5 0 0:Restore Assistant

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Icon archived docs.png This is documentation for SEP sesam version 5.0.0 Jaglion.
This is not the latest version of SEP sesam documentation and, as such, does not provide information on features introduced in the latest release. For more information on SEP sesam releases, see SEP sesam Release Versions. For the latest documentation, check SEP sesam documentation.


Overview


There are two ways to restore your data in SEP sesam: via GUI restore or via the web interface Restore Assistant. Although most options are the same in both restore interfaces, the web Restore Assistant is more intuitive and offers additional advanced options thus making it easy to restore your data.

The enhanced and redesigned Restore Assistant supports new task types and features advanced restore options. It also provides simple and flexible single file restore (SFR) for almost all VMs (except Proxmox VE) if you have the appropriate permissions. For more details on SFR, see Web Single File Restore for Virtual Machines.

Additional task types are supported with SEP sesam v. 5.0.0 Jaglion V2: NetIQ/Micro Focus eDirectory, Micro Focus iFolder, PostgreSQL and MySQL. You can perform a regular restore or write your backups to dump files (equivalent to the GUI option Write saveset into file). This actually restores the data to a single file rather than to its original location.

Authentication required

Only authenticated users who have been granted the appropriate permissions can access Restore Assistant and restore their data. These permissions are defined according to the user type. For details, see User Roles and Permissions.

Restoring encrypted backups

You can perform an online restore of data from password-protected encrypted backups. If you restore encrypted data with a password stored in the SEP sesam database, the password is automatically used for decryption during the restore. If the password is not stored in the database, you will be prompted to enter it online. In the latter case, if you do not know the password, you cannot restore an encrypted backup (it will remain locked).

Simple and advanced web restore

The Restore Assistant provides simple and advanced online restore features. Switching between simple and advanced mode is version-dependent, see Setting UI mode, and related to user permissions. The operations and options available after logging in may differ depending on the user type. For details, see User Roles and Permissions.

Restore features

Restore Assistant provides the following features:

  • You can restore:
    • Data from regular Path backups, NDMP and NSS file system Path backups.
    • Email from Kopano, Dovecot IMAP, Courier and Cyrus backups.
    • Micro Focus GroupWise, HCL Domino, MS Exchange, and MS SQL backups; for the latter two, special procedure is required. See Web Exchange Restore and Web MS SQL Restore.
    • Virtual machine backups for all supported virtual environments (VMware, Hyper-V, RHV, OLVM, Citrix Hypervisor, KVM/QEMU, OpenNebula, Proxmox VE, and Nutanix AHV).
    • Single files from almost all VMs (except Proxmox VE): VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Hypervisor, KVM/QEMU, Nutanix AHV, Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager (OLVM), Red Hat Virtualization (RHV), and OpenNebula. For details, see Web Single File Restore for Virtual Machines.
  • VMware sandbox restore provides improved functionality and usability of the recovery options, i.e. the use of run and execution commands of the VMware guest tools. See VMware Sandbox Restore.
  • With the flexibility to switch between simple and advanced restore modes, experienced users can fine-tune their restore.

Accessing the Restore Assistant

You can access the restore assisstant in one of the following ways:

  • via the GUI: by clicking the Restore Assistant icon in the toolbar or from Activities -> Restore Assistant
  • from SEP sesam Web UI: left menu -> Restore Assistant
  • or by entering the following address in the browser bar: http://[sesamserver]:11401/sep/ui/restore/.
Information sign.png Note
  • If you cannot access the web Restore Assistant, check if you have received the appropriate permissions for online restore.
  • The operations and options available after logging in may differ depending on the user type. Other Web UI display restrictions may depend on the custom roles with specific permissions and the UI mode.
    For details, see About Authentication and Authorization and User Roles and Permissions.

Setting UI mode

You can easily switch from simple to advanced restore mode to refine the restore with additional options. Simple restore mode is enabled by default. Note that the simple restore options cover the most common restore cases and are the recommended method for performing a restore. The advanced options should only be used by experienced users.

To switch from simple to advanced restore mode, enable the Advanced View option in the lower left corner.

Restore assistant restore mode.jpg

SEP Tip.png Tip
In the upper menu you can change the display language (German or English). The Monitoring, Web UI, Help and Account icons (in the upper right corner) allow you to quickly check the status of all restore jobs (Monitoring -> Restores), access the SEP sesam Web UI and online help, and log in and out via Restore Assistant.

Online restore in simple UI mode

The available restore options in simple mode cover the most common restore cases and are the recommended method for performing a restore. The restore procedure includes selecting the savesets to restore, the restore target, etc., and provides a step-by-step restore assistant depending on the type of data to restore. Note that for more experienced users, some additional restore options are available in advanced restore mode. For details, see Online restore in advanced UI mode.

Depending on the type of data, different procedures can be used for restore:

Restoring path, mail, HCL Domino, and Micro Focus Groupwise backups

The procedures for restoring path, HCL Domino, Micro Focus Groupwise, and mail (Kopano Groupware, Dovecot IMAP, Courier, and Cyrus) backups are almost identical, but some options (such as the Execution options) may vary depending on the task type selected. Note that a separate procedure applies for restoring MS Exchange and MS SQL, which is described in the articles Web Exchange Restore and Web MS SQL Restore.

  1. Open Restore Assistant in the browser.
  2. In the Start window, select appropriate task type: Files and directories, Micro Focus GroupWise, HCL Domino, Kopano Groupware, Dovecot IMAP, Courier, or Cyrus. Select the appropriate restore type and click Next.
  3. Restore assistant restore type Jaglion.jpg
  4. In the Client window, select your client. You can filter clients by name, location, or operating system. Click Next.
  5. Restore assistant client Jaglion.jpg
  6. In the Task window, select your backup task from the Task selection. A backup task defines the source data that was backed up by the client.
  7. SEP Tip.png Tip
    You can search for a file or directory by entering your search term in the Search for files or directories in all backups field.

    Under Backup selection, select the exact backup version you want to restore. You can use the calendar function in the upper right corner to set a date range for the displayed backups.
    Then select (in the lower right corner) whether you want to perform a selective or complete restore and click Next. Note that an additional step is required for a selective restore. For a complete restore, you are immediately taken to step 6 (Target tab).

    Restore assistant task Jaglion.jpg

  8. If you are performing a selective restore, select a single saveset in the Files window and click Next.
  9. The options in the Target window differ slightly depending on whether you want to restore from a path, GroupWise, HCL Domino backups, or from email backups.
  10. Restore from path, GroupWise or HCL Domino backups
    1. Select the target client for the restore.
    2. Restore assistant select target Jaglion.jpg
    3. In most cases, the Restore to original target path option is enabled by default to restore the files to the original location. Deselect this option if you want to restore your data to a new restore destination and specify a new target path; you can type or browse the path where you want to restore your data.
    4. Restore assistant target path Jaglion.jpg
    5. Under the Execution options, you can set additional restore options:
    6. Restore assistant execution options Jaglion.jpg
      Do not overwrite existing items: Files are only restored if they do not already exist on the target system.
      Create new version: Restore files under a new name.
      Overwrite existing items: If the data exists on the target server, it is replaced with the restored version.
    7. Decide how you want to restore your data (keep the original tree structure or flat):
    8. Keep original tree structure: When restoring to the original location, the Keep original tree structure option is selected by default. The directory structure of the restored files is the same as the original directory structure of the backed up data.
      Restore all items flat in the selected target directory: The backup is simply restored to a file without recreating the directory structure.
      Click Next.
    9. In the Finish window, review the summary of your restore task (restore type (based on task type, client, backup level, restore options) and click Start restore.
    10. Restore assistant finish Jaglion.jpg

    Kopano Groupware, Dovecot IMAP, Courier, or Cyrus mail restore

    Information sign.png Note
    You can also restore MS Exchange mailbox databases using SEP sesam Exchange Recovery Pro in the Restore Assistant, but the procedure is different from the mail restore procedure described below. For details, see Web Exchange Restore.
    1. Check the target client for the restore.
    2. Restore assistant select target Kopano Beefalo.jpg
    3. Under the Target mail folder and user, enter a new mail user (the option Change user to ) and/or folder (Change folder to option) if you want to restore mail(s) to a different user mailbox or folder. Skip this step to restore mails to the original location (default).
    4. Restore assistant new target Kopano Beefalo.jpg
    5. Under the Execution options, you can specify additional restore options:
    6. Do not overwrite existing folders and mails: Folders and mails are only restored if they do not already exist on the target system.
      Overwrite existing folders and mails: If the data exists on the target server, it will be replaced with the restored version.
      Information sign.png Note
      The Auto recover after restore option required for Kopano restores is enabled by default and cannot be changed.

      Click Next.
      Restore assistant execution options Kopano Jaglion.jpg

  11. In the Finish window, review the summary of your restore task (restore type (based on task type, client, backup level, restore options) and click Start restore.

For more restore options in advanced UI mode, see Restoring path, mail, HCL Domino, and Micro Focus Groupwise backups in advanced UI mode.

Restoring virtual machines

If you want to restore a virtual machine (VM), you can choose what to restore from a list of VM types. The restore procedure in simple mode is almost identical for all VM types, except that additional options are available for some VM types, notably VMware with an additional step.

Information sign.png Note
The advanced restore options such as VMware instant recovery, VMware sandbox restore, VM single file restore, writing backups to the file system, etc. are only available in advanced UI mode.
  1. Open the Restore Assistant in the browser.
  2. In the startup window, select your target restore type: VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Hypervisor, KVM/QEMU, Proxmox VE, Red Hat Virtualization (RHV), OpenNebula, or Nutanix-AHV. In our example, the procedure for VMware is shown with an additional step in the Files window. Click Next.
  3. Restore assistant VM restore type Jaglion.jpg
  4. In the Virtual Machine window, under Selection of the server, select your target server.
  5. Then, under Selection of the virtual machine select the VM you want to restore. You can filter VMs by name, location, or OS.
    Click Next.
    Restore assistant select VM Jaglion.jpg
  6. In the Task window, under Task selection, select your source task. A backup task defines the source data that was backed up by the client.
  7. Under Backup selection, select the exact backup version you want to restore. You can use the calendar feature in the upper right corner to filter a date range for the displayed backups.
    Click Next. Note that an additional step is required for a VMware restore. For other VMs (Hyper-V, OpenNebula, etc.), you are immediately taken to step 6 (Target window).
    Restore assistant select VM backup Jaglion.jpg
  8. In the Files window (available for VMware VM only), under the Virtual disk (VMDK) selection enable or disable the target VM disk(s) and/or Configuration you want to restore.
  9. Click Next.
    Restore assistant select VM disk Jaglion.jpg
  10. In the Target window, under the Target selection select your target environment for restore. You can use the drop-down list to check virtual machines.
  11. Then set additional restore options under the Execution options:
    Do not overwrite an existing virtual machine: The VM is restored only if it does not already exist on the target system.
    Restore an existing virtual machine with a new name: The VM is restored with a new name, MAC address and UUID.
    Overwrite an existing virtual machine: If the VM exists on the target server, it will be replaced with the restored version. The original MAC address and UUID of the VM are preserved.
    (Do not) start virtual machine after restore: You can also define if you want to start a virtual machine after restore or not.
    Click Next.
    VMware-RA VM target Jaglion.jpg
  12. Modify or set additional restore options under the Virtualization restore options:
  13. Data mover: Select the data mover.
    Recovery options: Specify whether or not to start the VM after restore.
    Under Target options of the virtual machine from the drop-down lists select ESX server and Datastore.
    Click Next.
    VMware-RA VM options Jaglion.jpg
  14. In the last step, check the summary of your restore task (restore type (based on task type, selected backup, its date and details, restore options, etc.) and click Start restore.
  15. VMware-RA VM finish Jaglion.jpg

Additional VM restore options are available in advanced UI mode, see Restoring VMs in advanced UI mode.

Online restore in advanced UI mode

For more experienced users, some additional restore options are available in advanced UI mode. In the startup window, you can select additional restore types, such as restoring backups and VMs to the file system, writing backups and VMs to dump files, restoring a single file from a VM, performing VMware sandbox restore, etc. An additional Options tab is also available for all task types.

Restore assistant advanced start Jaglion.jpg

As with the options in simple mode, the advanced options differ depending on the type of restore:

Restoring path, mail, HCL Domino, and Micro Focus Groupwise backups in advanced UI mode

The following additional restore options may be available when you restore path, mail, HCL Domino, and Micro Focus Groupwise backups in advanced UI mode:

Information sign.png Note
Restoring MS Exchange and MS SQL backups requires a special procedure that is described in the Web Exchange Restore and Web MS SQL Restore articles.
  • In the Start window, you can restore backups to the file system or write backups to dump files.
  • If you want to restore backups to the file system (this corresponds to the GUI option As path backup and allows you to restore your data directly to the file system without requiring any additional action), follow the procedure described in the above section Restoring path, mail, HCL Domino, and Micro Focus Groupwise backups. Note that the procedures are very similar, but some options may not be available (e.g., the Client window). If you want to write your backups to dump files (this corresponds to the GUI option Write saveset into file and restores the data to a single file rather than to its original location), you must specify a restore destination path in the Target window (by browsing or typing the path). Optionally, you can change the name of the dump file. If the dump file name is not specified, it is automatically generated. For step-by-step procedure, see MS SQL example Restoring MS SQL databases by writing backups to dump files.
    Restore assistant dump file Jaglion.jpg
  • Additional execution options are available when restoring Path and MS SQL backups:
    • Overwrite existing items with newer items from backup: If the data exists on the target server, it is replaced with newer items from the backup.
    • Overwrite existing items with older items from backup: If the data exists on the target server, it is replaced with older items from the backup.
    • RA advanced execution options Jaglion.jpg
  • The Options tab (available for all task types) allows you to set the following options:
  • At Optional data source selection, you can select your preferred media pool, drive, used media|barcode, and interface from the drop-down lists.
    Restore assistant options optional data Jaglion.jpg
    The Include/Exclude Filter tab allows you to specify which files or directories you want to include or exclude from the restore, for example, enter *.docx in the appropriate filter to include or exclude all MS Word *.docx files from the restore. You can use the include or exclude filter on the client side or the exclude filter on the server side. The latter is not available for complete restores. Advanced options filter Jaglion.jpg
    Under the Advanced restore options, you can further refine your restore:
    • Use the Log, Special Options tab to change the log level for your specific restore, see Setting Log Level. You can specify additional commands that may be useful for specific options of the sbc command. For details about the commands, see SBC CLI.
    • Advanced options log Jaglion.jpg
    • Use the Retention, Generation, Pre/Post tab if you want to specify the retention period parameter for the restore (how long (in days) the restore task is kept), enable/disable a generation restore, and specify whether to apply a pre- or post-script to the restore task, see Pre/Post options.
    • Advanced options retention Jaglion.jpg

Restoring virtual machines in advanced UI mode

If you enable advanced UI mode, you can set additional restore options. Advanced mode is recommended only for experienced users, as the options in the default simple mode are sufficient for most recovery cases. The following additional options are available in advanced UI mode.

  • In the Start window, you can restore virtual machines to a file system, write virtual machines to dump files, perform VM single file restore, VMware instant recovery, or VMware sandbox restore:
  • In the Options window, additional restore options are available:
    • In the case of a VMware restore, under Virtualization restore options, you can select the desired transport mode from the list of available transport modes (HOTADD, SAN, NBD, or NBDSSL); click the transport mode that appears and reorder the modes to suit your needs.
    • VMs RA virtualization options Jaglion.jpg
    • Under Target options of the virtual machine you can specify additional target options, such as network interface(s), folder, storage repository, etc. Note that the available target options depend on the selected task type (VMware, Citrix, Hyper-V, etc.).
    • VMs RA target options Jaglion.jpg
    • You can modify the Recovery options: By clicking the Edit button (in the upper right corner), you can enable/disable different recovery actions: conf, remove, start, etc., and perform VM-related checks: VM power state, VM guest tools state and VM network IP address.
    • VMs recovery options Jaglion.jpg
      To add your custom action or your check, select the template from the Actions or Checks drop-down lists or manually enter your action/check commands. To activate your custom action/check, click Save. You can easily remove any action/check by clicking the recycle bin icon. VMs recovery options modify Jaglion.jpg
    • Under the Optional data source selection, you can select your preferred media pool, drive, used media|barcode, and interface from the drop-down lists.
    • VM advanced options optional data Jaglion.jpg
    • An additional set of options is available under the Advanced restore options: You can specify the retention period parameter for the restore (how long (in days) the restore task will be kept), enable/disable a generation restore, and decide whether apply a pre- or post script to the restore task, see Pre/Post options.
      In the case of a VMware restore, you can also specify the transport hierarchy (if you have not previously changed the transport mode under Virtualization restore options); see Selecting the best VMware transport mode for your environment for details.
    • VMs advanced restore options Jaglion.jpg

Monitoring restores

You can view the status of your restore jobs by clicking the monitoring icon (second icon in the upper right corner), via SEP sesam Web UI (Monitoring -> Restores) or SEP sesam GUI (Main Selection -> Job State -> Restores). For details, see Monitoring and Reporting.


See also

Web Single File Restore for Virtual MachinesWeb Exchange RestoreWeb MS SQL RestoreVMware Sandbox RestoreVMware Instant RecoveryAbout RestoreSEP sesam Web UIMonitoring and ReportingAbout Authentication and Authorization

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