CS-MARS and Archiving - Part 2

As mentioned in Part 1 we can use a NFS Server to Archive our MARS data.

Now NFS is supported natively in Linux, and is what Cisco would recommend for your NFS storage, which is quite simple to set up....

NFS Setup for Linux

1) As root, create a directory for the archive data eg,..

mkdir -p /archive/MARSBox
chown -R nobody.nobody /archive
chmod -R 777 /archive

2) In the /etc/exports file, add the following...

/archive/MARSBox MARS_IP_Address (rw)

3) Restart the NFS Service...

/etc/init.d/nfs restart

But what if we want to do this with Windows? Well we can use Windows Services for UNIX (WSU). This allows an NFS mount to be created on a Windows file server.

Windows Services for UNIX Setup

This can be downloaded from HERE current version is 3.5, filename SFU35SEL_EN.exe

1) Extract this to a folder on your windows box, and run SfuSetup.msi

2) Click NEXT to Continue

3) Enter values for the Username and Organization fields, and click NEXT

4) ACCEPT the agreement option, and Click NEXT

5) Select the CUSTOM Installation option, and NEXT

6) As a minimum, and for this example, you must select Entire Feature (including any subfeatures if any) will be installed on local hard drive, for the following components..

• NFS (see note below)
  
• Authentication tools for NFS

But, make sure you deselect Gateway for NFS, or else you will get this error below...

7) Verify that Change the default behaviour to case sensitive check box is NOT TICKED, then click NEXT.
8) The Username Mapping Panel appears. Verify that...

• Local User Name Mapping Server
• Network Information Service (NIS)

are selected, then click NEXT.

9) Enter the Windows Domain name, the NIS Domain and Server are optional, click NEXT.

10) Enter the desired location for the Windows Service for UNIX install, (Not MARS Archive Share), and click NEXT.

11) Click FINISH, and REBOOT.

Now you have successfully install the NFS Windows Component, we are now ready to define a share to used by the MARS appliance.

Define a NFS Share on Windows

1) In Windows Explorer, create a folder for MARS to Archive to.

2) Right-Click the folder, and select the NFS Sharing Tab.

3) Select Share this folder, and enter a share name. Encoding ANSI.

4) Select Allow Anonymous Access

5) Click on Permissions, and select ALL Machines, and No Access

6) Now click ADD, and type the IP Address of your MARS Box, with Read-Write, and ANSI Encoding.

7) Click OK, and Apply.

8) From a DOS Window, type the following, to modify the shared folder permissions so that Everyone has local filesystem access to the folder.

cd share
cacls share /E /G everyone:F


8) Under Administration Tools/Local Security Policy / Security Options

Double click.. Network Access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users, and select Enabled. Then click OK.


You have now completed the NFS configuration for the Windows Server.

Before we configure MARS to Archive to the NFS share, there is one last thing that is recommended. This is to add the NFS Client, which is the MARS Box, to the hosts file

• /etc/hosts on Linux
• Windows\system32\drivers\etc on Windows

And also Add the MARS Appliance to your internal DNS.

CS-MARS Archive Configuration

1) Select Admin / System Maintenance / Data Archiving

2) In the Remote Host IP Field, enter the IP Address of your NFS Server

3) In the Remote Path Field, enter the export path on the NFS Server

(In Windows a forward slash is required to resolve the UNC Share name)


4) Archiving Protocol, NFS is the only option at the moment!

5) Remote Storage Capacity in Days - enter one of the following...

• The maximum number of days for which you want the NFS server to retain data. The NFS Server keeps your data for the number of days previous to the current date.
• The number of days that the NFS Server can maximally retain, ie the upward capacity of the archive server.

6) Click START, to enable your MARS Archiving

If everything has gone to plan, you should receive a message back of DONE Status OK.



If you see an error message such as "Invalid remote IP or path", your NFS Server may not be correctly configured. I`d check the remote path is correct in the first instance.

In a Windows environment, we can also enable logging of NFS events...

1) Programs/ Windows Services for UNIX/ Services for UNIX Administration

2) Select Server for NFS


3) Under Logging, tick all the boxes, and specify a folder where you want to place the log file.

4) Click Apply to save changes.

Thats the Archiving all set up. In Part 3 of this series, i`ll go into what different folders and files are created on the NFS Share, and how we can go about doing restores of this data.