Veeam Agent Installation for CentOS 9 Stream

Step 1: Download Veeam repository:

The Veeam repository for Linux can be found at Index of /backup/linux/agent/rpm/el/9/x86_64/ . On this page, select "veeam-release-el9-1.0.8-1.x86_64.rpm".

Step 2: Install Veeam and dependencies:

• This will download an RPM file. You will likely be unable to download this directly from this page to your Linux machine, as your server will likely not have a GUI or web browser. To get around this, it is best to download the RPM to your workstation and then use WinSCP or MobaXterm to copy the RPM file to your server via SSH.

• Once the RPM is on your server, install it and its dependencies:

# dnf clean all 
# rpm -hi veeam-release-el9-1.0.8-1.x86_64.rpm 
# dnf install epel-release -y 
# dnf install dkms python3 make gcc perl kernel-modules-extra -y 
# dnf update 
# dnf install blksnap veeam -y

• The modules bdevfilter and blksnap will be created in /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra

[root@centos9 ~# ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra bdevfilter.ko.xz blksnap.ko.xz

• We can confirm that this module has not loaded by running lsmod, and grepping for blksnap. We will see that grep returns 0 lines of output.

[root@centos9 ~]# lsmod | grep blksnap 0

Step 3: Insert modules bdevfilter and blksnap:

We need to load the module into the currently running kernel using insmod:

[root@centos9 ~]# insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra/bdevfilter.ko.xz 
[root@centos9 ~]# insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra/blksnap.ko.xz 
[root@centos9 ~]# lsmod | grep blksnap 
blksnap 217088 0 
bdevfilter 20480 1 blksnap

At this point, our agent-based backups will run fine; however, the loaded module will not persist if we reboot. We must create a file called /etc/modules-load.d/bdevfilter.conf and/etc/modules-load.d/blksnap.conf , and make sure that it has the name of the kernel module. We must also run depmod to add the loaded kernel module to the kernel module dependencies list.

[root@centos9 ~]# depmod
[root@centos9 ~]# echo bdevfilter > /etc/modules-load.d/bdevfilter.conf
[root@centos9 ~]# echo blksnap > /etc/modules-load.d/blksnap.conf
[root@centos9 ~]# cat /etc/modules-load.d/bdevfilter.conf
bdevfilter
[root@centos9 ~]# cat /etc/modules-load.d/blksnap.conf
blksnap

Once we reboot the CentOS server, the veeamsnap module will automatically be loaded as a kernel module.

[root@centos9 ~]# uptime && lsmod | grep blksnap
 17:43:06 up 18 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
blksnap               217088  0
bdevfilter             20480  1 blksnap

And our agent-based backups will now work correctly.

Grand permission for 3 scripts:

# chmod u+x one-time-setup sign-modules dkms-sign-module

Create 2 files for signing modules to the UEFI database.

# echo POST_BUILD=../../../../../../root/module-signing/dkms-sign-module > /etc/dkms/bdevfilter.conf
# echo POST_BUILD=../../../../../../root/module-signing/dkms-sign-module > /etc/dkms/blksnap.conf

Run the file one-time-setup first and then reboot:

# /root/module-signing/one-time-setup
# reboot

During the reboot, when prompted, press any key to perform MOK management.

At the wizard's first step, select Enroll MOK and press [Enter].

At the Enroll the key(s) step, select Yes and press [Enter].

Provide the password for the root account and press [Enter].

At the final step, select Reboot and press [Enter].

After that, sign 2 modules by running file sign-modules:

# /root/module-signing/sign-modules /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra/bdevfilter.ko.xz
# /root/module-signing/sign-modules /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra/blksnap.ko.xz

Step 4: Insert modules bdevfilter and blksnap:

We need to load the module into the currently running kernel using insmod:

[root@centos9 ~]# insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra/bdevfilter.ko.xz
[root@centos9 ~]# insmod /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/extra/blksnap.ko.xz
[root@centos9 ~]# lsmod | grep blksnap
blksnap               217088  0
bdevfilter             20480  1 blksnap

At this point, our agent-based backups will run fine; however, the loaded module will not persist if we reboot. We must create a file called /etc/modules-load.d/bdevfilter.conf and/etc/modules-load.d/blksnap.conf , and make sure that it has the name of the kernel module. We must also run depmod to add the loaded kernel module to the kernel module dependencies list.

[root@centos9 ~]# depmod
[root@centos9 ~]# echo bdevfilter > /etc/modules-load.d/bdevfilter.conf
[root@centos9 ~]# echo blksnap > /etc/modules-load.d/blksnap.conf
[root@centos9 ~]# cat /etc/modules-load.d/bdevfilter.conf
bdevfilter
[root@centos9 ~]# cat /etc/modules-load.d/blksnap.conf
blksnap

Once we reboot the CentOS server, the veeamsnap module will automatically be loaded as a kernel module.

[root@centos9 ~]# uptime && lsmod | grep blksnap
 17:43:06 up 18 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
blksnap               217088  0
bdevfilter             20480  1 blksnap

And our agent-based backups will now work correctly.