Tales From The Geek Side

At work I administer a few Linux servers. I’m a long time Debian user who has rarely been disappointed by the distribution. As such I have Debian on the machines I administer. The company has chosen to use Symantec’s Backup Exec software. They “support” Linux but, in my experience with their software, it’s terrible. Memory leaks, crashes, and the most convoluted install scripts I’ve ever seen. If it were my choice I wouldn’t use their crapware at all but I have to use it.

Long ago I found this set of instructions for installing “RALUS” on Debian. Since their install scripts were so terrible I was happy to find good alternative. I’m reproducing the instructions here for my own reference. These instructions are based off of installing version 11d.7170.

The first step is to convert the RPM files to debs. The RPMs are repackaged as .tar.gz files in the directory cdimg/pkgs/Linux.

$ tar xzvf VRTSralus.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf VRTSvxmsa.tar.gz

You will now have two RPM files. They must be converted to .debs using alien.

$ alien VRTSralus-11.00.7170-0.i386.rpm
vrtsralus_11.00.7170-1_i386.deb generated
$ alien VRTSvxmsa-4.4-021.i686.rpm
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package VRTSvxmsa: postinst prerm
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
vrtsvxmsa_4.4-22_i386.deb generated

The next step is to install the .debs.

# dpkg --install vrtsralus_11.00.7170-1_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 45374 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace vrtsralus 11.00.6235-1 (using vrtsralus_11.00.7170-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement vrtsralus ...
Setting up vrtsralus (11.00.7170-1) ...

# dpkg --install vrtsvxmsa_4.4-22_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 45374 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace vrtsvxmsa 4.4-18 (using vrtsvxmsa_4.4-22_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement vrtsvxmsa ...
Setting up vrtsvxmsa (4.4-22) ...

Be sure to install libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 if you haven’t already:

# apt-get install libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2

Link to the startup script:

# ln -s /opt/VRTSralus/bin/VRTSralus.init /etc/init.d/

Create beoper group and add root to that group:

# groupadd beoper
# adduser root beoper

Note Well:

The source of this post provides more information. You should also read their page as I have omitted creating configuration files and setting up the Windows side.

References:

http://newvibes.net/index.php/veritas-backup-exec-agent-for-unix-linux-on-debian