Installing Backup Exec System Restore on CentOS 5.5 and First backup / restore

As I said in my review I would telling you how to install this on CentOS 5.5, so here it is.

Normally one would simply run the Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin with ./Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin. But on a non-supported distribution / kernel that won't work.

However all is not lost! You can install this with a little shell-fu.
Instead of ./Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin run
./Symantec_Backup_Exec_System_Recovery.bin --noexec --target .

This will extract the contents of the binary to the current directory. Next you need to install a few RPM packages, but you need to know what version of kernel you are running (for me it was either PAE or non-PAE). So I ran uname -a to see what version of the kernel that machine was running.

rpm -Uhv SymSnap/symbdsnap-1.0.1-36146.2.6.18_8.el5PAE.i686.rpm
rpm -Uhv symmount-1.0.1-36352.i686.rpm
rpm -Uhv besr-1.0.1-36352.i686.rpm

Once all of these packages are installed I was able to do my first backup. And by first backup I mean first three (/boot, /, and SWAP). While I probably don't need to do all three (/boot and /) I don't want to have to create a SWAP system after a restore. So I ran all three.

besr -b/dev/sda1 -d /Storage/backups/hostname/boot.v2i -use-aes-encryption standard -p SoM3SupErSecureP@ssW0rd -compress Standard
besr -b /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 -d /Storage/backups/hostname/Vol00Log00.v2i -use-aes-encryption standard -p SoM3SupErSecureP@ssW0rd -compress Standard
besr -b /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01 -d /Storage/backups/hostname/Vol00Log01.v2i -use-aes-encryption standard -p SoM3SupErSecureP@ssW0rd -compress Standard

Now in /Storage/backups/hostname I have three files
boot.v2i
Vol00Log00.v2i
Vol00Log01.v2i

If I needed to restore these I would use the Backup Exec System Recovery Windows based LiveCD. During the restore I would choose all three of these in the order shown above.

After the restore process was finished I need to boot using the gparted LiveCD. Once in I would open up a terminal and install grub on to my sda hard drive.

#grub
#root (hd0,0)
#setup (hd0)
#quit

Once grub is installed on sda I needed to update fstab to no longer look for / on the /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00 and swap to not be on /dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol01.