Bare Metal Restore

Preparations for Bare Metal Restore

For bare metal restore, the target server could be the original one or a new one.

If restoring to a new server, the hardware configurations should be the same as the original server, including mainboard, CPU, RAM disks, etc.

To do bare metal restore, you need to boot the server with LiveCD or WinPE ISO image provided by Vinchin.

LiveCD Operation Procedures

LiveCD can be used to restore both Linux and Windows server. The LiveCD ISO images are provided as follows:

RHEL 7: for Windows XP, Windows 2003/2003 R2
RHEL 8: suitable for most of the Linux and Windows operating systems
RHEL 9: for RHEL 9, CentOS Stream 9, Oracle Linux 9, Rocky Linux 9

Before you can boot the target server with LiveCD image, please create a bootable USB drive or CD/DVD disc using the downloaded ISO image, after that please boot your server from the USB drive or CD/DVD drive. When you see the booting options screen, please select Start LiveCD OS Restore and press enter.

After the LiveCD system is completely started up, please login with the following credentials.

Username: root

Password: Backup@3R

When logged in, please use below command to get started connecting the server to Vinchin backup server.

sh os_restore

If the server has multiple NICs on board, you need to select the NIC which can be used to connect to Vinchin backup server by typing the NIC number and press enter.

Input a valid IP address under the following prompt:

Input IP address, e.g., 192.168.31.1:
172.18.19.106

Input a valid netmask under the following prompt:

Input netmask, e.g., 255.255.255.0:
255.255.192.0

Input a valid gateway under the following prompt:

Input gateway, e.g., 192.168.31.1, press enter directly without setting gateway:
172.18.0.1

Once you have configured the network settings, the server network services will restart, when you see the following prompt, please input Vinchin backup server IP address.

Input backup server IP address:
172.18.1.10

Now the server running LiveCD will try to Ping Vinchin backup server to test the network connection, after that will try to download and install the physical server backup agent.

The whole process is automated, no further operations required. Once the agent installation is successful, please log in Vinchin Backup Server web console, in Resources > Agents page, it will display the server running LiveCD.

To restore the backups to this server running LiveCD, it does not need to be licensed, as it is only for temporary use of server restoration.

Notice

1. The server memory should be at least 2GB when booting with LiveCD.

2. When configuring LiveCD network settings, make sure to avoid IP address conflict in your LAN.

3. LiveCD can be used to restore both Linux and Windows server.

WinPE Operation Procedures

WinPE can be only used to restore Windows server, except for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, if you want to restore these lagecy Windows systems, please use LiveCD RHEL 7 instead.

Before you can boot the target server with WinPE ISO image, please download the WinPE ISO image from here.

After downloading, please create a bootable USB drive or CD/DVD disc using the downloaded ISO image, after that please boot your server from the USB drive or CD/DVD drive.

When you see the message “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD” please press a random key to start the server from WinPE.

If the server has multiple NICs on board, you need to select the NIC which can be used to connect to Vinchin backup server by typing the NIC number and press enter.

Input a valid IP address under the following prompt:

Input IP address for WinPE, e.g., 192.168.31.1:
172.18.19.106

Input a valid netmask under the following prompt:

Input netmask, e.g., 255.255.255.0:
255.255.192.0

Input a valid gateway under the following prompt:

Input gateway, e.g., 192.168.31.1, press enter directly without setting gateway:
172.18.0.1

Input Vinchin backup server IP address under the following prompt.

Input backup server IP address:
172.18.1.10

Now the server running WinPE will try to Ping Vinchin backup server to test the network connection, after that will try to download and install the physical server backup agent.

The whole process is automated, no further operations required. Once the agent installation is successful, you’ll see prompt “Press any key to continue”, please press a key to complete the process.

To restore the backups to this server running WinPE, it does not need to be licensed, as it is only for temporary use of server restoration.

Notice

1. A WinPE booted server should not be powered on for more than 24 hours.

2. The server memory should be at least 2GB when booting with WinPE.

3. When configuring WinPE network settings, make sure to avoid IP address conflict in your LAN.

Create Bare Metal Restore Job

To create a server restore job, go to the Physical Backup > Server Backup > Restore page. Please follow the below steps to create a physical server restore job.

Step 1: Restore Point

From the Restore Point dropdown list, select a backup node on which the server backup data is stored.

Then select desired restore point and click on Next. The restore point can be full, incremental or differential depending on which backup method you applied for server backup.

Step 2: Restore Destination

In the Target Host dropdown list, select the target physical server which is booted by LiveCD or WinPE.

When done selecting the target host, click on Connection Test to test the connection between the physical server and Vinchin backup server.

If the connection test is successful, you’ll now be able to configure the restore options.

Rebuild Partition: if enabled, the partition table of the target server will be reconstructed to ensure that the new partition information is the same as that of the original host. If this option is enabled, all data on the partition will be erased, please be caution. For bare metal restore, this option should be enabled unless it's restored to original server.

Boot Fix: if enabled, the /etc/fstab and grub.cfg files of the Linux systems will be re-configured on the new host after restore. If restore to the original host, and the backup partition corresponds to the source partition path, this option can be turned off.

And in the Select Volume column, please select the system and data partition to restore, and in the Restore Destination column, please select the target partition.

Notice

1. If restoring to different machine the Rebuild Partition option needs to be enabled.

2. Server backups from Linux machine cannot be restored to a Windows machine and vice versa.

Step 3: Restore Strategy

Under the General Strategy tab, you could set Throttling Policy and Transfer Threads for the server restore job same as when creating a server backup job. You could use the default settings.

Under the Transmission Strategy page, you could enable Encrypted Transfer to secure the data transmission and you can optionally select a transmission network.

If the server backup data had been encrypted (Data Encryption enabled in server backup job), then here on this page you’ll have a More Info tab, under which you need to provide the encryption password before restoring the server backups

Step 4: Review & Confirm

In this step, you could rename the job, review the job settings and submit to create a restore job. A server restore job will automatically run after its creation, when restoration done, you can power off the server to boot it from its local hard disk.

Bare-metal Restore