Using Arcserve UDP Agent (Linux) › How to Back up Linux Nodes › (Optional) Prepare the iSCSI Volume as the Backup Storage

(Optional) Prepare the iSCSI Volume as the Backup Storage

You can store your recovery points to an Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) volume. iSCSI is used to manage data transfer and storage over a network using the IP standard.

Verify that you have the latest release of the iSCSI-initiator software installed on your Backup Server. The initiator software on RHEL systems is packaged as iscsi-initiator-utils. The initiator software on SLES systems is packaged as open-iscsi.

Follow these steps:

1. Log in to the shell environment of the backup source node.
2. Run one of the following commands to start the iSCSI initiator daemon.
   • For  RHEL systems:

     /etc/init.d/iscsid start
     

     The service on RHEL systems is named iscsid.

   • For  SLES systems:

     /etc/init.d/open-iscsi start
     

     The service on SLES systems is named open-iscsi.

3. Run a discovery script to discover the iSCSI target host.

   iscsiadm -m discovery -t sendtargets -p <ISCSI-SERVER-IP-ADDRESS>:<Port_Number>
   

   The default port value of iSCSI target host is 3260.

4. Make a note of the iSCSI Qualified Name (IQN) of the iSCSI target host found by the discovery script before you manually log into the discovered target.
5. List the available block device of the backup source node.

   #fdisk -l
   

6. Log in to the discovered target.

   iscsiadm -m node -T <iSCSI Target IQN name> -p <ISCSI-SERVER-IP-ADDRESS>:<Port_Number>  -l
   

   You can see a block device in the /dev directory of the backup source node.

7. Run the following command to obtain the new device name:

   #fdisk -l
   

   You can see an additional device named /dev/sd<x> on the backup source node.

   For example, consider the name of the device is /dev/sdc. This device name is used to create a partition and a file system in the following steps.

8. Format and mount the iSCSI Volume.
9. Create a partition and a file system on the backup source node using the following commands.

   # fdisk /dev/sdc
   

   If you have create only one partition, then use the following command to create a file system for the single partition:

   # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdc1
   

10. Mount the new partition using the following commands:

    # mkdir /iscsi
    # mount /dev/sdc1 /iscsi
    

    The new partition is mounted and the iSCSI volume is ready to be used as a backup storage in a backup job.

11. (Optional) Add the following record to the /etc/fstab folder so that the iSCSI volume automatically connects with the Backup Server after you restart the server.

    /dev/sdc1 /iscsi ext3 _netdev 0 0
    

The iSCSI volume is ready to be used as the backup storage.