Backing up logical volumes

Acronis Backup Agent for Linux can access, back up, and recover logical volumes when running in Linux starting with 2.6.x kernel or under Linux-based bootable media.

Backup

In Acronis Backup GUI, logical volumes appear under Dynamic volumes at the end of the list of volumes available for backup. If you select logical volumes for backup, the logical volume structure will be saved to the backup along with the volume contents. This structure can be automatically recreated when you recover these volumes under a Linux-based bootable media.

To back up all available disks, specify all logical volumes plus basic volumes not belonging to them. This is the default choice when you open the Create backup plan page.

Basic volumes included in logical volumes are shown in the list with None in the File system column. If you select such volumes, the program will back them up sector-by-sector. Normally this is not required.

Recovery

When recovering logical volumes, you have two options:

• Recovering volume contents only. The type or other properties of the target volume will not change.

  This option is available both in the operating system and under bootable media.

  This option is useful in the following cases:

  • When some data on the volume was lost, but no hard disks were replaced.
  • When recovering a logical volume over a basic disk or volume. You can resize the resulting volume in this case.

    A system, recovered from a logical volume backup to a basic disk, cannot boot because its kernel tries to mount the root file system at the logical volume. To boot the system, change the loader configuration and /etc/fstab so that LVM is not used and reactivate your boot loader.

  • When recovering a basic or logical volume to an existing logical volume.

    If the boot partition (/boot) was located on a basic volume, we recommend recovering it to a basic volume, even if your boot loader supports booting from logical volumes.

• Recovering both the structure of logical volumes and their contents.

  Such is the case when recovering on bare metal or on a machine with different volume structure. The structure of logical volumes can be automatically created at the time of recovery.

  This option is available only under bootable media.

For detailed instructions on how to recover logical volumes, see Recovering MD devices and logical volumes.