Veeam Backup for Salesforce – OS update

My lab has an Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS server on which Veeam’s Salesforce environment protection software (Veeam Backup for Salesforce) is installed.

During the monthly operation of updating the operating system, some errors appeared that did not allow me to complete the operation.

The ‘output of the “sudo apt update” command, showed three errors highlighted in image 1 with the blue, green, and red arrows.

Picture 1

1. The first, (blue arrow) indicated that the digital signature linked to the Veeam repository (“https://repository.veeam.com/apt stable/amd64/ In Release”) was no longer valid.

2. The second (green arrow) indicated that the digital signature had also expired for the Ubuntu-security site (“http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease”).

3. The third error (actually a warning, red arrow), indicated that the key management methodology named“apt-key” is deprecated recommending the ‘use of a more secure method named “trusted.gpg.d”.

Browsing the Internet, I found the solutions that met my needs:

1. The KB2654 on the Veeam website shows how to import a new key. The only real caution is to run the command as the root user (see image 2).

picture 2

2. As shown in ‘image 3, simply request a key update by entering the required identifier at the end of the command in the output of image 1 (green arrow).

image 3

Note 1: apt-key is a comado used to manage a gpg key fob for secure apt. The keychain is stored in the file ‘/etc/apt/trusted.gpg’ (not to be confused with the related but not very interesting /etc/apt/trustdb.gpg). The command apt-key can display the keys in the keyring and add or remove keys.

3. The last line of image 4 shows the command that addresses the security warning. It involves copying the keychain (trusted.gpg) inside the trusted.gpg.d folder.

Picture 4

In the article“Handeling the apt-key deprecation” you will find all the details that illustrate the security benefits of the new approach.

Note 2: Veeam Backup for Salesforce has its own mechanism for checking for new product versions and updates.

The same mechanism later allows the necessary software packages to be downloaded and installed.

I remember that these are product updates, not operating system updates.

Veeam CDP – Manual Upgrade

In my lab, the Disaster Recovery site consists of a single ESX 7.01 host.

It is managed by a virtual vCenter (called vCenter-DR ), which relates exclusively to the hardware resources made available by the ESX 7.01 host itself.

Last month Veeam Software released the Veeam Backup & Replication 11A update.

Among the various improvements introduced, my attention was focused on the new drivers (called I / O filters ) of the CDP component.

If in the main cluster, the upgrade was simple, immediate, and painless (given the presence of more hosts under an additional vCenter), a complication related to the hardware architecture was generated for the Disaster Recovery site.

The update failed, as it was impossible to put the ESX 7.01 host in maintenance mode without actually turning off the vCenter-DR that managed it (see image 1).

Picture 1

How was it possible to overcome this obstacle without changing the cluster configuration? (I.e. without adding an additional ESX 7.01 Host)

The procedure I followed was simple and uses the Vmware kb 2008939 ( https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2008939).

It is composed of two main stages:

  1. Copy the Veeam CDP package to the ESX 7.01 host (veecdp-offline-bundle.7.0.0.zip)
  2. Installation of the package through the command “esxcli software vib update -d /yourpath/veecdp-offline-bundle.7.0.0.zip” (see Image 2)

Image 2

At the end of this first phase, it was now sufficient to repeat the standard update procedure (see images 3,4, and 5).

Picture 3

 

Picture 4

 

Picture 5

The check that guarantees that the procedure followed is correct is to create a CDP Replication Job, wait for it to finish without errors and for the failover procedure to be started.

Note 1: The I / O filters update procedure is available in the manual on the following page: (https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backup/vsphere/cdp_io_filter_remove.html?ver=110).

Note 2: Before proceeding it is mandatory to open a support ticket to Veeam( my.veeam.com)

See you soon