CTERA Portal Datacenter Edition · PDF fileCTERA Portal Datacenter Edition CTERA Portal Seeding Guide 3 When an end user has a lot of information to back up, the initial backup to

CTERA Portal Seeding Guide

CTERA Portal Datacenter Edition

May 2013 Version 3.2

CTERA Portal Datacenter Edition CTERA Portal Seeding Guide 2

This document explains how to import and export customer's data to and from the CTERA

Portal.

1 Introduction


When an end user has a lot of information to back up, the initial backup to the cloud can take

a long time. You can speed up initial backup for your customers by offering a backup seeding

service. Customers who are subscribed to this service can store the files they want to include

in the initial backup on a selected hard drive called a seeding hard drive, and then deliver the

seeding hard drive to you, the CTERA Portal owner.

Tip

The seeding hard drive can optionally be encrypted using strong encryption (AES-256 + RSA) so even if the drive is lost, there is very little risk to the customer’s sensitive information while in transit.

You then perform backup seeding, that is, you create the customer's initial backup by

importing folders directly from the hard drive you received.

The CTERA Portal includes a special utility for performing backup seeding over the NFS

protocol. The import is performed by attaching the seeding hard drive to a seeding station,

which is a CTERA Cloud Attached Storage appliance that is connected to the CTERA Portal's

LAN.

Tip

All CTERA Cloud Attached Storage appliance models are supported.

To import folders over NFS

1 Prepare for seeding.

See Preparing for Seeding (page 4).

Tip

You only need to perform this step once, in order to prepare the seeding station and the seeding hard drive(s).

2 Perform seeding at the customer premises.

See Performing Seeding at the Customer Premises (page 13).

3 Perform seeding import at the CTERA Portal Datacenter.

See Performing Seeding Import at the CTERA Portal Datacenter (page 14).

2 Importing Folders Over NFS


4 CTERA Portal Datacenter Edition CTERA Portal Seeding Guide

Preparing for Seeding

You only need to perform this step once, in order to prepare the seeding station and the

seeding hard drive(s).

To prepare for seeding

1 Connect the seeding station to the CTERA Portal's LAN.

2 Log in to the seeding station's Web interface.

3 Disable autosharing, by doing the following:

a In the Configuration tab's navigation pane, click Share > Shares.

The Share > Shares page appears.

b Click Autosharing.

Importing Folders Over NFS 2


The External Volume Autosharing dialog box opens.

c Clear the Automatically share External volumes with these permissions check box.

d Click Finish.

4 Take the seeding hard drive and connect it to the seeding station.

5 Format the seeding hard drive, by doing the following:

a In the Configuration tab's navigation pane, click Storage > Arrays or Storage >

Volumes.

The relevant page appears.

b Click Storage Setup Wizard.

The Easy Storage Setup Wizard opens, displaying the Easy Storage Setup dialog box.

c Click Format next to the seeding hard drive.

A confirmation message appears.



d Click Yes.

The drive is formatted, and all of its contents are erased.

e Click Next.

The Proposed Actions dialog box appears describing the changes.

f Click Next.

The Wizard Completed screen appears.

g Click Finish.

6 Rename the new volume to "seeding", by doing the following:

a In the Configuration tab's navigation pane, click Storage > Volumes.



The Storage > Volumes page appears.

b Click on the new volume's name.

The Logical Volume Wizard opens, displaying the Specify Volume Details dialog box.

c Click Next.



The Name this Logical Volume dialog box appears.

d In the Volume Name field, type "seeding".

e Click Next.


f Click Finish.

7 Create a new NFS-enabled share named "seeding" in the root of the "seeding" volume, by

doing the following:





b Click New Share.

The Network Share Wizard opens, displaying the Select a Folder to Share dialog box

appears.

c Select the "seeding" folder.

d Click Next.



The Specify the Network Share Name dialog box appears.

e In the Network Share Name field, type "seeding".

f Click Next.

The Sharing Protocols dialog box appears.

g Click Next.



The NFS (UNIX File Sharing) dialog box appears.

h Select the Enable NFS access check box.

i Add the CTERA Portal server's IP addresses as NFS clients, by doing the following:

1 Click New.

A row appears in the table.

2 Click in the Host column and type the IP address.

3 Click in the Netmask column and edit the netmask.

4 Click in the Permission column and select the permitted level of access to the

network share via NFS.

j Click Next.



The Configure Permissions dialog box appears.

k Click Next.


l Click Finish.

The network share is added.

8 Ship the seeding hard drive to the customer premises.



Performing Seeding at the Customer Premises

To perform seeding at the customer premises

1 Connect the seeding hard drive to the source appliance.

2 Select the files and folders you want to include in the initial backup.

Refer to the appliance User Guide, "Selecting Files and Folders for Cloud Backup".

These files and folders will be written to the seeding drive.

3 Log in to the appliance's Web interface.

4 In the Configuration tab's navigation pane, click Cloud Backup > Control Panel.

The Control Panel page appears.

5 Click Seeding.



The Select seeding destination dialog box appears.

6 Choose the "seeding" volume.

7 To encrypt the seeding drive, select the Use encryption check box.

8 Click Finish.


9 Click Yes.

The selected files and folders are written to the seeding drive.

Performing Seeding Import at the CTERA Portal Datacenter

To perform seeding import at the CTERA Portal Datacenter

1 Connect the seeding drive to the seeding station.

2 In the CTERA Portal server command line, enter the following command:

telnet localhost

3 Enter the following command:

login admin admin username

Where username is your CTERA Portal global administrator user name.

You are prompted for your password.

4 Enter your password.




import-nfs-folder /portals/portal-name seeding-station

Where:

portal-name is the name of the virtual portal on which the desired backup folder is

located.

seeding-station is the IP address or DNS name of the seeding station.

Tip

This command can also be used in the following format, with two optional parameters: import-nfs-folder /portals/portal-name seeding-station [share-path] [target-backup-folder] Where:

share-path is the path to the "seeding" share. Its default value is

"/shares/seeding".

target-backup-folder is the name of the folder to which the seeding data should be

imported, in the following format:

/portals/portal-name/backups/backup-folder-name

Where portal-name is the name of the virtual portal on which the desired backup

folder is located, and backup-folder-name is the name of the desired backup folder.

This parameter's default value is the backup folder of the appliance on which

seeding export was performed.

Seeding import starts.

If the backup folder is passphrase protected, you are prompted for the passphrase.

Once import is complete, the appliance can perform initial cloud backup.


You can perform large restore operations by exporting folders from the CTERA Portal onto a

seeding hard drive, and delivering it to the customer.

To export folders

1 Prepare for export.

See Preparing for Export (page 16).

Tip

You only need to perform this step once, in order to prepare the seeding hard drive.

2 Export the folders to the seeding hard drive at the CTERA Portal Datacenter.

See Exporting Folders from the CTERA Portal Datacenter (page 24).

3 Import the exported folders to the CTERA appliance at the customer premises.

See Importing Folders at the Customer's Premises (page 26).

Preparing for Export

You only need to perform this step once, in order to prepare the seeding hard drive.

The seeding hard drive must be a USB drive.

To prepare for export

1 Connect the seeding hard drive to the seeding station.

2 Delete any existing volumes on the seeding hard drive, by doing the following for each

volume:


3 Exporting Folders

Exporting Folders 3



b Select the desired volume and click Delete.


c Click Yes.

The volume is deleted.

3 Add a new encrypted volume, by doing the following:



b Click New.

3 Exporting Folders


The Logical Volume Wizard opens, displaying the Specify Volume Details dialog box.

c In the Storage Device field, select the attached seeding hard drive.

d Click Next.

The Volume Encryption dialog box appears.

e Select the Make this volume encrypted check box.

f In the Passphrase and Re-type passphrase fields, type the passphrase you want to

use for accessing the volume.

The Passphrase Strength field displays the passphrase's strength.

g Copy the passphrase down.

Exporting Folders 3


Warning

It is important to keep this passphrase in a safe place, as there is no way of retrieving it if you lose it. If you reset your appliance to its default settings, you cannot access the volume without this passphrase.

h Click Next.

The Name this Logical Volume dialog box appears.

i In the Volume Name field, type "seeding" or the name of the customer.

j Click Next.


k Click Finish.

4 Add a new share on the seeding volume, by doing the following:


3 Exporting Folders



b Click New Share.

The Network Share Wizard opens, displaying the Select a Folder to Share dialog box

appears.

c Add a folder on which to create the network share, by doing the following:

1 Select the seeding volume.

2 Click New Folder.

Exporting Folders 3


The Create a New Folder dialog box opens.

3 In the Folder Name field, type a name for the folder.

4 Click Save.

The new folder appears in the Select a folder to Share dialog box.

d Click Next.

The Specify the Network Share Name dialog box appears.

e In the Network Share Name field, type a name for the share, for example

"seeding-share".

f (Optional) In the Comment field, type a description of the network share.

g Click Next.

3 Exporting Folders


The Sharing Protocols dialog box appears.

h Click Next.

The NFS (UNIX File Sharing) dialog box appears.

i Select the Enable NFS Access check box.

j Copy down the NFS mount path for the network share, which is specified at the top of

the dialog box.

k Click Next.

Exporting Folders 3


The Configure Permissions dialog box appears.

l Click Next.


m Click Finish.

The network share is added.

3 Exporting Folders


Exporting Folders from the CTERA Portal Datacenter

To export folders

1 If the seeding hard drive is not connected to the seeding station, connect it now.

2 Connect to the CTERA Portal via SSH.

3 Mount the seeding hard drive's network share with NFS, by running the following

commands:

mkdir seeding-drive-path

mount seeding-share-path seeding-drive-path

4 Where:

seeding-share-path is the NFS mount path for the seeding share.

seeding-drive-path is the path to the seeding hard drive.

5 In the CTERA Portal server command line, enter the following command:

telnet localhost


login admin admin username

Where username is your CTERA Portal global administrator user name.

You are prompted for your password.

7 Enter your password.

8 To export a snapshot of the folder other than the current one, do the following:

a Enter the following command:

snapshot list /portals/portal-name/backups/folder-name

Where:

portal-name is the name of the virtual portal on which the desired backup folder

is located.

folder-name is the name of the backup folder for which you want to view a list of

snapshots.

A list of folder snapshots appears, for example:

1351722386000 - 01.11.2012 12-26-26 AM

1351724574000 - 01.11.2012 1-02-54 AM

1351796267000 - 01.11.2012 8-57-47 PM

Exporting Folders 3


1351864966000 - 02.11.2012 4-02-46 PM

b Take note of the ID of the snapshot you want to export.

The snapshot ID is the long number at the beginning of each row.


export-folder /portals/portal-name/backups/folder-name /seeding-drive-path

[snapshot-ID]

Where:

portal-name is the name of the virtual portal on which the desired backup folder is

located.

folder-name is the name of the backup folder you want to export.

seeding-drive-path is the path to the seeding hard drive.

snapshot-ID is the ID of the snapshot you want to export. If you do not include this

parameter, the current snapshot will be exported.

If the selected backup folder is passphrase protected, you are prompted for the

passphrase.

The backup folder is exported to the seeding hard drive.

10 Remove the seeding hard drive from the seeding station, by doing the following:

a In the seeding station's Main > Dashboard page, in the Hard Disk Drives area, click on

the seeding hard drive.

The Drive Status window appears, displaying the Summary tab.

b Click Remove.

3 Exporting Folders



c Click Yes.

The disk is unmounted.

d Disconnect the seeding hard drive from the seeding station.

Importing Folders at the Customer's Premises

To import a folder at the customer's premises

1 Connect the seeding hard drive to the customer's CTERA appliance.

You are prompted for the seeding volume's passphrase.

2 Enter the seeding volume's passphrase.

3 In the File Manager, copy the data from the seeding hard drive to the appropriate shares

on the CTERA appliance.

Documents

CTERA Portal Datacenter Edition · PDF fileCTERA Portal Datacenter Edition CTERA Portal Seeding Guide 3 When an end user has a lot of information to back up, the initial backup to