Supported Kernels and File Systems

Supported Kernel Versions

ShadowProtect SPX supports the following 64-bit Linux distributions:

• RHEL 8, AlmaLinux 8, RHEL 9, AlmaLinux 9
• CentOS and RHEL 7
• Ubuntu 22.04, 20.04, 18.04, 16.04, 14.04

SPX now supports Dynamic Kernel Module Support (DKMS) which allows you to build the snapshot driver for the kernel you are using.

For additional information, see Prerequisites for Installing DKMS.

File Systems

SPX supports these Linux file systems on storage devices:

• ext2
• ext3
• ext4
• XFS

Note: COW buffer files should be placed on a file system that supports sparse files. If the COW buffer files are not on a system that supports sparse files, backups may take longer and may take up more drive space.

Sector Sizes

Contemporary hard drives and SSDs ship with a 4096-byte physical sector size. Most also support the 512-byte logical sector size. (These drives are often labeled 512e for "512 Byte Sector Size Emulation".) SPX supports backing up both 4096- and 512-byte logical sector sizes.

In the unusual situation of restoring a partition/volume from one logical sector size to another:

• 512 bytes per logical sector -> 4096 bytes per logical sector (and the destination does not support 512e)
• 4096 bytes per logical sector -> 512 bytes per logical sector

SPX will issue an error message during the restore if it encounters a mismatched sector size.

Linux Volume Architecture

StorageCraft strongly recommends recording the disk partition layout and logical volume configuration (LVM) when installing SPX. This simplifies the restore process when using the Recovery Environment.

Console Requirements

The SPX console requires an XServer GUI desktop environment. See the Remote Monitor chapter for details on installing on systems that do not have a GUI install or if the system runs headless.