Frequently Asked Questions

I like the idea of CDP and frequent recovery points. What kind of load do these frequent backups place on my busy Linux server?
Does it support INSERT_YOUR_FAVORITE_LINUX_DISTRO_HERE?
Do I need to purchase third part software such as OTM or OFM to support open file backups?
Does your software support VMWare?
I have a dedicated server and can’t use the PXE boot or boot CD-ROM methos do you offer anything else?
Does it support hardware RAID?
Does it support software RAID or device-mapper (/dev/md)?
Does it support loop devices (/dev/loop)?
Does it support Linux Volume Manager (LVM)?
Can I schedule backup jobs using cron?
I have hundreds of Linux hosts I need to install the agent on. Can I script the install?

I like the idea of CDP and frequent recovery points. What kind of load do these frequent backups place on my busy Linux server?
CDP introduces NO overhead in between scheduled synchronization (backup) jobs. Its also important to understand that once you get a seed (your first backup) image only CHANGED disk sectors are read during a backup. This means backups are completed in minutes, sometimes even seconds.

The Linux agent works at the lowest possible level using a kernel module. This allows us to delivers better performance than any other backup solution out there. Turning compression and encryption off also helps reduce load and gives you “zero-copy” network performance since data never leaves the kernel space.

Does it support INSERT_YOUR_FAVORITE_LINUX_DISTRO_HERE?
We support ANY distribution using a 2.6 Linux kernel on 32-bit and 64-bit processors. This includes customized or patched kernels. We make pre-built installers for some popular distributions. If there is not an installer for your Linux distro than use the “linux-generic” installer. It will build a custom kernel module against your kernel headers.

We support most popular 2.4 Linux kernels.

For a complete list see http://www.r1soft.com/distros/

Do I need to purchase third part software such as OTM or OFM to support open file backups?
No. Righteous Backup includes full support for open file backups. It is the foundation of our backup methodology. Every backup is a consistent point-in-time image of your system.

Does your software support VMWare?
Yes it does support vmware. In fact we frequently use vmware in our engineering lab to test it on a variety of distributions and Linux kernels. When using vmware you can backup the entire physical machine by installing the agent once. Or you can protect each vmware instance by installing the agent inside of your virtual machine.

I have a dedicated server and can’t use the PXE boot or boot CD-ROM methos do you offer anything else?
Yes. This is done using Live Boot. With Live Boot you can perform a Bare-Metal restore on an offsite server, all without any physical access (required for boot CD) and all without special network boot support (PXE boot).

Does it support hardware RAID?
Yes.

Does it support software RAID or device-mapper (/dev/md)?
Yes. During every backup agent will check your software RAID configuration and if there are any changes save it as a recovery point. During a bare-metal restore you can optionally have your software RAID configuration restored automatically!

Does it support loop devices (/dev/loop)?
Yes.

Does it support Linux Volume Manager (LVM)?
Yes. The agent will check your PV (physical Volume) and VG (Volume Group) configuration during every backup job and if there are any changes save it as a recovery point. During a bare-metal restore you can optionally have your PVs and VG configuration automatically restored!

Can I schedule backup jobs using cron?
No. Backup jobs are managed centrally using the CDP Server Web interface

I have hundreds of Linux hosts I need to install the agent on. Can I script the install?
Yes. The self-extract (.run) Linux Agent installers have a scriptable option that installs with default settings. For a complete list of Linux agent installer options run:
# sh linux-agent-XXX.run -–help
To do a scriptable install run:
# sh linux-agent-XXX.run -– --yes