Linux BMR: Requirements and Compatibility

Bacula Enterprise Only

This solution is only available for Bacula Enterprise. For subscription inquiries, please reach out to sales@baculasystems.com.

This chapter describes requirements and compatibility for Bare Metal Recovery for Linux.

The LinuxBMR runs with Bacula Enterprise versions 6 and newer.
The LinuxBMR 2.2.4 version is compatible with the Bacula-rescue.sh script version 2.4.0 available from Bacula Enterprise 12.4.2 and in the LinuxBMR Plugin download area.
The LinuxBMR has been successfully tested on RHEL 5, 6, 7, and 8, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 with Grub Legacy, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 with at least Service Pack 1 (btrfs is not supported), as well as Debian Linux 7, 8, 9, and 10, and Ubuntu LTS 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, and 20.04. Only 64bit versions of these distributions have been tested.
The LinuxBMR supports LVM. LVM’s advanced and RAID functionalities are not supported.
LVM unallocated space is preserved and handled like an unused Logical Volume to preserve snapshot functionality.
LinuxBMR supports the following filesytems: xfs, ext2, ext3, ext4. MSDOS / FAT are supported for UEFI boot partitions. zfs, btrfs and others are not.
DOS and GPT partition tables are supported.
Linux Software RAID and LVM on RAID will be supported in a future version.
Partition encryption is not supported (this is planned for a future release).
The restart command has limitations with plugins, as it initiates the Job from scratch rather than continuing it. Bacula determines whether a Job is restarted or continued, but using the restart command will result in a new Job.
Ask our Support Team for up to date information about supported and unsupported features. The most frequently requested features will be prioritized.

Important Considerations

The LinuxBMR is designed to be an extensible framework, not a static one-size-fits-all solution. Unsupported or problematic features can be handled manually if needed. In particular the disk partitioning and boot manager configurations have a manual mode. The scripts generated by the BMR using information from the source system can be used as an example to help the user.

Due to the very large compatibility matrix between hardware and software that LinuxBMR should support, LinuxBMR needs careful testing and configuration on actual production-like systems before it can become part of a reliable production-ready Disaster Recovery solution. Once a combination of hard- and software (for example, DELL R620 Perc H800 with RHEL 7 64bit) is validated, the product can safely be used on all servers that are using that combination.