:

The value for disk space is for initial installation only. The NetBackup catalog requires considerably more space once the primary server is placed in a production environment.

General requirements

  • Ensure that the gzip and the gunzip commands are installed on the local system. The directories where these commands are installed must be part of the root user's path environment variable setting.

  • All NetBackup installation ESD images, appropriate licenses, and the root password for all servers.

  • A server of a supported hardware type that runs a supported version of its operating system (with applicable patches), adequate disk space, and supported peripherals. For details on these requirements, refer to the NetBackup Release Notes for 10.1.1.

  • All NetBackup servers must recognize and be recognizable by their client systems. In some environments, this means that each must be defined in the other's /etc/hosts file. Other environments may use the Network Information Service (NIS) or Domain Name Service (DNS).

  • The minimum screen resolution configuration is 1024x768, 256 colors.

Clustered systems

  • Ensure that each node in the NetBackup cluster can run the ssh command or its equivalent. The root user must be able to perform a remote logon to each node in the cluster without entering a password. This remote logon is necessary for installation and configuration of the NetBackup server and any NetBackup agents and options. After installation and configuration are complete, it is no longer required.

  • You must install, configure, and start the cluster framework before you install NetBackup.

  • You must have defined a virtual name using DNS, NIS, or the /etc/hosts file. The IP address is defined at the same time. (The virtual name is a label for the IP address.)

  • Begin the upgrade from the active node, and then upgrade the inactive nodes.

More information about cluster requirements is available.

NetBackup Clustered Master Server Administrator's Guide

 

NFS compatibility

Veritas does not support installation of NetBackup in an NFS-mounted directory. File locking in NFS-mounted file systems can be unreliable.

 

Kernel reconfiguration

For some peripherals and platforms, kernel reconfiguration is required.

For more details, see the NetBackup Device Configuration Guide.

 

Linux

Before NetBackup installation, confirm the system libraries that are shown are present. If any library is not present, install the one provided by your operating system.

  • libnsl.so.1

  • libXtst

 

Red Hat Linux

For Red Hat Linux, NetBackup requires server networking.

 

Other backup software

Veritas recommends that you remove any other vendor backup software currently configured on your system before you install this product. Other vendor backup software can negatively affect how NetBackup installs and functions.

 

Web Services

Beginning with NetBackup 8.0, the NetBackup primary server includes a configured Tomcat web server to support critical backup operations. This web server operates under user account elements with limited privileges. These user account elements must be available on each primary server (or each node of a clustered primary server). You must create these required account elements before installation. More information is available:

See NetBackup primary server web server user and group creation.

Note:

Veritas recommends that you save the details of the user account that you use for the NetBackup Web Services. A primary server recovery requires the same NetBackup Web Services user account and credentials that were used when the NetBackup catalog was backed up.

Note:

If the NetBackup PBX is running in secure mode, please add the web service user as authorized user in PBX. More information about determining PBX mode and how to correctly add users is available.

http://www.veritas.com/docs/000115774

By default, the UNIX installation script attempts to associate the web server with user account nbwebsvc and group account nbwebgrp. You can override these default values with the NetBackup installation answer file. You must populate the NetBackup installation answer file on the target host before you start the UNIX installation script. Populate the NetBackup installation answer file with custom web server account names as shown.

  1. Log in to the server as root.

  2. Open the file /tmp/NBInstallAnswer.conf with your preferred text editor. Create the file if it does not exist.

  3. Override the default web server user account name by adding the line shown:

    WEBSVC_USER=custom_user_account_name

  4. Override the default web server group account name by adding the line shown:

    WEBSVC_GROUP=custom_group_account_name

  5. Save and close the file.

 

Customer Registration Key for Veritas Usage Insights

Beginning with NetBackup 8.1.2, you must specify a Customer Registration Key for Veritas Usage Insights. More information about Veritas Usage Insights is available:

See About Veritas Usage Insights.

During install and upgrade to NetBackup 8.1.2, please allow the installer to copy the veritas_customer_registration_key.json file to its final destination. NetBackup can set the file permission and ownership correctly through this process. If you place the file onto your systems outside of the install or the upgrade process, the process may not work correctly.

Note:

Be aware that NetBackup does not support the short file name format (8.3 format) for the customer registration key file name.

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