Windows Services for Unix and Backup Exec

Been working on a backup project and needed to use a NFS export as a backup to disk destination in Backup Exec. The best (read free) way to accomplish this is to setup Windows Services for Unix so that your server can map a network drive to the NFS export. Backup Exec does not allow B2D targets to be located on mapped drives but there is a simple work around. Here is the rough break down on what you need to do:

1. Install NFS and export the directory that you want to use as your backup target. Ubuntu users can use the following to install NFS server:

sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

Export your directoy however you see fit. I won’t describe the steps necessary to setup /etc/exports as it has been documented numerous times.

2. Download and install Windows Services for Unix 3.5 on your Backup Exec server. You can find that download here. Again, not to be overly redundant, follow the instructions provided on ubuntuforums.org to install SFU 3.5 here. Proceed to step 3 after verifying that you can manually map a network drive to your NFS export and read/write/etc.

3. Create the backup to disk folder in Symantec Backup Exec. In order to create a backup to disk folder on NFS, you must run a simple command. Open up the Windows command line/cmd and make your way over to: c:\program files\symantec\backup exec. Finally, run the following command:
bemcmd -o116 -v -f"Name of your backup to disk folder" -e0 -m1 -d\\NFS-Server-Name\export-name

A fair amount of research and testing went into this setup and the end result was well worth it. We are now using our Ubuntu 9.04 server as a backup to disk target and it is moving some serious IO.

–Himuraken