How to install R1Soft Agent on Ubuntu 14

Backups are a critical facet of any IT infrastructure for many reasons. Unfortunately, there are many ways to take a good backup, and it is not safe or efficient to simply copy your server’s content to a new location. Further, some services cannot be backed up simply by copying their data, and must instead use custom logic to ensure that their persistent storage is securely snapshotted. To address this complex use case, a variety of server backup tools have been created. R1Soft is a premier solution targeted at multi-tenant hosting environments. Hosting environments are among the most challenging to back up, as it is impossible to predict the individual backup needs for every service being run by every user. Further, backups must be coordinated in an off-site location, and centralized manipulation and monitoring is essential. Read on to learn how to set up an R1soft agent on an Ubuntu 14.04 LTS server.

Getting Started

To complete this guide, you will need the following:
• 1 Node (Cloud Server or Dedicated Servers) with Ubuntu 14 installed.
• All commands should be run as the root user

Tutorial

The R1Soft packages are shipped in their own Ubuntu package repository, making installation and upgrades a snap. Here we add this repository so the packages can be installed via apt-get.

echo "deb http://repo.r1soft.com/apt stable main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/r1soft.list
wget http://repo.r1soft.com/r1soft.asc
apt-key add r1soft.asc

With the new repository in place, Ubuntu’s package cache must be updated so the new packages can be found.

apt-get update

Next we install the package for the R1Soft backup agent.

apt-get install r1soft-cdp-enterprise-agent

You’ll now need the R1Soft key from your backup manager. In this example, we use the IP address 192.168.10.10. Substitute the appropriate IP from your infrastructure in the following command:

r1soft-setup --get-key http://192.168.10.10

Here we’ll install the R1Soft driver for your distribution. In this case, you’ll use the hcp driver.

r1soft-setup --get-module

With all the necessary pieces in place, we’ll need to restart the R1Soft agent so your changes are detected.

/etc/init.d/cdp-agent restart

Conclusion

Your Ubuntu server is now running the R1Soft agent. You can now integrate it into your larger R1Soft infrastructure for reliable, centralized backups. Share this article with anyone needing a good backup solution for their servers. Backups are important, and anyone not performing them regularly will eventually regret not having done so. Don’t forget, feel free to share this tutorial with others who may be interested if you found it useful!