Creating backup storage on an external NFS share

Limitations

  • Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure does not provide data redundancy on top of NFS volumes. Depending on the implementation, NFS shares may use their own hardware or software redundancy.
  • Only one node can work as a backup gateway for an NFS share.
  • Each NFS export is used by only one gateway. In particular, do not connect two Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure installations to the same NFS export for backup storage.
  • Multiple full backups stored on an NFS share may consume additional storage space due to the delay of automatic compaction, which is performed for one backup at a time.
  • Backup storage with the NFS destination that is based on the ext4 file system cannot work with backup archives larger than 16 TB. For such large files, consider using other backup storage destinations, for example, the local Virtuozzo Hybrid Infrastructure cluster.

Prerequisites

  • The storage cluster has at least one disk with the Storage role.
  • The destination storage has enough space for both existing and new backups.
  • Ensure that each node to join the backup storage cluster has the TCP port 44445 open for outgoing Internet connections, as well as for incoming connections from Acronis backup software.
  • Ensure that the node to join the backup storage has access to external NFS storage.
  • Ensure that the external NFS share to be used as the backup destination is completely empty.

To select an external NFS share as the backup destination

Admin panel

  1. On the Infrastructure > Networks screen, make sure that the Backup (ABGW) private and Backup (ABGW) public traffic types are added to the networks you intend to use.
  2. Open the Storage services > Backup storage screen, and then click Create backup storage.
  3. On the Backup destination step, select Network File System (NFS) share.
  4. On the Nodes step, select one node to add to the backup storage cluster, and then click Next.

  5. On the NFS share step, specify the hostname or IP address of the NFS share, the export name, and select the NFS version. Then, click Next.

    NFS version 4 is recommended, as it provides better scalability and performance compared to NFS version 3, which has limitations in the protocol.

  6. On the DNS step, do one of the following:

    • Select Register now, and then specify an external DNS name for backup storage (for example, backupstorage.example.com). Backup agents will use this DNS name and the TCP port 44445 to upload backup data.

      • Configure your DNS server according to the example suggested in the admin panel.
      • Each time you change the network configuration of nodes in the backup storage cluster, adjust the DNS records accordingly.

    • Select Register later to add registrations for your backup storage later or configure it as the secondary cluster for geo-replication.

  7. If you selected Register now, specify the following information for your Acronis product on the Acronis account step:

    • The URL of the cloud management portal (for example, https://cloud.acronis.com/) or the hostname/IP address and port of the local management server (for example, http://192.168.1.2:9877)
    • The credentials of a partner account in the cloud or of an organization administrator on the local management server

  8. On the Summary step, review the configuration, and then click Create.

After creating the backup storage, you can increase its storage capacity at any time by adding space to the NFS share.

Command-line interface

Use the following command:

vinfra service backup cluster deploy-standalone --nodes <nodes> > --name <name> --address <address>
                                                [--location <location>] --username <username>
                                                --account-server <account-server>
                                                --tier {0,1,2,3} --encoding <M>+<N> 
                                                --failure-domain {0,1,2,3,4} --storage-type nfs
                                                --nfs-host <host> --nfs-export <export>
                                                --nfs-version <version> [--stdin]
--nodes <nodes>
A comma-separated list of node hostnames or IDs
--name <name>
Backup registration name.
--address <address>
Backup registration address.
--location <location>
Backup registration location.
--username <username>
Partner account in the cloud or of an organization administrator on the local management server.
--account-server <account-server>
URL of the cloud management portal or the hostname/IP address and port of the local management server.
--tier {0,1,2,3}
Storage tier
--encoding <M>+<N>

Storage erasure encoding mapping in the format:

  • M: number of data blocks
  • N: number of parity blocks
--failure-domain {0,1,2,3,4}
Storage failure domain
--storage-type {local,nfs,s3,swift,azure,google}
Storage type
--stdin
Use for setting registration password from stdin.

Storage parameters for the nfs storage type:

--nfs-host <host>
NFS hostname or IP address
--nfs-export <export>
Full path to the NFS export
--nfs-version <version>
NFS version (3 or 4)

For example, to create the backup cluster from the node node001 on the NFS storage, run:

# vinfra service backup cluster deploy-standalone --nodes node001 --name registration1 --address backupstorage.example.com \
--storage-type nfs --tier 0 --encoding 1+2 --failure-domain host --nfs-host 10.136.18.149 --nfs-version 4 \
--nfs-export /share1/export1 --username account@example.com --account-server https://cloud.acronis.com/ --stdin

This command also specifies the registration name and address, tier, failure domain, registration account and server, as well as the required NFS parameters.

You can view the backup storage details in the vinfra service backup cluster show output:

# vinfra service backup cluster show
+-----------------+---------------------------------------------+
| Field           | Value                                       |
+-----------------+---------------------------------------------+
| dc_uid          | 966ac53e-a92c-11ec-be79-fa163ea9f01a        |
| deployment_mode | - standalone                                |
| geo_replication |                                             |
| hosts           | - hostname: node001.vstoragedomain          |
|                 |   id: 24a953ce-b50e-40c2-bf44-0668aafb421d  |
|                 |   systemd: active                           |
| registrations   | - account_server: https://cloud.acronis.com |
|                 |   address: backupstorage.example.com        |
|                 |   expires: '2025-03-20T15:20:59+00:00'      |
|                 |   id: be526718-d9f8-4f2c-9bd3-04a987f7e4c4  |
|                 |   name: registration1                       |
|                 |   type: ABC                                 |
|                 |   username: account@example.com             |
| status          | deployed                                    |
| storage_params  |                                             |
| storage_type    | local                                       |
| upstreams       | []                                          |
+-----------------+---------------------------------------------+