Provided by: rear_2.5+dfsg-1_amd64 
NAME
rear - bare metal disaster recovery and system migration tool
SYNOPSIS
rear [-h|--help] [-V|--version] [-dsSv] [-D|--debugscripts SET] [-c DIR] [-C CONFIG] [-r
KERNEL] [--] COMMAND [ARGS...]
DESCRIPTION
Relax-and-Recover is the leading Open Source disaster recovery solution. It is a modular
framework with many ready-to-go workflows for common situations.
Relax-and-Recover produces a bootable image. This image can repartition the system. Once
that is done it initiates a restore from backup. Restores to different hardware are
possible. Relax-and-Recover can therefore be used as a migration tool as well.
Currently Relax-and-Recover supports various boot media (incl. ISO, PXE, OBDR tape, USB or
eSATA storage), a variety of network protocols (incl. sftp, ftp, http, nfs, cifs) for
storage and backup as well as a multitude of backup strategies (incl. IBM Tivoli Storage
Manager, MircoFocus Data Protector, Symantec NetBackup, EMC NetWorker, EMC Avamar,
FDR/Upstream, NovaBACKUP DC, Bareos, Bacula, rsync, rbme, Borg). This results in a
bootable image that is capable of booting via PXE, DVD/CD, bootable tape or virtual
provisioning.
Relax-and-Recover was designed to be easy to set up, requires no maintenance and is there
to assist when disaster strikes. Its setup-and-forget nature removes any excuses for not
having a disaster recovery solution implemented.
Recovering from disaster is made very straight-forward by a 2-step recovery process so
that it can be executed by operational teams when required. When used interactively (e.g.
when used for migrating systems), menus help make decisions to restore to a new (hardware)
environment.
Extending Relax-and-Recover is made possible by its modular framework. Consistent logging
and optionally extended output help understand the concepts behind Relax-and-Recover and
help debug during development.
Relax-and-Recover comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the GNU General
Public License at: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
OPTIONS
GLOBAL OPTIONS
-h --help
usage information
-c DIR
alternative config directory; instead of /etc/rear
-C CONFIG
additional config file; absolute path or relative to config directory
-d
debug mode (log debug messages to log file - also sets -v)
-D
debugscript mode (log executed commands via set -x - also sets -v and -d)
--debugscripts SET
same as -d -v -D but debugscript mode with set -SET
-r KERNEL
kernel version to use (by default use running kernel)
-s
simulation mode (show what scripts are run without executing them)
-S
step-by-step mode (acknowledge each script individually)
-v
verbose mode (show more output and run many commands in verbose mode)
-V --version
version information
COMMANDS
checklayout
check if the disk layout has changed since the last run of mkbackup/mkrescue
dump
dump configuration and system information; please run this to verify your setup
format
format and label USB or tape media to be used with rear;
first argument is the USB or tape device to use, eg. /dev/sdX or /dev/stX
help
print full list of commands and options
mkbackup
create rescue media and backup the system (only for internal backup methods)
mkbackuponly
backup the system (only for internal backup methods) without creating rescue media
mkrescue
create rescue media only
recover
recover the system; can be used only when running from the rescue media
restoreonly
only restore the backup; can be used only when running from the rescue media
mkopalpba
create a pre-boot authentication (PBA) image to boot from TCG Opal 2-compliant
self-encrypting disks
opaladmin
administrate TCG Opal 2-compliant self-encrypting disks
validate
submit validation information
Use rear -v help for more advanced commands.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The process of bare metal disaster recovery consists of two parts:
• Recreate the system layout
• Restore the data to the system
Most backup software solutions are very good at restoring data but do not support
recreating the system layout. Relax-and-Recover is very good at recreating the system
layout but works best when used together with supported backup software.
In this combination Relax-and-Recover recreates the system layout and calls the backup
software to restore the actual data. Thus there is no unnecessary duplicate data storage
and the Relax-and-Recover rescue media can be very small.
For demonstration and special use purposes Relax-and-Recover also includes an internal
backup method, NETFS, which can be used to create a simple tar.gz archive of the system.
For all permanent setups we recommend using something more professional for backup, either
a traditional backup software (open source or commercial) or rsync with hardlink based
solutions, e.g. RSYNC BACKUP MADE EASY.
RESCUE IMAGE CONFIGURATION
The OUTPUT variable defines from where our bootable rescue image will be booted and the
OUTPUT_URL variable defines where the rescue image should be send to. Possible OUTPUT
settings are:
OUTPUT=RAMDISK
Create only the Relax-and-Recover initramfs.
OUTPUT=ISO
(Default) Create a bootable ISO9660 image on disk as rear-$(hostname).iso
OUTPUT=PXE
Create on a remote PXE/NFS server the required files (such as configuration file,
kernel and initrd image
OUTPUT=OBDR
Create a bootable OBDR tape (optionally including the backup archive). Specify the
OBDR tape device by using TAPE_DEVICE.
OUTPUT=USB
Create a bootable USB disk (using extlinux). Specify the USB storage device by using
USB_DEVICE.
OUTPUT=RAWDISK
Create a bootable image file named "rear-$(hostname).raw.gz", which
• supports UEFI boot if syslinux/EFI or Grub 2/EFI is installed,
• supports Legacy BIOS boot if syslinux is installed,
• supports UEFI/Legacy BIOS dual boot if syslinux and one of the supported EFI
bootloaders are installed.
When using OUTPUT=ISO, RAMDISK, OBDR, USB, or RAWDISK you should provide the backup target
location through the OUTPUT_URL variable. Possible OUTPUT_URL settings are:
OUTPUT_URL=file://
Write the image to disk. The default is in /var/lib/rear/output/.
OUTPUT_URL=nfs://
Write the image by mounting the target filesystem via NFS.
OUTPUT_URL=cifs://
Write the image by mounting the target filesystem via CIFS.
OUTPUT_URL=fish://
Write the image using lftp and the FISH protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=ftp://
Write the image using lftp and the FTP protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=ftps://
Write the image using lftp and the FTPS protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=hftp://
Write the image using lftp and the HFTP protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=http://
Write the image using lftp and the HTTP (PUT) procotol.
OUTPUT_URL=https://
Write the image using lftp and the HTTPS (PUT) protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=sftp://
Write the image using lftp and the secure FTP (SFTP) protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=rsync://
Write the image using rsync and the RSYNC protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=sshfs://
Write the image using sshfs and the SSH protocol.
OUTPUT_URL=null
Do not copy the rescue image from /var/lib/rear/output/ to a remote output location.
OUTPUT_URL=null is useful when another program (e.g. an external backup program) is
used to save the rescue image from the local system to a remote place, or with
BACKUP_URL=iso:///backup when the backup is included in the rescue image to avoid a
(big) copy of the rescue image at a remote output location. In the latter case the
rescue image must be manually saved from the local system to a remote place.
OUTPUT_URL=null is only supported together with BACKUP=NETFS.
If you do not specify OUTPUT_URL variable then by default it will be aligned to what was
defined by variable BACKUP_URL. And, the rescue image will then be copied to the same
location as your backup of the system disk(s).
The ISO_DEFAULT variable defines what default boot option is used on the rescue image.
Possible values are manual, boothd or automatic. Manual will make you boot into the shell
directly by default, boothd will boot to the first disk (default) or automatic will
automatically start in recovery mode.
RESCUE IMAGE KERNEL COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
When booting the rescue image you can edit the kernel command line. There are some
Relax-and-Recover specific kernel command line options:
debug
The rescue system start up scripts in /etc/scripts/system-setup.d/ are run one by one
each one after pressing Enter and the scripts are run with set -x which prints
commands and their arguments as they are executed.
auto_recover or automatic
Launch rear recover automatically (without automated reboot). Together with debug it
runs rear recover in debug mode.
unattended
Launch rear recover automatically as with auto_recover plus automated reboot after
successful rear recover.
ip= nm= netdev= gw=
If IP address plus optionally netmask (default 255.255.255.0), network device (default
eth0), and a default gateway are specified only that single network device is set up.
Example:
ip=192.168.100.2 nm=255.255.255.0 netdev=eth0 gw=192.168.100.1
noip
Skip network devices setup by the rescue system start up scripts (overrides ip= nm=
netdev= gw=).
BACKUP SOFTWARE INTEGRATION
Currently Relax-and-Recover supports the following backup methods. Please distinguish
carefully between Relax-and-Recover support for 3rd party backup software and
Relax-and-Recover internal backup methods. The latter also creates a backup of your data
while the former will only integrate Relax-and-Recover with the backup software to restore
the data with the help of the backup software without actually creating backups. This
means that for all non-internal backup software you must take care of creating backups
yourself (unless otherwise noted).
Especially the rear mkbackup command can be confusing as it is only useful for the
internal backup methods and has usually no function at all with the other (external)
backup methods.
The following backup methods need to be set in Relax-and-Recover with the BACKUP option.
As mentioned we have two types of BACKUP methods - internal and external.
The following BACKUP methods are external of Relax-and-Recover meaning that usually you
are responsible of backups being made:
BACKUP=REQUESTRESTORE
(default) Not really a backup method at all, Relax-and-Recover simply halts the
recovery and requests that somebody will restore the data to the appropriate location
(e.g. via SSH). This method works especially well with an rsync based backup that is
pushed back to the backup client.
BACKUP=EXTERNAL
Internal backup method that uses an arbitrary external command to create a backup and
restore the data.
BACKUP=DP
Use MicroFocus Data Protector to restore the data.
BACKUP=FDRUPSTREAM
Use FDR/Upstream to restore the data.
BACKUP=GALAXY
Use CommVault Galaxy 5 to restore the data.
BACKUP=GALAXY7
Use CommVault Galaxy 7 to restore the data.
BACKUP=GALAXY10
Use CommVault Galaxy 10 (or Simpana 10) to restore the data.
BACKUP=NBU
Use Symantec NetBackup to restore the data.
BACKUP=TSM
Use IBM Tivoli Storage Manager to restore the data. The Relax-and-Recover result files
(e.g. ISO image) are also saved into TSM. There is a (currently experimental) first
draft implementation that a TSM backup is created by calling dsmc incremental during
rear mkbackup.
BACKUP=NSR
Using EMC NetWorker (Legato) to restore the data.
BACKUP=AVA
Using EMC Avamar to restore the data.
BACKUP=SESAM
Using SEP Sesam to restore the data.
BACKUP=NBKDC
Using Novastor NovaBACKUP DC to restore the data.
BACKUP=RBME
Use Rsync Backup Made Easy (rbme) to restore the data.
BACKUP=BAREOS
Use Open Source backup solution BAREOS (a fork a BACULA) to restore the data.
BACKUP=BACULA
Use Open Source backup solution BACULA to restore the data.
BACKUP=DUPLICITY
Use encrypted bandwidth-efficient backup solution using the rsync algorithm to restore
the data.
BACKUP=BORG
Use BorgBackup (short Borg) a deduplicating backup program to restore the data.
Executing rear mkbackup will create a Borg backup, see the section ReaR with Borg back
end in the ReaR user-guide Scenarios documentation.
The following BACKUP methods are internal of Relax-and-Recover:
BACKUP=NETFS
Internal backup method which can be used to create a simple backup (tar archive).
BACKUP=RSYNC
Use rsync to restore data.
If your favourite backup software is missing from this list, please submit a patch or ask
us to implement it for you.
When using BACKUP=NETFS you must provide the backup target location through the BACKUP_URL
variable. Possible BACKUP_URL settings are:
BACKUP_URL=file://
To backup to local disk, use BACKUP_URL=file:///directory/path/
BACKUP_URL=nfs://
To backup to NFS disk, use BACKUP_URL=nfs://nfs-server-name/share/path
BACKUP_URL=tape://
To backup to tape device, use BACKUP_URL=tape:///dev/nst0 or alternatively, simply
define TAPE_DEVICE=/dev/nst0
BACKUP_URL=rsync://
When backup method BACKUP=RSYNC is chosen then we need to define a corresponding
BACKUP_URL rule:
BACKUP_URL=rsync://[user@]host[:port]/path
BACKUP_URL=rsync://[user@]host[:port]::/path
BACKUP_URL=cifs://
To backup to a Samba share (CIFS), use BACKUP_URL=cifs://cifs-server-name/share/path.
To provide credentials for CIFS mounting use a /etc/rear/cifs credentials file and
define BACKUP_OPTIONS="cred=/etc/rear/cifs" and pass along:
username=_username_
password=_secret password_
domain=_domain_
BACKUP_URL=usb://
To backup to USB storage device, use BACKUP_URL=usb:///dev/disk/by-path/REAR-000 or
use a real device node or a specific filesystem label. Alternatively, you can specify
the device using USB_DEVICE=/dev/disk/by-path/REAR-000.
If you combine this with OUTPUT=USB you will end up with a bootable USB device.
BACKUP_URL=sshfs://
To backup to a remote server via sshfs (SSH protocol), use
BACKUP_URL=sshfs://user@remote-system.name.org/home/user/backupdir/
It is advisable to add ServerAliveInterval 15 in the /root/.ssh/config file for the
remote system (remote-system.name.org).
BACKUP_URL=iso://
To include the backup within the ISO image. It is important that the BACKUP_URL and
OUTPUT_URL variables are different. E.g.
BACKUP_URL=iso:///backup/
OUTPUT_URL=nfs://server/path/
When using BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=tar there is an option to select
BACKUP_TYPE=incremental or BACKUP_TYPE=differential to let rear make incremental or
differential backups until the next full backup day e.g. via FULLBACKUPDAY="Mon" is
reached or when the last full backup is too old after FULLBACKUP_OUTDATED_DAYS has passed.
Incremental or differential backup is currently only known to work with BACKUP_URL=nfs.
Other BACKUP_URL schemes may work but at least BACKUP_URL=usb requires USB_SUFFIX to be
set to work with incremental or differential backup.
SUPPORT FOR SELF-ENCRYPTING DISKS
Relax-and-Recover supports self-encrypting disks (SEDs) compliant with the TCG Opal 2
specification if the sedutil-cli executable is installed.
Self-encrypting disk support includes
• recovery (saving and restoring the system’s SED configuration),
• setting up SEDs, including assigning a disk password,
• providing a pre-boot authentication (PBA) system to unlock SEDs at boot time.
To prepare booting from an SED, run rear mkopalpba, then create the rescue system.
To set up an SED, boot the Relax-and-Recover rescue system and run rear opaladmin
setupERASE DEVICE (DEVICE being the disk device path like /dev/sda).
For complete information, consult the section "Support for TCG Opal 2-compliant
Self-Encrypting Disks" in the Relax-and-Recover user guide.
CONFIGURATION
To configure Relax-and-Recover you have to edit the configuration files in /etc/rear/. All
*.conf files there are part of the configuration, but only site.conf and local.conf are
intended for the user configuration. All other configuration files hold defaults for
various distributions and should not be changed.
In /etc/rear/templates/ there are also some template files which are used by
Relax-and-Recover to create configuration files (mostly for the boot environment). Modify
the templates to adjust the information contained in the emails produced by
Relax-and-Recover. You can use these templates to prepend your own configurations to the
configuration files created by Relax-and-Recover, for example you can edit
PXE_pxelinux.cfg to add some general pxelinux configuration you use.
In almost all circumstances you have to configure two main settings and their parameters:
The backup method and the output method.
The backup method defines, how your data was saved and whether Relax-and-Recover should
backup your data as part of the mkrescue process or whether you use an external
application, e.g. backup software to archive your data.
The output method defines how the rescue system is written to disk and how you plan to
boot the failed computer from the rescue system.
See the default configuration file /usr/share/rear/conf/default.conf for an overview of
the possible methods and their options.
An example to use TSM for backup and ISO for output would be to add these lines to
/etc/rear/local.conf (no need to define a BACKUP_URL when using an external backup
solution):
BACKUP=TSM
OUTPUT=ISO
And if all your systems use NTP for time synchronisation, you can also add these lines to
/etc/rear/site.conf
TIMESYNC=NTP
Do not forget to distribute the site.conf to all your systems.
The resulting ISO image will be created in /var/lib/rear/output/. You can now modify the
behaviour by copying the appropriate configuration variables from default.conf to
local.conf and changing them to suit your environment.
EXIT STATUS
0
Successful program execution.
>0
Usage, syntax or execution errors. Check the log file in /var/log/rear/ for more
information.
EXAMPLES
To print out the current settings for BACKUP and OUTPUT methods and some system
information. This command can be used to see the supported features for the given release
and platform.
# rear dump
To create a new rescue environment. Do not forget to copy the resulting rescue system away
so that you can use it in the case of a system failure.
# rear -v mkrescue
To create a new rescue image together with a complete archive of your local system run the
command:
# rear -v mkbackup
FILES
/usr/sbin/rear
The program itself.
/etc/rear/local.conf
System specific configuration can be set here.
/etc/rear/site.conf
Site specific configuration can be set here (not created by default).
/var/log/rear/
Directory holding the log files.
/tmp/rear.####
Relax-and-Recover working directory. If Relax-and-Recover exits with an error, you
must remove this directory manually.
/usr/share/rear
Relax-and-Recover script components.
/usr/share/rear/conf/default.conf
Relax-and-Recover default values. Contains a complete set of parameters and its
explanation. Please do not edit or modify. Copy values to local.conf or site.conf
instead.
BUGS
Feedback is welcome, please report any issues or improvements to our issue-tracker at:
http://github.com/rear/issues/
Furthermore, we welcome pull requests via GitHub.
SEE ALSO
Relax-and-Recover comes with extensive documentation located in /usr/share/doc.
AUTHORS
The ReaR project was initiated in 2006 by Schlomo Schapiro (https://github.com/schlomo)
and Gratien D’haese (https://github.com/gdha) and has since then seen a lot of
contributions by many authors. As ReaR deals with bare metal disaster recovery, there is a
large amount of code that was contributed by owners and users of specialized hardware and
software. Without their combined efforts and contributions ReaR would not be the universal
Linux bare metal disaster recovery solution that it is today.
As time passed the project was lucky to get the support of additional developers to also
help as maintainers: Dag Wieers (https://github.com/dagwieers), Jeroen Hoekx
(https://github.com/jhoekx), Johannes Meixner (https://github.com/jsmeix), Vladimir Gozora
(https://github.com/gozora) and Sébastien Chabrolles (https://github.com/schabrolles). We
hope that ReaR continues to prove useful and to attract more developers who agree to be
maintainers. Please refer to the MAINTAINERS
(https://github.com/rear/rear/blob/master/MAINTAINERS) file for the list of active and
past maintainers.
To see the full list of authors and their contributions please look at the git history
(https://github.com/rear/rear/graphs/contributors). We are very thankful to all authors
and encourage anybody interested to take a look at our source code and to contribute what
you find important.
Relax-and-Recover is a collaborative process using Github at http://github.com/rear/
The Relax-and-Recover website is located at: http://relax-and-recover.org/
COPYRIGHT
(c) 2006-2019
The copyright is held by the original authors of the respective code pieces as can be seen
in the git history at https://github.com/rear/rear/graphs/contributors
Relax-and-Recover comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the GNU General
Public License at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
10 May 2019 REAR(8)