Release Notes 5.0.0 Jaglion V2

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SEP sesam 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2

Updated: June 23, 2022

  • The upcoming SEP sesam version 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2 is a feature, improvement, and bug fix release. Download 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2 from SEP Download Center.
  • Together with the release of Jaglion V2 we will release SP1. Service Pack 1 v. 5.0.0.x is an improvement and bug fix release. Download 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2.
Information sign.png Note
  • You must install 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2 before you install SP1.
  • SP1 installation is highly recommended as it includes various performance, stability, and other key customer fixes not available in the initial release of 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2.

This article contains important information about the two latest releases, Jaglion V2 and Service Pack 1 (SP1). It describes new features and new supported systems in Jaglion V2, installation, upgrades, and requirements, and includes a list of fixes included in Jaglion V2 and SP1.


The new SEP sesam version 5.0.0 Jaglion V2 introduces SiS – SEP Immutable Storage, backup to Azure, powerful Si3 NG now with encryption, and some UI improvements.

What's new

Fighting ransomware with SEP sesam Immutable Storage – SiS
SiS – SEP Immutable Storage

SEP Immutable Storage or SiS is a file storage feature resistant to ransomware attacks, based on Si3 NG on Linux. Even with full admin access to the SEP sesam backup server, attackers cannot delete, modify, or encrypt data stored on SiS. See more.

Backup to Azure

Backup your data directly to Azure Blob storage and restore the items you want directly from there with Si3 NG. See more.

Encrypting Si3 NG Deduplication Store

Si3 NG encryption protects your data from unauthorized access and helps ensure compliance. See more.

Powerful Deduplication Store for Different Storage Locations

Si3 NG boasts excellent performance and support for different storage locations. It requires a valid license. See more.

SEP sesam Community Edition

SEP sesam now offers a community edition. For more information, please contact SEP sesam sales.

Enhancements

Backup
  • Enforced FULL level backup if the backup was successful (on the client), but errors occurred during post-processing on the server side.
  • The new RHEV option -a use_virtioscsi allows disk attachment to data mover via bus type VIRTIO_SCSI, default is VIRTIO.
Restore
  • RHEV restore with overwrite now possible.
  • Fixed failed Oracle restore on older systems in combination with newer SEP sesam Server version.
Restore Assistant (web)
  • Additional task types are supported: 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). For more information, see Restore Assistant.
  • Many usability improvements and new options: Restore ACLs only option added, restore task name can be changed, link to install guestfs tools added, improved messages when a backup cannot be mounted, preferred media pool can be selected as a mount option, and improved vSphere VMDK selection with clearer use cases.
Si3 NG
Information sign.png Note
If you are using an old generation Si3 deduplication store with S3, you cannot perform a restore from S3 using the GUI. Therefore you should upgrade from Si3 to Si3 NG deduplication store to enable smooth restore from S3. You can configure a new Si3 NG and an old Si3 in parallel on the same host and replicate from the old Si3 to the Si3 NG store. For details, see Configuring Si3 NG Deduplication Store.
Define № of Si3 NG stores
  • Now you can configure the maximum number of Si3 NG/Si3 deduplication on RDS. Note that this settings is only visible in Advanced UI mode.
  • Improved security for encrypted Si3 NG store. The encryption password is no longer written to the INI file.
  • Corrected check of used space by SEP sesam for Si3 NG stores using S3 or Azure storage backend.
  • See also information on license.
Certificate-based authentication

Now it is possible to also authenticate the users from external authentication sources (LDAP/AD) via a signed certificate (note that a database-based authentication must be enabled). For details, see Configuring Certificate-Based Authentication.

Enhancements in SP1

Regex exclude files and directories
  • You can now use separate excludes for files and directories. If exclude ends with a trailing slash "/$" (e.g. .tmp/$), it is recognized as a regex for directory exclusion. If there is no trailing slash "/" (e.g. .tmp) at the end, it is recognized as a regex for file exclusion. For details, see Exclude with Regular Expressions.
LTO-9
SEP sesam now includes full support for LTO-9 drives. See also Drives.

UI enhancements

While the look of the user interface has not changed significantly, we have made some subtle improvements to enhance the user experience. For example:

UI Modes
We have reduced the number of available UI modes (in the GUI) to two, so they are synchronized with the Web UI. You can select the appropriate UI mode: simple or advanced, under Configuration - > Defaults - > General. (The former advanced GUI mode is now replaced by simple mode, while the former expert mode is replaced by advanced.) See Selecting UI mode.
GUI-displayed UI mode.jpg


Enhanced Drive dialog
When creating a new drive in the New Drive dialog for the drive type "DISK _STORE" new settings are available. This allows you to split channels according to priority and ensure that higher priority jobs get preference. For details on priorities, see Setting Event Priorities.
Drive channels priority.jpg
Select restore interfaces
Restore interfaces
You can select the Restore mode (restore interfaces) that are available for restore and displayed in the context menu. It is recommended to use the web-based Restore Assistant instead of the Legacy restore (deprecated) option, which refers to the GUI restore wizard. See Selecting restore interface.

License

SEP sesam software requires a valid license. For more information, see Licensing.

  • Version 5.0.0.9 introduces a check for the Si3 NG capacity so after an update from version Jaglion (5.0.0.[34]) to a new version the licensed deduplication storage may no longer be sufficient. This only affects customers who are already using Si3 NG deduplication store.
  • This license check does not affect customers with SEP sesam Volume License that does not count the backup storage.
  • License violation leads to 15 days remaining run time, during which the license issue must be fixed in either of two ways:
    1. The capacity of the used Si3 + Si3 NG stores must be fixed (SEP_DeDup_TB)
    2. Contact sales@sep.de and order a replacement license with the correct amount of backup storage TB. Then install it on SEP sesam Server (see Licensing FAQs).

New supported systems and integrations

Windows 11
SEP sesam Server 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2 supports Windows 11. For new supported systems with previous Jaglion version, see Jaglion Release Notes. For a complete list of supported OS and databases, see SEP sesam Support Matrix.
Expanded support for S3 compatible storage
SEP sesam supports S3 as a generic interface based on the new deduplication store Si3 NG. For details on newly supported S3 targets, see SEP sesam Support Matrix – Object Storage.
Debian and Ubuntu supported with HPE StoreOnce Catalyst
For a full list of supported OS for SEP sesam SEP sesam integration with HPE StoreOnce Catalyst, see SEP sesam Support Matrix – HPE StoreOnce Catalyst.

Discontinued systems

No changes. For details on discontinued systems, see Unsupported OS. For a complete list of supported SEP sesam Clients, see SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Installation and upgrades

Information sign.png Note
You always have to update the SEP sesam Server first before updating the client software. For more information on the SEP sesam software updates, see Updating SEP sesam.

SEP sesam Jaglion V2 5.0.0.9 was released on xx June 2022. A direct upgrade from versions 4.4.3.X to version Jaglion V2 5.0.0.9 is supported.
The latest released Jaglion V2 versions are:

  • SEP sesam 5.0.0.9 Linux Tux.gif – released: xx June 2022.
  • SEP sesam 5.0.0.9 Windows Win7.gif – released: xx June 2022.

SEP sesam Jaglion V2 SP1 was released on xx June 2022. You must install 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2 before you install SP1.
The following are SP1 versions:

  • SEP sesam 5.0.0.x Linux Tux.gif – released: xx June 2022.
  • SEP sesam 5.0.0.x Windows Win7.gif – released: xx June 2022.
Tux.gif Linux specific

In order to meet all required dependencies for the SEP sesam Client packages on SLES 15 SP1 or SP2, it may be required to activate the following package modules prior to SEP sesam installation:

Module-Basesystem
Module-Server-Applications
Module-Legacy

These modules are part of the installation DVD; in case no online subscription is available, they can be added via:

zypper ar dvd:/Module-Server-Applications DVD-Server 
zypper ar dvd:/Module-Basesystem DVD-BASE
zypper ar dvd:/Module-Legacy DVD-Legacy 

For details, see Installation on Linux. For a list of supported Linux versions, see the SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Win7.gif Windows specific
Installation
  • When installing SEP sesam Server on Windows, you can now choose to install a PostgreSQL database that is included with the SEP sesam installer (or use the SQLite that does not require a server to be set up and is used with SEP sesam by default). For details, see Installation on Microsoft Windows.
  • Upgrading from SQLite to PostgreSQL is currently not supported, except with the help of SEP support.
  • SEP sesam recommends the use of PostgreSQL for complex enterprise environments with many tasks, high performance expectations (due to PostgreSQL's ability to support multiple concurrent writers and read/write at fast speeds), and security and authentication requirements.

For a list of supported Windows versions, see the SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Upgrade
SEP sesam Server and Client components should be upgraded to the latest version during the upgrade process. This ensures that SEP sesam Clients are fully protected. Customers with a valid license are eligible for a free upgrade of SEP sesam to any new release for the duration of the license. See also Updating SEP sesam and Remote Installation of Windows Clients.

Post update task

Version 5.0.0.x uses the enhanced LIS file format, which increases performance at least 10 times. After updating to version 5.0.0.x, a new full vSphere backup should be performed to allow mounting and attaching VMDKs.

SEP sesam Server requirements

Java

SEP sesam GUI is based on Java and requires a Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

  • SEP sesam now supports Java 17.
  • 5.0.0.9 Jaglion V2 is the last version of SEP sesam that supports Java 1.8. All later versions, including SEP sesam Server 5.0.0.x (SP1), requires at least Java 11. The required Java version depends on the SEP sesam version.

Previous release

Fixes: SEP sesam Server 5.0.0.x Jaglion V2 SP1

Fixed with 5.0.0.x Jaglion V2 SP1:
Warning sign.pngSEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – Concurrent backups of Nutanix VMs lead to backup of wrong VM snapshot disks
  • Multiple backups result in backing up incorrect Nutanix VM snapshot disks because the same UUID was used to create the VM snapshot. Unique client identifier to request for Nutanix UUID is missing.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3-5.0.0.9 – Problems with Si3 NG on S3

⇒ Several issues with Si3 NG on S3 have been fixed, upgrade to SP1 is highly recommended.

SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – OVF file is not detected as missing during vSphere backup
  • When performing a vSphere backup, the .ovf and other configuration files needed for the restore are missing even though the backup is successful. The restore cannot be performed without the .ovf file.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – The GUI shows an incorrect maintenance expiration message instead of the more important license expiration message
  • The license check sends a maintenance expired notification instead of license expiration. This can cause the license to expire without being notified and consequently not allowing backup jobs to be executed.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – The shown content for the generation SFR of vSphere might be incomplete
  • Generation single file restore (SFR) of vSphere displays the contents of the FULL backup when the base backup has been done via image. Thus, only the FULL backup displays the correct content, but when you run FULL and INC, only the content of FULL is displayed.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.4-5.0.0.9 – If two shared drives are used for backup, another backup on the already free drive does not start
  • The backup on the already free shared drive will not be started once the first backup started on this shared drive is finished. The second drive remains in the pending state, even if the backup on the first drive is completed.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.4-5.0.0.9 – Jobs can get stuck in the queue even though the drive resources are free
  • Jobs get stuck in the pending queue and are not processed or are processed very late even though the drive resources are available. This problem is caused by the queue manager due to an incorrect priority check.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – The sesam bootstrap DB export does not contain information about the migrated sesam backup
  • If a SEP sesam backup is performed and then migrated, the bootstrap DB export lacks the information that the backup was migrated. This only allows a disaster recovery from the original backup, but not from the migrated backup.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – The incorrect operation of Cancel Current Running Activities stops all running sm_break_tasks
  • The Cancel Current Running Activities function updates the status of all tasks that are still running with a slight delay and causes all sm_break_tasks that are running at the same time to stop. Since sm_break_tasks are stopped upon the regular check of the status of the result entry, this results in the running processes not being stopped. Consequently, such jobs can no longer be detected via results.state and can only be stopped manually.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – Backup of ACLs on a CIFS share fails with ERROR_PRIVILEGE_NOT_HELD (1314)
  • Backups of ACLs over a CIFS share with local and domain admin fail due to access restrictions. The following error occurs:ERROR_PRIVILEGE_NOT_HELD (1314) A required privilege is not held by the client.
SEP sesam v. 4.4.3-5.0.0.9 – Backup of virtual machines in subdirectories fails
  • If the virtual machines on the data store are located in a subfolder, the VM backup fails because SEP sesam cannot export the .ovf file (the .ovf file is not found in the specified directory).
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – UTF-8 conversion could not be executed, wcstombs returned an error Wide character could not be converted (84)
  • Microsoft Windows Unicode with 4 bytes could not be converted on Linux RDS.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – Saveset is not removed from a data store when immediate delete is selected in the GUI
  • After performing a backup to a data store, if you attempt to delete a saveset in the GUI data store properties -> tab Savesets -> select a saveset and right click Delete without selecting the option Delay deletion to next purge, the saveset is deleted from DB, but not from the filesystem. Note that deleting the backup works correctly.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – Deactivated VM tasks are not excluded from the license count
  • After deactivating VM tasks that exceed the number of allowed tasks defined by the license, a license violation still occurs.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – The status of a data store is incorrectly displayed as OK when RDS is unreachable
  • The status of a data store shows the error message CURL failed with error code: Timeout was reached because the server is unreachable. However, the status check of the datastore is displayed as OK.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – After a restore of the child task that ended with a warning, the parent restore task is still active
  • After a restore of the child task that ended with a warning, sm_break fails to terminate the parent restore task. This happens because the process ended, but the state was still active.
SEP sesam v. 4.4.3.86-5.0.0.9 – DB:results.stop_time written in wrong format
  • Incorrect format for DB:results.stop_time . E.g., the date and time 2022-06-06 11:22:44 is incorrectly converted to 20220606112244129, where it should be displayed as month-day-year hour-minute-second with a hyphen as a separator.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – When three backup filters are applied in GUI -> Monitoring -> Last Backup State, an exception occurs
  • When three filters are applied in GUI Monitoring -> Last Backup State, an exception with 'syntax error at or near "AND"' occurs
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.9 – Filters Migration or Replication in GUI -> Monitoring -> Last Backup State do not work
  • Since migrations and replications are no longer represented in the DB:results table, the Migration and Replication filters have no effect.


Known issues and limitations

Information sign.png Note
Antivirus programs may disrupt network communication and cause SEP sesam processes, such as backup and replication, to fail. One program that is known to cause SEP sesam processes to terminate is Sophos Firewall with IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) enabled. Make sure that there are no antivirus, firewall, IDS or IPS programs preventing interaction with SEP sesam.

5.0.0.x Jaglion V2 and SP1 known issues:

Severity: MAJOR

SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.2-5.0.0.9 – Linux backup silently skips a directory if .nosbc file is part of backup source
  • (Linux only) When backing up a backup source that contains one or more .nosbc files, a directory is silently skipped, but the backup is marked as successful. For example, if there is a backup source /data that contains /data/ds1/.nosbc, /data/ds1/pages/ and /data/ds1/trash/, then the pages/ or trash/ directories are not backed up. If a backup source does not contain a .nosbc file, all files are backed up successfully.
Workaround: Since sbc incorrectly excludes a directory from backup if a file .nosbc is part of the backup source, use the -o noexcl switch in the backup options (backup task properties, tab Options -> Backup options) when backing up a backup source with a .nosbc file.
Resolution: SEP is working on this issue and will provide a fix as soon as possible.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3-5.0.0.9 – Hyper-V restore of Hyper-V RCT backup fails with error
  • When restoring a Hyper-V VM from a Hyper-V VM RTC backup under a new VM name, the restore fails with an error: Failed to read metadata file.
Resolution: SEP is working on this issue and will provide a fix as soon as possible.

Severity: NORMAL

SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3-5.0.0.9 – New Hyper-V RCT backups do not support single file restore (via VFS mount)
  • As of 5.0.0 Jaglion, SEP sesam uses Resilient Change Tracking (RCT) by default for Hyper-V backups on Windows Server ≥ 2016 (Hyper-V VM ≥ 6.2). Single file restore (VFS mount) is currently only supported for VM Hyper-V backups without RCT option (old approach with VSS snapshots creating .avhdx files instead of the new Resilient Change Tracking). The new RCT backups have a 'RCT' attribute and the mount option is not shown. For older backups without the 'RCT' attribute, the mount option is available.
Workaround: When restoring a Hyper-V RCT backup, perform a regular VM restore of the virtual machine as described in Restoring a Hyper-V virtual machine.
Resolution: SEP development is working on a single file restore via mount for Hyper-V RTC backups and will implement it as soon as possible.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3-5.0.0.9 – Hyper-V restore fails, if the data store path from the original VM does not exist on the target server
  • Hyper-V restore fails with error Warning: Cannot create item [D:\]: [87] WIN32 API error: 87 - The parameter is incorrect., if the data store path from the original VM does not exist on the target server, regardless of whether the default Hyper-V folder for VMs is used or an existing data store path is set. The original path is always used.
Resolution: SEP is working on this issue and will provide a fix as soon as possible.

Severity: MINOR

SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.x – Proxmox VE backup does not work with the client name as plain IP address
  • If the node added to the SEP sesam environment is not set up correctly and an IP address is used as the client name instead of the client's hostname matching the hostname returned by the Proxmox server, the backup fails.
Resolution: This problem can only be solved by correctly configuring the Proxmox clients in the SEP sesam environment. For more details on configuring the client name correctly, see Proxmox VE Backup: Adding the Proxmox server (and nodes) to the SEP sesam environment.
SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.x – Kopano backup containing non-ascii characters fails to create index, but backup is marked as successful
  • A Kopano backup containing non-ascii characters results in the error UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character... Consequently, the mail subject index cannot be created, but the backup is marked as successful.
Resolution: The index problem can only be fixed by creating the correct locale:
#vi /etc/locale.gen and then enable de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8
#locale-gen
SEP sesam v. 4.4.3.86–5.0.0.x – Initial Seeding functionality temporarily removed
  • As using the Initial Seed option to set up a new Si3 deduplication store for replication resulted in an apparently successful setup, but no data was replicated, the Initial Seeding functionality is no longer available in version 5.0.0.x. It is not yet known whether it will be available again in the future.

End of maintenance and support

Obsolete SEP sesam Server versions

The following versions of SEP sesam are no longer supported:

Discontinued SEP sesam Server OS

The following table lists the last available version of SEP sesam Server or RDS components for specified operating systems. You can continue using the last available version of SEP sesam on these operating systems, but SEP AG no longer provides updates or fixes for the specified versions.

For SEP sesam Client versions, backward compatibility is maintained and the last available versions for a platform are continuously supported. On older platforms you can use older versions of SEP sesam Client component, but it is recommended to combine such clients with the latest versions of SEP sesam Server and RDS components.

SEP sesam Release Versions

Operating system Last available version Release Notes
Windows Server 2012 5.1.0.7 Apollon 5.1.0 Apollon
RHEL 7 5.1.0.7 Apollon 5.1.0 Apollon
Debian 9 »Stretch« 5.0.0.15 Jaglion V2 5.0.0 Jaglion V2
SLES 11 SP2, SP3, SP4 4.4.3.x Beefalo V2, see notes 4.4.3 Beefalo V2 SEP announced that it would no longer support SLES 11 SP2, SP3, SP4 with SEP sesam Beefalo, but has re-established support for Beefalo V2, where all SEP sesam Beefalo V2 packages (Server, Client, etc.) can be used. However, Beefalo V2 is the last available SEP sesam release for SLES 11 SP2, SP3, SP4 .
Windows Server 2008 R2 4.4.3.x Beefalo V2, see notes 4.4.3 Beefalo V2 SEP announced that it would no longer support SEP sesam Server on Windows Server 2008 R2 with SEP sesam Beefalo, but has re-established this support already in Beefalo. This actually means that the last available SEP sesam Server release for Windows Server 2008 R2 is Beefalo V2.
Ubuntu 16.04 4.4.3.84 Beefalo V2 4.4.3 Beefalo V2
RHEL 6 4.4.3.64 Grolar 4.4.3 Grolar
Debian 8 »Jessie« 4.4.3.64 Grolar 4.4.3 Grolar
Debian 7 »Wheezy« 4.4.3.64 Grolar 4.4.3 Grolar Version 4.4.3.64 only available for sesam-cli on amd64
Windows Server 2008 4.4.3.64 Grolar 4.4.3 Grolar
Windows 7 4.4.3.64 Grolar 4.4.3 Grolar
Ubuntu 14.04 4.4.3.48 Tigon V2 4.4.3 Tigon V2
All 32-bit operating systems 4.2.2.40 4.2.2 For some operating systems SEP sesam client is still available in 32-bit.
SLES 10 4.2.2.40 4.2.2
RHEL 5 4.2.2.40 4.2.2
Debian 6 »Squeeze« 4.2.2.40 4.2.2 sesam-cli also available in version 4.4.1.22
Windows Server 2003 4.2.2.40 4.2.2
Debian 5 »Lenny« 4.2.1.34 4.2.1
SLES 11 ≤ SP1 4.2.1.34 4.2.1 Initial SLES 11 Release and Servicepack 1


Change reports

See also

SEP sesam Release Versions