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Release Notes for Relax-and-Recover version 1.16.0

This document contains the release notes for the open source project
Relax-and-Recover.

Relax-and-Recover website

Github project

This document is distributed with the following license: ?Creative Commons
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0)?. To read the license deed
go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/

Overview

Relax-and-Recover is a GNU/Linux system administrator tool used to create
disaster recovery images which makes bare metal restore easier. System
administrators use Relax-and-Recover as part of disaster recovery policy
which does not replace in any way a good backup policy.

Product Features

The following features are supported on the most recent releases of
Relax-and-Recover. Anything labeled as (NEW!) was added as the most recent
release. New functionality for previous releases can be seen in the next
chapter that details each release.

The most recent release of Relax-and-Recover is supported on most GNU/Linux
based systems with kernel 2.6 or higher. It provides the following
functionality:

* Hot maintenance capability. A rescue image can be made online while the
    system is running.

* Command line interface. Relax-and-Recover doesnot require a graphical
    interface to run, nor in creation mode, nor in rescue mode (console is
    enough).

* Support included for most common file systems, such as ext2, ext3, ext4
    and reiserfs. Other filesystems like jfs, xfs and btrfs are also
    implemented, but are less tested. (Feedback is appreciated)

* Selected Hardware RAID and (eg. HP SmartArray) and mirroring solutions
    (eg. DRBD) are supported.

* LVM root volumes are supported.

* Multipath support for SAN storage

* UEFI support

* Integrates with internal backup solutions such as:

+ GNU tar (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=tar)
      + GNU tar (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=tar, BACKUP_TYPE=incremental,
        FULLBACKUPDAY=?Mon?) for using incremental backups with a weekly full
        backup. Be aware, old tar archives will not be removed automatically!
      + GNU tar with openssl encryption (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=tar,
        BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_ENABLED=1)
      + rsync on local devices (BACKUP=NETFS, BACKUP_PROG=rsync), such USB
        and local disks
      + Rsync over the network (BACKUP=RSYNC, BACKUP_PROG=rsync)
  * Integrates with external backup solutions such as:

+ Tivoli Storage Manager (BACKUP=TSM)
      + HP Data Protector (BACKUP=DP)
      + Symantec NetBacakup (BACKUP=NBU)
      + Galaxy 5, 6 and 7 (BACKUP=GALAXY)
      + Bacula (BACKUP=BACULA)
      + Bareos (BACKUP=BAREOS) (New!) (A fork of Bacula)
      + Rsync Backup Made Easy (BACKUP=RBME)
      + Duplicity/Duply (BACKUP=DUPLICITY) (New!)
      + EMC Networker, also known as Legato (BACKUP=NSR)
      + SEP Sesam (BACKUP=SESAM) (New!)
  * Udev support (except for some really ancient udev versions) which is the
    base for many new and important features:

+ kernel drivers for network cards and storage adapters are loaded via
        udev
      + deal with network persistent names in udev rules
      + firmware loading
      + persistent storage device names (though Relax-and-Recover does
        nothing with this)
  * System reconfiguration

+ enable recovery on hardware, that is not the same as the original
        system
      + network and storage drivers are adjusted
      + map hard disks if they do not match (e.g. hda -> sda)
      + remap network MAC addresses
      + use another IP address, or using dhcp via templates or from kernel
        command line
      + rebuild the initial ramdisk if needed (for new storage drivers)
      + migration to SAN storage (New! Experimental)
  * Support backup software: Bacula, both locally attached tapes (with
    bextract) and network-based backups. Also, in combination with OBDR
    tapes.

* Create OBDR tapes with method mkbackup and put the backup onto the tape
    to have a single-tape bootable recovery solution

* Label the OBDR tape with the method format to avoid accidental overwrites
    with OBDR

* Create bootable disk (eSATA, USB ?) media with the backup included:

BACKUP_URL=usb:///dev/device

Together with OUTPUT=USB we have now a complete solution on hard disks
    (booting of it and restoring data).

* DHCP client support (IPv4 and IPv6). Dhcp client activation can be forced
    via the variable USE_DHCLIENT=yes (define in /etc/rear/local.conf). It is
    also possible to force DHCP at boot time with kernel option dhcp

* Save layout and compare layouts for easy automation of making
    Relax-and-Recover snapshots (checklayout option)

* The layout workflow is the default workflow instead of the deprecated dr
    workflow. The dr workflow kept all important system information into a
    directory structure where the new layout workflow use files to keep the
    information centralized. The dr workflow has been removed in rear v1.14!

* External USB booting now uses extlinux instead of syslinux, and
    therefore, the USB disk must first be formatted with an ext2, ext3, ext4
    or btrfs based file system

* cron job to check changes in disk layout and trigger rear mkrescue if
    required

* VLAN tagging support

* Add timestamp of rear run with rc code to the syslog or messages file;
    sending mail report is also possible

NOTE: Features marked experimental are prone to change with future releases.

Relax-and-Recover Releases

The first release of Relax-and-Recover, version 1.0, was posted to the web in
July 2006. For each release, this chapter lists the new features and defect
fixes. Note that all releases are cumulative, and that all releases of
Relax-and-Recover are compatible with previous versions of Relax-and-Recover,
unless otherwise noted.

Version 1.16.0 (May 2014)

The references pointing to fix #nr or issue #nr refer to our issues tracker

As usual lots of bug fixes - see the issue tracker.

* Network script now deals correctly with VLAN tagging as well

* Added 2 new variables to default.conf for TSM: TSM_ARCHIVE_MGMT_CLASS
    which defines a backup class to use with TSM, and TSM_RM_ISOFILE which
    triggers (if set to y) to remove the original ISO files from local system
    once the ISO image has been transferred to TSM

* Guessing the bootloader and saving this in a file in the $VAR_LIB/
    recovery/bootloader (will be picke dup during recovery to assist us in
    selecting the proper bootloader [ grub, grub2, uefi ])

* Various corrections with BACKYP=RSYNC method (issue #200 and #366). In
    rear 1.16 the old and new style are still recognized, but we might drop
    the old style in later versions.

OLD STYLE:
     BACKUP_URL=[USER@]HOST:PATH           # using ssh (no rsh)
     with rsync protocol PATH is a MODULE name defined in remote /etc/rsyncd.conf file
     BACKUP_URL=[USER@]HOST::PATH          # using rsync

NEW STYLE:
     BACKUP_URL=rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/PATH    # using ssh
     BACKUP_URL=rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]::/PATH  # using rsync

* Checking the bootloader files during savelayout section - see issue #234

* Backup method BACKUP=DUPLICITY has been fully tested and proven to work
    well (backup and recover). When using duply and automated recovery is
    possible. Several updates were made to make duplicity works as well with
    backup and recover

* Variable SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD (see default.conf) allows to force a password
    with the rescue image (issue #362)

* TSM version >=6.4 is now supported (issue #356), and point in time
    restore works better now (issue #358)

* Fix the order of fs lines in checklayout.conf file when mor ethen 9
    partitions are in use (issue #352)

* Avoiding CD/DVD type devices to be added in the disklayout.conf file
    during savelayout (issue #257)

* Removed mingetty executable from REQUIRED_PROGS list as RHEL 7 does not
    ship it anymore. agetty is getting more and more the standard now and
    rear will use this one automatically when mingetty is absent

* New variable in default.conf file was defined BACKUP_TYPE= (empty is full
    or incremental; only works with the default BACKUP_PROG=tar)

* Avoid stale NFS hangs with df command (issue #350)

* For TSM a new variable was introduced in default.conf file:
    TSM_RESULT_SAVE (to disable the TSM saving; can be used when you saved
    the result via $ISO_URL, $OUTPUT_URL, $ISO_DIR or something else)

* /etc/rear/local.conf is now empty by default and /etc/rear/site.conf now
    contains OUTPUT=ISO setting. This way we are sure that during an upgrade
    of rear we do not loose our original user settings (local.conf tends te
    be overwritten).

* Fix for hpacucli where the order logicaldrive and array could be wrong
    (issue #208)

* New variable TMPDIR allows to overrule the default /tmp temporary
    directory (handy when building big ISO images)

* Added option -iso-level 3 to mkisofs command so we can create ISO image
    bigger then 4 GB (issue #323)

* detecting ?out of space? errors while building huge ISO images

* Add SEP Sesam external backup integration - issues #324 and #325

* Add automatic recovery mode for Bareos - issue #311

* Add incremental backup type with GNU tar with weekly backups, define in /
    etc/rear/local.conf the following (issue #294):

BACKUP=NETFS
     BACKUP_TYPE=incremental
     FULLBACKUPDAY="Mon"

* Add support for Gentoo kernels - issue #312

Version 1.15.0 (September 2013)

The references pointing to fix #nr or issue #nr refer to our issues tracker

As usual lots of bug fixes - see the issue tracker.

* Add EMC NetWorker (Legato) support for doing external backup

* Add Bareos (Backup Archive REcovery Open Sourced) support for doing
    external backup (bareos is a fork of the open source backup suite Bacula)

* Align the usage of KEEP_OLD_OUTPUT_COPY and NETFS_KEEP_OLD_BACKUP_COPY
    and make them behave sane. See also issue #192

* Add the ?selinux option to be safe with SELinux context restoration (with
    GNU tar)

* Add an option to exclude modules on the rescue system

default.conf: EXCLUDE_MODULES=()

* Add integrity check when BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=tar with the option
    BACKUP_INTEGRITY_CHECK

* Add an option to define a root password to allow SSH connection whithout
    a public/private key pair (#272)

default.conf: SSH_ROOT_PASSWORD=

* Implement the ?splitted backup to iso? feature. To use that, BACKUP_URL
    has to use the iso://[subdirs] scheme but a different OUTPUT_URL has to
    be defined (issues #278 and #287). New parameter ISO_MAX_SIZE introduced.

* Fix SELinux autorelabelling (issue #270 and #274)

* Rear supports now more then 9 partitions (see issue #263)

* systemd support added for Fedora 19/20 and OpenSuse 12.x/13.x

* Automatic Recover feature on USB devices (label AUTOMATIC RECOVER in rear
    recover menu)

* Add an option to copy all users and group. It is usefull in the case we
    want to restore ACL of all users. See default.conf:

CLONE_ALL_USERS_GROUPS=n

* Example prep script to detect missing lftp (fix #247)

* Using POSIX output format in df.txt (fix #248)

* Recognize OracleServer as a Fedora derivate

* Allow basic network configuration from the command line

* Create directory $PXE_TFTP_LOCAL_PATH if it does not exist (fix #244,
    issue #244)

* Support booting syslinux v5 (issue #238)

* Fix installing grub when /boot is inside the root filesystem (issue #210)

* Deal with BTRFS subvolumes correctly (issue #233 and #252)

* Recognize OracleServer as a Fedora derivate

* Added UEFI integration within rear (including booting ISO images)

* Improved dataprotector GUI interaction (issue #189)

* Secure backup was introduced (issue #196)

Add to /etc/rear/local.conf: BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_ENABLED=1
    BACKUP_PROG_CRYPT_KEY=?secretkey?

* Added fixes recomended by RedHat Bugzilla report #882175

* OUTPUT_URL scheme approvement (issue #37)

* Netbackup improvement for xinetd (issue #180)

* LOGFILE variable can be overruled now (issue #56)

* Support for RBME restores over NFS

* Packaging support introduced for Arch Linux

* Added support for sshfs transport with BACKUP=NETFS (issue #171)

* Re-introduced /dev/disk/by-id migration which was lost since release
    1.7.22 (issue #22)

* Updates required for systemd for fedora 18 and 19.

* Check if ROOT_FS filesystem was mounted with ?noexec? attribute (issue #
    150)

Version 1.14.0 (September 2012)

The references pointing to fix#nr refer to our issues tracker

Lots of minor bugs were fixed, and not all of them are listed in current
release notes. For a complete overview see the issue tracker.

* Added duply/duplicity with one new backup method duplicity (Experimental)

* Systemd supported on Fedora 17 and OpenSuse 12.2 (fix #115, #126)

* Create correct yaboot dir on ppc (fix #109)

* Add new RAMDISK output method. This writes the kernel and the initramfs
    to the location given in OUTPUT_URL.

* Packaging - introduction of Makefile; cleanup dr workflow (fix #13, #49)

* Make rear working from checkout of git, w.o.w. path is relocatable (fix #
    53)

* Add bytes_per_inode information for ext* filesystem to layout.conf (fix #
    86)

* Fixing ebuild to be Gentoo compliant (fix #93)

* fix shutdown with upstart (fix #41)

* multiarch support library support (fix #82)

* Fix serial console on ubuntu 11.04 (fix #83)

* Several fixes in layout file (fix #85)

* Added fix for DAT320 tape drive (fix for #35)

* Use generic grub code for all distributions (fix for #77)

* list Xen paravirtualized disks in disklayout.conf (fixes #74 and
    SF3520992)

Version 1.13.0 (April 2012)

* Support for multipathing was added

* Several improvements and bug fixes to the layout code (especially with
    parted backwards compatibility).

* Added support for ext4 file systems

* The OUTPUT=USB with BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=rsync was corrected to
    avoid duplicate work

* Fedora and RHEL will now rebuild the initial ramdisk if needed (on
    recovered system)

* Fix for SF#3475480: datacompression on tape

* Fix for SF#3481656: missing bacula-console executable for BACKUP=BACULA
    workflow

* Fix for SF#3479570: /etc/passwd contains :x: without /etc/shadow

* Added ?migrate HWADDR after cloning? code

* Improved the systemd code (parts required by Relax-and-Recover only) for
    Fedora 16/17

* The DHCLIENT variables were moved from local.conf to rescue.conf. This is
    done automatically, so the end-user, shouldnot be aware of it.

* At boot time more kernel options are recognized such as noip, dhcp,
    debug. The noip will give you a rescue environment without any attempt to
    start networking. The dhcp variable will try to start dhclient on any
    network interface it finds activated. The debug variable (which is not
    new by the way) will give you the chance to debug the code of our
    Relax-and-Recover code.

* Relax-and-Recover works again on IA64 architecture (at least with RHEL
    5.x). Remember, RHEL 6 is not ported to IA64.

Version 1.12.0 (November 2011)

* Multiple copies of Relax-and-Recover backups (of the same or different
    systems) can be kept on a USB device (with OUTPUT=USB).

* (NEW!) BACKUP=RSYNC workflow using rsync executable. Both ssh and rsync
    methods are supported. E.g.

BACKUP=RSYNC
      OUTPUT=ISO
      BACKUP_URL=rsync://username@hostname/path
      BACKUP_PROG=/usr/local/bin/rsync #(instead of the default rsync)

* Added better named EXCLUDE_ variables, better control over what is
    restored:
      + EXCLUDE_BACKUP excludes components from backup
      + EXCLUDE_RECREATE excludes components from the recreate process
      + EXCLUDE_RESTORE excludes components from the restore process
  * The layout workflow is now the default instead of the dr workflow. Under
    /var/lib/rear/layout all information of the system is kept in files.

* Arch Linux is now supported with Relax-and-Recover.

* The labeltape command has been superseded by the format command. This can
    be used with tapes and external (USB, eSATA) devices. Usage:

rear format [/dev/st0|/dev/sdx]

* Replaced NETFS_URL and ISO_URL by BACKUP_URL and OUTPUT_URL. However, old
    references will still be recognized and used.

* Fedora 16 is supported including GRUB 2, and systemd as init replacement.

* Added the BACKUP_URL=file:///PATH with BACKUP=NETFS method (as described
    in configuration-examples.txt)

* Improved multipath functionality

* Optional automatic autofs exclusion

* (NEW! EXPERIMENTAL!) Basic btrfs file system backup and restore works.
    Advise is not to trust it (yet). At recreation of the btrfs file system
    the UUID number is automatically renamed in all configuration files (such
    as /etc/fstab or /boot/grub/menu.lst).

Version 1.11.0 (May 2011)

* The mkobdr command has been removed. OBDR-enabled tapes can now be
    created using the mkrescue command and by defining the proper variables
    in /etc/rear/local.conf:

BACKUP=NETFS
      OUTPUT=OBDR
      BACKUP_URL=tape:///dev/nst0

* The site configuration file /etc/rear/site.conf has been removed from the
    Relax-and-Recover package, but can still be used if end-users want. The
    purpose of this is to enable sites to distribute this file through RPM or
    DEB packages that do not have a file conflict with the Relax-and-Recover
    package. The distribution /etc/rear/local.conf file contains only
    configuration examples as comments in order to not interfere with
    configurations in site.conf.

* The rear command is by default quiet, which means if you want the same
    behavior as in previous versions you need to add the verbose option (-v)
    with the rear command

* The output workflow now runs before the mkbackup workflow especially done
    to make OBDR tape creation possible with the mkbackup workflow as the ISO
    image must be written first on an OBDR aware tape. Please note that this
    is a fundamental change with regard to previous versions of
    Relax-and-Recover. While utmost care has been taken that there would be
    no adverse side effects of this change. We cannot test all possible usage
    scenarios.

* When using OUTPUT=USB then you have to make sure that the destination
    (USB) disk is formatted as an ext2, ext3, ext4 or btrfs file-system.
    Extlinux is now the only supported boot loader for bootable disks,
    syslinux is not supported any more.

* The Relax-and-Recover boot now shows a boot menu with options to choose
    from. The actual content of the menu depends on the available syslinux
    version and its modules (like menu.c32, hdt.c32, reboot.c32,
    poweroff.com).

* Relax-and-Recover does properly recognize IPv6 addresses and uses these
    if configured.

* NBU backup method now allows to restore to a point in time.

* Support Fedora 15 (using systemd to boot-up) and RHEL6 and Scientific
    Linux 6.

* Improved handling of HP SmartArray controllers.

* Significantly improved error handling, especially when failing on
    subshells.

* Autologin as root in the rescue media (for upstart and systemd based
    systems).

* EXCLUDE_MOUNTPOINTS should work correctly now (fixed typo).

* Support ext4 on RHEL5 and clones.

* Ignore known errors when using EXTERNAL backup method (set
    EXTERNAL_IGNORE_ERRORS to an array of return codes to ignore).

* Use original filesystem mount options for recovery, support attr and facl
    tools.

* Support XEN paravirtualized systems (tested only on RHEL5 so far).

* Performance improvements (removed checksum calculation, PID-based
    locking).

* Relax-and-Recover work space is now created with a random part to prevent
    potential security exploits.

* Control exit tasks and subprocesses better. Kill subprocesses before
    exiting.

* Support adding Relax-and-Recover boot files to local GRUB environment
    (GRUB_RESCUE) and password protect rescue boot (GRUB_RESCUE_PASSWORD) to
    avoid accidential recovery.

The default password is REAR.

* (experimental!) Transfer ISO image to remote URL (ISO_URL). Please note
    that this feature will be extended to cover all output methods. It has
    been renamed to OUTPUT_URL.

* Removed various warnings, e.g. about NETFS not being a professional
    backup method.

* Partial support for Arch Linux has been added, more testing required.

* (NEW!) shell workflow is now really usable.

* Make 32/64 bit handling much more robust, especially on systems having /
    lib32.

* NETFS backup and restore with rsync working now (BACKUP_PROG=rsync).

* Support udev on RHEL4.

* Development snapshot have now a version like 0.0.REV where REV is the SVN
    revision used to build the development snapshot.

* Greatly reduced log clutter (lvm warnings about leaked file descriptors,
    which is a bash bug, various irrelevant error and verbose output).

* checklayout can now also check arbitrary files (through an md5 checksum),
    extend the CHECK_CONFIG_FILES array to use this feature.

Version 1.10.0 (February 2011)

An intermediate release only which fixed some hanging issues of version
1.9.0. Also, a RPM upgrade was fixed by this release from 1.7.25 to 1.9.0,
which failed because of a wrongly CentOS symbolic link. See bugzilla#680664

Version 1.9.0 (February 2011)

With version 1.9.0 some new methods were added, such as:

* rear mkobdr : to create an OBDR recovery tape (obsolete since 1.11.0)

* rear labeltape : goes together with OBDR tapes. To avoid accidental
    overwrites we force the creation of a label before rear mkbackup will
    work. (obsolete since 1.11.0)

* rear checklayout/savelayout : a new method to save the disk layout and
    check if a new rear mkbackup or rear mkrescue is required.

* New BACKUP methods were added, Bacula (BACKUP=BACULA) and bextract
    (BACKUP=BEXTRACT), both are able to work in conjunction with output=TAPE.
    See under the doc directory (or /usr/share/doc/rear-1.9.0/) the
    configuration-examples.txt text file for beginners instructions.

* OUTPUT=USB method has been extended with BACKUP=NETFS and NETFS_URL=usb:/
    //dev/<device> which makes it possible that the complete archive is
    stored on the /dev/<device> and Relax-and-Recover will make the USB stick
    (or disk) bootable too.

* Udev support (except for some really ancient udev versions) which is the
    base for many new and important features, like kernel drivers for network
    cards and storage adapters are now loaded via udev, or deal with network
    persistent names in udev rules, and firmware loading.

* DHCP client support (IPv4 and IPv6) has been added. Auto detection is
    possible with new variable USE_DHCLIENT=yes (define in local.conf), or
    one can hard-code your special DHCP client with the variables
    DHCLIENT_BIN (for IPv4), and/or DHCLIENT6_BIN (for IPv6).

Relax-and-Recover version 1.9.0 contain fixes for the following defects:

* Missing support for Scientific Linux, LinuxMint

* Sourceforge patch ID 2963804 - support for USBFS, but this patch has been
    rewritten afterward to incorporate usb support into the NETFS backup
    method, instead of having a separate USBFS backup method. Now, by using
    NETFS_URL=usb:///dev/<device> and the NETFS backup method we achieve the
    same result.

* Sourceforge bug 3153027 : support for RHEV virtio device files

* Novell bugzilla 581292 : cannot load NIC firmware because of missing udev
    support. Version 1.9 does have udev support, but firmware loading was
    broken. The rule in 00-rear.rules has been changed.

Version 1.7.26 (November 2010)

Relax-and-Recover version 1.7.26 fixed RedHat bugzilla defect 657174 : rescue
image freezes during the boot while executing init. This was due the new
upstart mechanism (replaced the sysv init procedure).

Version 1.7.25 (June 2010)

Relax-and-Recover version 1.7.25 fixed RedHat bugzilla defect 600217 : Fedora
link missing in restore, pack and finalize sub-directories. This broke the
proper image building on several Fedora versions.

System and Software Requirements

Relax-and-Recover works on GNU/Linux kernel with version 2.6 and higher. For
lower kernel versions Relax-and-Recover cannot be used, and for these
systems, mkcdrec is still a good alternative.

As Relax-and-Recover has been solely written in the bash language we need the
bash shell which is standard available on all GNU/Linux based systems. The
default backup program Relax-and-Recover uses is GNU/tar which is also
standard available.

Relax-and-Recover is known to work well on x86 and x86_64 based
architectures. Relax-and-Recover has also been ported to ia64 and ppc
architectures, but these are less tested. Use the ?rear validate? command
after every successful DR test please and mail us the results.

Choosing the best compression algorithm

The default backup program with Relax-and-Recover is (BACKUP_PROG=tar) GNU
tar and the default compression used with tar is gzip. However, is using gzip
the best choice? We have done some tests and published the results. See
Relax-and-Recover compression tests

Known Problems and Workarounds

Issue Description: with RHEL 4 systems extended partitions are recognized as
primary partitions

Error: Expecting a partition number

* Workaround:

Full details can be read in issue 314. However, you need to edit /var/lib/
rear/layout/disklayout.conf file and change for partition 4 ?primary? to
?extended?

Issue Description: System reconfiguration still has some weaknesses.

* this has to be tested before relying on it, there are too many unknowns
    involved so that we cannot guarantee anything in this area. It has been
    developed mostly as a P2V tool to migrate HP servers to VMware Vms

* hard disks need to be at least of the same size and amount as in the
    original system, ATM this is a simple 1:1 mapping of old to new disks,
    there is no removal of RAID groups or merging of smaller disks onto a
    bigger one or making stuff smaller.

* any use of /dev/disk/by-path or /dev/disk/by-id is untested and will most
    likely not work. In some cases Relax-and-Recover will print a warning,
    but we are not able to detect all cases. Typically this leads to
    unbootable systems or bad /etc/fstab files

Issue Description: The DHCP client is still a little rough around the edges,
especially with complex networking scenarios.

Issue Description: An error is encountered while upgrading rear-1.7.* to
rear-1.9.0:

error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/share/rear/finalize/CentOS: cpio: rename failed - Is a directory

* Workaround:

First remove the older Relax-and-Recover version by hand and then install the
new version. The local.conf is saved (as local.conf.rpmsave) when we execute
rpm -e rear

Issue Description: If SELinux is not disabled during backup (variable
BACKUP_SELINUX_DISABLE= in /etc/rear/local.conf) then we might see errors in
the rear-$(hostname).log file such as:

tar: var/cache/yum/i386/15/updates/packages: Cannot setfilecon: No such file or directory

* Workaround:

Make sure the BACKUP_URL destination understands extended attributes (CIFS is
out of the question and NFS is problematic). When using local disks (or
external USB devices) make sure the proper mount options are given in the
BACKUP_OPTIONS variable, e.g.:

BACKUP_OPTIONS="rw,relatime,seclabel,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,data=ordered"

(TIP) BACKUP_SELINUX_DISABLE=1 variable has been introduced in the /usr/share
/rear/conf/default.conf file to disable SELinux while the backup is running
(default setting).

Issue Description: Is incremental backup possible? With our default settings
(BACKUP=NETFS and BACKUP_PROG=tar) we do not yet support incremental backups.

* Workaround:

However, when we change BACKUP_PROG=rsync we can use rear mkbackuponly option
which is in fact an incremental backup using the rsync program. The same can
be accomplished by using BACKUP=RSYNC and the proper BACKUP_URL=rsync://
hostname/PATH.

Issue Description: Error ?Missing usr/lib/systemd/system - too confused to
continue?

Above error message might be seen after upgrading rear from a very old
version (like rear-1.10) to the latest one.

* Workaround:

Use the command rpm -V rear to verify the upgrade went fine. If not, then
remove first the old version (with rpm -e rear) before installing the latest
version.

Issue Description: ERROR: FindStorageDrivers called but STORAGE_DRIVERS is
empty

Above error message might be seen after a fresh installation of the GNU/Linux
kernel. Rear got confused between the running kernel version number and the
actual fresh kernel available.

* Workaround:

Reboot your server before using rear again, which is a good practice anyway
after upgrading the GNU/Linux kernel.

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File rear-release-notes.txt-1.16 of Package rear (Revision 902bfd5ad817da614c8a7e2c4ec7c4ff)

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