Veeam Backup & Replication U3 adds management for Veeam agent for Linux and Windows. Provided capabilities include automated deployment of agents, centralized configuration and management of backup jobs for protected computers and centralized management of backups created by agents.
To handle the management of computers in VBR inventory, protection groups are utilized. Protection groups are containers in the inventory used to manage computers of the same type: for example Windows laptops or CentOS servers. Protection groups are used to automate the deployment and management of agents since they allow performing tasks at the group level, not at the individual computer level. At protection group level you define scheduling options for protected computers discovery, the distribution server from where agent binaries can be downloaded, agent installation.
In the current post we'll explore an automated way of creating protection groups and adding computers to them using Veeam PowerShell extension.
The script creates a new protection group and adds a list of computers to it. It takes as input the following parameters:
- protection group name
- computer list
- rescan policy type: daily or periodically
- rescan hour for daily rescans
- rescan period in hours for periodically rescans
- automatically reboot computers if necessary
Before running the script, make sure you have connected to VBR server using Connect-VBRServer commandlet. During script run, it will prompt for entering credentials for the user that will install the agent
If the protection group already exist, the following message will be displayed and execution stopped:
"Protection group: Protection_Group_Name already exists. Use another name for protection group."
After the successful execution, the newly created protection group is displayed in VBR console, Inventory view, under Physical & Cloud Infrastructure. Right click on it and select Properties. In the first tab you'll that the group has been created by PowerShell
On Computers tab, select one computer and pressing Set User will display the credentials entered during the script run. The credentials are also commented that have been added by PowerShell:
Finally, on Options tab you can see that the parameters configured at the start of the script have been applied. In this case periodically rescan every 6 hours and automatic reboot:
The script configures automatic agent installation, and if the computers are reachable and credentials entered are valid and have appropriate rights, then the status of the computers displayed in VBR console is "Installed".
Finally, the code listing
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| # parameters
$protectionGroupName = "All Linux Servers"
$newComputers = @("192.168.1.2","192.168.1.3","192.168.1.4")
$rescanPolicyType = "periodically" # other value: "periodically"; any other value defaults to "daily"
$rescanTime = "16:30"
$rescanPeriod = 1 # rescan period in hours for "periodically" - can be 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24
$rebootComputer = "false" # any other value will not set -RebootIfRequired flag
# function definition
function NewProtectionGroup($protectionGroupName, $newComputers, $rescanTime, $rescanPolicyType, $rescanPeriod, $rebootComputer) {
Write-Host -foreground yellow "Enter credentials for computers in protection group " $protectionGroupName
$creds = Get-Credential
$newCreds = Add-VBRCredentials -Credential $creds -Description "powershell added creds for $protectionGroupName" -Type Linux
$newComputersCreds = $newComputers | ForEach { New-VBRIndividualComputerCustomCredentials -HostName $_ -Credentials $newCreds}
$newContainer = New-VBRIndividualComputerContainer -CustomCredentials $newComputersCreds
if ($rescanPolicyType -eq "daily") {
$dailyOptions = New-VBRDailyOptions -Type Everyday -Period $rescanTime
$scanSchedule = New-VBRProtectionGroupScheduleOptions -PolicyType Daily -DailyOptions $dailyOptions
} elseif ($rescanPolicyType -eq "periodically") {
$periodicallyOptions = New-VBRPeriodicallyOptions -PeriodicallyKind Hours -FullPeriod $rescanPeriod
$scanSchedule = New-VBRProtectionGroupScheduleOptions -PolicyType Periodically -PeriodicallyOptions $periodicallyOptions
} else {
Write-host -foreground red "Uknown rescan policy type" $rescanPolicyType
Write-host -foreground red "Using daily "
$dailyOptions = New-VBRDailyOptions -Type Everyday -Period $rescanTime
$scanSchedule = New-VBRProtectionGroupScheduleOptions -PolicyType Daily -DailyOptions $dailyOptions
}
if ($rebootComputer -eq "true") {
$deployment = New-VBRProtectionGroupDeploymentOptions -InstallAgent -UpgradeAutomatically -RebootIfRequired
} else {
$deployment = New-VBRProtectionGroupDeploymentOptions -InstallAgent -UpgradeAutomatically
}
$protectionGroup = Add-VBRProtectionGroup -Name $protectionGroupName -Container $newContainer -ScheduleOptions $scanSchedule -DeploymentOptions $deployment
# rescan and install
Rescan-VBREntity -Entity $protectionGroup -Wait
}
# Script body
if (Get-VBRProtectionGroup -Name $protectionGroupName -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
Write-Host -foreground red "Protection group:" $protectionGroupName "already exists. Use another name for protection group."
} else {
NewProtectionGroup -protectionGroupName $protectionGroupName -newComputers $newComputers -rescanTime $rescanTime -rescanPolicyType $rescanPolicyType -rescanPeriod $rescanPeriod -rebootComputer $rebootComputer
}
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