Release Notes 5.0.0 Jaglion

What's new in SEP sesam 5.0.0 Jaglion

New SEP sesam release 5.0.0 Jaglion introduces a more powerful and intuitive Web UI, handy new GUI functions, and more consistent and stable internal APIs.

Features at a glance

Improvements and bug fixes

This release contains a number of improvements and important fixes in various areas and resolves the issue with slow tape restore performance.

Extended SEP sesam REST API V2

The SEP sesam REST API V2 has been extended to support a wide variety of use cases. A large number of new endpoints have been added. For details, see SEP sesam REST API V2 Jaglion.

Installation with PostgreSQL on Windows

SEP sesam introduces support for PostgreSQL on Windows. Your SEP sesam Server can now be installed with PostgreSQL.

Sparse files support

SEP sesam now provides support for Linux sparse files to prevent running out of disk space during restore. For details on how SEP sesam handles sparse files and what options are available, see Support for Sparse Files.

Enhanced Web UI

The more advanced and intuitive Web UI offers the following in addition to monitoring SEP sesam operations: Start backups immediately, restart failed jobs, lock backups, review alerts, set UI mode, and view job and data store details.

Backup & restore

• Now also supported: Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) backup and restore. The Nutanix AHV module is supported on SEP sesam Linux Server and on SEP sesam Windows Server, using a Linux Client as a data mover.
• To simplify backing up multiple VMs, you can automate the process by automatically generating tasks for VMs that are connected to the same host; in addition, you can also automatically create clients for VMs to which the generated tasks and ACLs can be assigned.
• The new Oracle-VM task type is available to perform agentless snapshot-based backups of all OLVM virtual machines.
• Si3 deduplication store has been improved; the new Si3 NG deduplication store enables significantly higher deduplication performance.
• VFS (Sesam virtual file system) performance improvements enable 100x faster access to vSphere VMs booted directly from SEP sesam data store.
• When browsing a VMware vSphere server for backup sources, VMs are displayed in the vCenter tree along with the host and clusters. The client browser for VMware now displays a description of the configured backup tasks and details of the VM-related metadata that can be copied.
• For direct HPE backups and especially replications to the cloud, the new data store type HPE Cloud Volumes is available.
• For Microsoft Windows Server 2016 or later, the Resilient Change Tracking (RCT) is supported to back up Hyper-V virtual machines.
• Since Jaglion, the locked state is automatically applied to all backups in the chain of the selected backup.
• When backing up Citrix Hypervisor VMs, it is possible to exclude individual virtual disk (VHD) from the backup.

Web Restore Assistant

• The web Restore Assistant now supports restoring new task types (Nutanix AHV, Micro Focus GroupWise, etc.) and provides additional restore options.
• Also supported is web single file restore for virtual machines.
  • Web Exchange restore: It is possible to perform a single Exchange mailbox database restore with SEP sesam Exchange Recovery Pro via the web Restore Assistant (with appropriate rights).
• VMware sandbox restore via the Restore Assistant offers improved functionality and usability of the recovery options, i.e. the use of run and execution commands of the VMware guest tools.
• Restore of MS SQL Server databases using web Restore Assistant is supported with specific recovery state and execution options.

Authentication & authorization

SEP sesam v. 5.0.0 authentication concept has changed. Now only a user with Superuser privileges can configure authentication and attach permissions (ACLs) to created users. The internal users can be authenticated via a signed certificate instead of a user password.

Media management

Expiring a tape provides a new option to delete all metadata, which erases all tape media metadata and initializes the tape (if the tape is loaded in a drive), removing access to all existing data on the tape.

New supported systems

SEP sesam Server 5.0.0 Jaglion now also supports the following:

• Nutanix AHV
• HCL Domino 12
• Debian 11 (bullseye)
• RHV 4.4
• SLES 15 Service Pack 3 (SP3) for SEP sesam Server (in previous version, SP3 was only supported for RDS, GUI and Client)

Improvements: Cryptographic protocols OpenSSL 1.1.1/TLS2

For a complete list of supported OS and databases, see SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Discontinued systems

	Note
	In SEP sesam Jaglion, SEP announced that it would no longer support: Ubuntu 16.04 SLES 11 Windows Server 2008 R2

For details on discontinued systems, see Unsupported OS. For a complete list of supported SEP sesam Clients, see SEP sesam Support Matrix.

SEP sesam Server requirements

Java

SEP sesam GUI is based on Java and requires a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). The required Java version depends on the SEP sesam version.

	Note
	Java 17 is not supported by SEP sesam. For a list of supported Java versions, see the Java Compatibility Matrix.

Installation and upgrades

SEP sesam Jaglion 5.0.0.3 was released on 29 December 2021. A direct upgrade from versions 4.4.3.X to version Jaglion 5.0.0.3 is supported.

	Note
	You always have to update the SEP sesam Server first before updating the client software. For more information on the SEP sesam software updates, see Updating SEP sesam.

The latest released versions are:

• SEP sesam 5.0.0.3 Linux – released: 29 December 2021.
• SEP sesam 5.0.0.3 Windows – released: 29 December 2021.

Linux specific

In order to meet all required dependencies for the SEP sesam Client packages on SLES 15 SP1 or SP2, it may be required to activate the following package modules prior to SEP sesam installation:

Module-Basesystem
Module-Server-Applications
Module-Legacy

These modules are part of the installation DVD; in case no online subscription is available, they can be added via:

zypper ar dvd:/Module-Server-Applications DVD-Server 
zypper ar dvd:/Module-Basesystem DVD-BASE
zypper ar dvd:/Module-Legacy DVD-Legacy 

For details, see Installation on Linux. For a list of supported Linux versions, see the SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Windows specific

Installation

• When installing SEP sesam Server on Windows, you can now choose to install a PostgreSQL database that is included with the SEP sesam installer (or use the SQLite that does not require a server to be set up and is used with SEP sesam by default). For details, see Installation on Microsoft Windows.
• Upgrading from SQLite to PostgreSQL is currently not supported, except with the help of SEP support.
• SEP sesam recommends the use of PostgreSQL for complex enterprise environments with many tasks, high performance expectations (due to PostgreSQL's ability to support multiple concurrent writers and read/write at fast speeds), and security and authentication requirements.

For a list of supported Windows versions, see the SEP sesam Support Matrix.

Upgrade

SEP sesam Server and Client components should be upgraded to the latest version during the upgrade process. This ensures that SEP sesam Clients are fully protected. Customers with a valid license are eligible for a free upgrade of SEP sesam to any new release for the duration of the license. See also Updating SEP sesam and Remote Installation of Windows Clients.

Post update task

Version 5.0.0.x uses the enhanced LIS file format, which increases performance at least 10 times. After updating to version 5.0.0.x, a new full vSphere backup should be performed to allow mounting and attaching VMDKs.

Previous release

• Release notes for SEP sesam 4.4.3 Beefalo V2

Known issues and limitations

	Note
	Antivirus programs may disrupt network communication and cause SEP sesam processes, such as backup and replication, to fail. One program that is known to cause SEP sesam processes to terminate is Sophos Firewall with IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) enabled. Make sure that there are no antivirus, firewall, IDS or IPS programs preventing interaction with SEP sesam.

5.0.0 Jaglion known issues:

Severity: CRITICAL SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Possible data loss due to a faulty purge function In version 5.0.0.3 Jaglion, the purge process does not set a required database entry. Due to this missing entry, an FSCK error occurs and although the migrated version of the backup still exists, it is no longer listed in the database. Consequently, the administrator may decide to use the funtion Clean up Data Store to fix the error, which results in deleting the migrated saveset and loss of data. Cause: Due to a missing database entry from a purge process, in a particular scenario when: a backup is performed on a specific date to a data store with a short EOL (and no other backup was performed on the same sesam date with a longer EOL) the saveset is migrated to a pool with a significantly longer EOL the purge of the original backup is performed according to the schedule the NEWDAY event removes the old database entries according to the schedule. As the required database entry is missing, all database entries from that particular sesam date are removed. It appears that no backup of this particular task exist as it is no longer listed, even though the migrated version of backup is still physically available. However, a manual clean-up of savesets will remove the migrated backup versions that are no longer present in the database. Workaround: Until this issue is resolved, skip the purge by setting the sm_pur_status to off to avoid data loss. To do this, proceed as follows: On Linux: Open a shell as user "root" cd /opt/sesam/bin/sesam mv sm_pur_status sm_pur_status_off On Windows: Open Windows Explorer Switch to <sesam-root>\bin\sesam directory Rename "sm_pur_status.exe" to "sm_pur_status_off.exe" Resolution: Will be fixed by a hotfix or the next SEP sesam version. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Possible data loss in case of migrated savesets with "lock" but expired retention Migrated savesets with expired retention period and manually set write protection in one of the previous versions are no longer write-protected ("locked") after the update to Jaglion and are immediately purged if their end of lifetime (EOL) has expired. This problem is caused by missing support for locking individual migrated savesets in version 5.0.0.3 and can lead to data loss! Workaround: If you are aware which migrated savesets may be affected by this issue, make sure to extend their EOL before updating to version 5.0.0.3, as described in Changing Retention (EOL). Otherwise, please do not update the SEP sesam Server to version 5.0.0.3 until the problem is solved! Resolution: Will be fixed by a hotfix or the next SEP sesam version. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Selective restore of Windows savesets on tapes with block size > 64KiB fails The selective restore of Windows savesets from tapes fails with the error message "no valid MTF Stream ID was found". The complete restore of these savesets works normally. This problem is caused by the block size not being retrieved from the segment file during a selective restore. Workaround: Migrate the saveset to a data store and then: restore with the preferred media pool set to the media pool on the data store or restore files by mounting the migrated saveset copy. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. If you have encountered this problem, SEP support can provide a hotfix. Severity: SECURITY SEP sesam v. 5.0.0 – (Windows) STPD automatically disables the HTTPS port on Windows (Applies only to Windows) The Sesam Transfer Protocol Server (STPD) automatically disables the HTTPS port if CPU instructions are missing due to unsupported AVX. Consequently, the TLS key and certificate cannot be created. Workaround : Make sure that you use CPUs with supported AVX versions (AVX, AVX2 or AVX-512) as well as FMA3 (Fused Multiply-Add 3-operand Form) or FMA4 (Fused Multiply-Add 4-operand Form). For the list of supported AVX versions, see Advanced Vector Extensions. Severity: MAJOR SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Hyper-V backup of a VM fails with error When backing up a Hyper-V VM via VSS, the backup fails with an error: "ClusterGetVolumeNameForVolumeMountPoint" is failed. Error: The file or directory is not a reparse point. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Hyper-V restore completed successfully, but the restored VM is unusable and does not appear in the Hyper-V Manager When running Hyper-V restore, the Hyper-V VM is successfully restored under a new name, but the restored VM is unusable and does not show up in the Hyper-V Manager. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Hyper-V restore of Hyper-V RCT backup fails with error When restoring a Hyper-V VM from a Hyper-V VM RTC backup under a new VM name, the restore fails with an error: Failed to read metadata file. Resolution: SEP is working on this issue and will provide a fix as soon as possible. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – VMware vSphere VM backup fails when VM contains umlauts After updating to SEP sesam version 5.0.0.3, VMs containing German umlauts can no longer be backed up if the data mover is a Windows machine. The backup fails with: Cannot open file for reading: <file>: No such file or directory. This problem occurs due to incorrect decoding of the virtual machine name. This problem does not occur if the data mover OS is Linux. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – SAP HANA backup is aborted by SEP sesam When running SAP HANA backup, SEP sesam aborts the backup job after about 18 minutes. This is due to the timeout setting, which is set to 540 seconds by default. SEP sesam multiplies this value and uses it as the limit in seconds for aborting running jobs (stop time). Workaround: Modify the SAP HANA UTL file (Backint parameter file). Change the setting for COM_TIMEOUT to: COM_TIMEOUT=3600 Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Citrix XenServer VM restore to selected target data store fails XenServer VM restore to selected target data store (Citrix storage repository – SR) fails. SEP sesam sbc_proxy does not use the selected SR for the restore, but the default data store. Restoring to the selected SR only works if there is more than one SR with the same name on Citrix XenServer, as SEP Sesam will then restore to the selected data store that is on the same Citrix XenServer host as the restore target host. Otherwise, the default storage repository is used and the restore fails if this default storage repository is not configured. Workaround: To restore to a desired SR, make this SR temporarily the default SR of the Citrix pool. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Purging a backup on a data store does not delete metadata from the lis folder and may result in running out of disk space After a purge has finished, the lis folder still contains the metadata even though the files (.data, .info, ...) and DB entries have been deleted, which can lead to running out of disk space. Workaround: Make sure no backups or migrations are running and run the following command in a shell on SEP sesam Server with admin privileges (note that you need to set the profile first): sm_cross_check cleanup_lis The command checks for inconsistencies and removes the affected metafiles. The command should be run for the first time 11 days after updating to version 5.0.0.3, as it does not remove orphan metafiles newer than 10 days. Run this command once a day or once a week (depending on the number of backups per day). Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. Severity: NORMAL SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – (Debian only) Restore from RDX backup fails with error (Applies only to Debian): Restore from RDX backup fails with an error: Error while unpacking data. Bad archive. This problem is caused by incorrect segment parsing. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.5. If you experience this problem, SEP support can provide a hotfix. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Backup of SEP sesam client version 5.0.0 to SEP sesam Server version 4.4.3.x fails with "XBSA: Perform: curl error 55: Failed sending data to the peer" If package updates are installed on SEP sesam Clients during the regular update before SEP sesam Server is updated to the same version as the clients, the backup may fail with the message "XBSA: Perform: curl error 55: Failed sending data to the peer" Resolution: Update the SEP sesam Server to the same version installed on the clients. Note that you always have to update the SEP sesam Server first before updating the client software. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Backup to tape with EOM fails with error Failed to detect lis file Backup to tape with EOM fails with error message Failed to detect lis file. This issue only occurs if the following conditions are met: Backup to tape with EOM sm_reformat_lis is called after backup Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – A backup of a OES NetWare resource fails After updating the OES cluster nodes to version 5.0.0.3, NSS backups are stopped due to NWSMTSConnectToTargetServiceEx CL3PROG_SERVER (NWSM_AUTH_UTF8_DATA - encoded). The problem occurs if the source is a Linux cluster file system, while the backups run normally if the source is a cluster resource such as a local NSS volume. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. If you have encountered this problem, SEP support can provide a hotfix. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Exchange backup fails with error a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' After updating SEP sesam Windows Server to version 5.0.0.3, Exchange backups fail with ERROR: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' . Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – New Hyper-V RCT backups do not support single file restore (via VFS mount) As of 5.0.0 Jaglion, SEP sesam uses Resilient Change Tracking (RCT) by default for Hyper-V backups on Windows Server ≥ 2016 (Hyper-V VM ≥ 6.2). Single file restore (VFS mount) is currently only supported for VM Hyper-V backups without RCT option (old approach with VSS snapshots creating .avhdx files instead of the new Resilient Change Tracking). The new RCT backups have a 'RCT' attribute and the mount option is not shown. For older backups without the 'RCT' attribute, the mount option is available. Workaround: When restoring a Hyper-V RCT backup, perform a regular VM restore of the virtual machine as described in Restoring a Hyper-V virtual machine. Resolution: SEP development is working on a single file restore via mount for Hyper-V RTC backups and will implement it as soon as possible. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Hyper-V restore fails, if the data store path from the original VM does not exist on the target server Hyper-V restore fails with error Warning: Cannot create item [D:\]: [87] WIN32 API error: 87 - The parameter is incorrect., if the data store path from the original VM does not exist on the target server, regardless of whether the default Hyper-V folder for VMs is used or an existing data store path is set. The original path is always used. Resolution: SEP is working on this issue and will provide a fix as soon as possible. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – SEP sesam on Linux gets stuck on shutdown after updating (or reinstalling) to version 5.0.0.3 Jaglion After updating to version 5.0.0.3, SEP sesam on Linux gets stuck when closing the sesam processes and does not shut down, but waits for sesam service to finish for the maximum allowed time of 2 hours. The problem occurs due to the missing DB access when shutting down the system. Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – sm_shutdown instead of sm_main stop is called to stop SEP sesam on the client The systemd unit file calls sm_shutdown instead of sm_main stop on the client. Stopping the sesam service on the SEP sesam Client does not stop all SEP sesam components, especially "sm_sshd". So it can happen that not all running SEP sesam components are stopped correctly. Workaround: To fix this problem, run the following commands: sed -i 's/sm_shutdown/sm_main stop/' /usr/lib/systemd/system/sepsesam.service systemctl daemon-reload Resolution: Will be fixed with version 5.0.0.4. GUI issues We are experiencing some GUI issues that do not significantly affect the performance and functionality of SEP sesam. SEP is working to resolve these issues as quickly as possible. SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – If a double quote exists in the annotations, tags or custom attributes of a VM, the VM cannot be browsed When a double quote appears in the VM annotation, tags or custom attributes, the VM cannot be browsed in ESX or vCenter due to broken parsing. Workaround: If you experience this problem, contact SEP support to get a newer version of sm_ui.jar. Resolution: Remove special characters in annotations, tags or custom attributes. The issue is addressed and will be fixed with the upcoming Service Pack 2 release. SEP sesam v. 4.4.3.84–5.0.0.3 – If a manual snapshot of the VM exists, the vSphere DIFF backup fails When a manual snapshot is created for the VM, the snapshot number is not processed correctly and the *.cbt file on the datamover is not created, causing the backup to fail. Workaround: If you experience this problem, contact SEP support to get a newer version of sbc_vadp.jar. Resolution: The issue is addressed and will be fixed with the upcoming Service Pack 2 release. SEP sesam v. 4.4.3.84–5.0.0.3 – When setting a backup source for a Microsoft Sharepoint server backup by browsing, the backup source is invalid When browsing items of a Microsoft Sharepoint server to select a backup source, the created backup tasks are not valid because the check expects a leading slash ('/') that is not part of the Sharepoint backup source path. Workaround: Edit the backup task and correct the backup source manually by removing the '/SharePoint Server:' part from the source path. Resolution: The issue is addressed and will be fixed with the upcoming Service Pack 2 release. Severity: MINOR SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Kopano backup containing non-ascii characters fails to create index, but backup is marked as successful A Kopano backup containing non-ascii characters results in the error UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character... Consequently, the mail subject index cannot be created, but the backup is marked as successful. Resolution: The index problem can only be fixed by creating the correct locale: #vi /etc/locale.gen and then enable de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8 #locale-gen SEP sesam v. 5.0.0.3 – Package download by sm_update_client fails Package download by sm_update_client from https://download.sep.de fails with Package [<sesam_package>] not found. Workaround: This appears to be an http/https-related issue. To enable package download, set http://download.sep.de as the update URL: GUI -> Configuration -> Defaults -> Install/Update -> under Use custom SEP sesam package source, set the URL to load the SEP sesam packages to http://download.sep.de. For details, see Use custom SEP sesam package source. SEP is working on this issue and will provide a fix as soon as possible. SEP sesam v. 4.4.3.86–5.0.0.3 – Initial Seeding functionality temporarily removed As using the Initial Seed option to set up a new Si3 deduplication store for replication resulted in an apparently successful setup, but no data was replicated, the Initial Seeding functionality is no longer available in version 5.0.0.3.

Important fixes

Fixed with SEP sesam Server 5.0.0 Jaglion:

SEP sesam v. 4.4.3.75 – Tape restore performance is slower than backup performance When restoring from tape the performance is 2-3 times slower than the performance of the backup. Resolution: Fixed; fill the second buffer while processing the first buffer, EOF handling adapted. SEP sesam v. ≥ 4.4.3 – Si3S does not work in case of changed STPD port on the Client SEP Si3 source-side deduplication (Si3S) backup of a client to a SEP Si3 deduplication store not work, if the STPD service TCP port on the client side (in sm.ini and/or stpd.ini) is changed from the default port. Resolution: You can now set the STPD service TCP port on the client (client properties -> Options tab -> Listen port) to the new TCP port.

Fixed issues Jaglion 5.0.0.4

Kernel

Possible data loss due to a faulty purge function

Problem

• Due to execute 'Delete everything older then oldeset Sesam day' sm_pur_status could accidentally remove backup information for migrated savesets and following FSCK may complain about savests migrated on that store. Executing 'Clean up Data Store' may remove valid migrated savesets.

Solution

• Logic improved

Possible data loss in case of migrated savesets with "lock" but expired retention

Problem

• Migrated savesets with expired retention period and manually set write protection in one of the previous versions are no longer write-protected ("locked") after the update to Jaglion and are immediately purged if their end of lifetime (EOL) has expired.

Solution

• During update to 5.0.0.4 the lock is forwarded to the backup entry. So individual locks on migrated savesets will now result in an lock for all savesets of the same backup.

SAP HANA backup is aborted by SEP sesam

Problem

• When running SAP HANA backup, SEP sesam aborts the backup job after about 18 minutes.

Solution

• Default timeout to cancel running jobs for external backups is at least 1 day.

Purging a backup on a data store does not delete metadata from the lis folder and may result in running out of disk space

Problem

• After a purge has finished, the lis folder still contains the metadata even though the files (.data, .info, ...) and DB entries have been deleted.

Solution

• Logic improved

Backup to tape with EOM fails with error Failed to detect lis file

Problem

• Backup to tape with EOM fails with error message Failed to detect lis file. This issue only occurs sm_reformat_lis is called after backup.

Solution

• Logic improved

SMS/STPD

Selective restore of Windows savesets on tapes with block size > 64KiB fails

Problem

• The selective restore of Windows savesets from tapes fails with the error message "no valid MTF Stream ID was found". The complete restore of these savesets works normally. This problem is caused by the block size not being retrieved from the segment file during a selective restore.

Solution

• Now block size is fetched from segment file.

Sesam Backup Client

Citrix XenServer VM restore to selected target data store fails

Problem

• XenServer VM restore to selected target data store (Citrix storage repository - SR) fails.

Solution

• Selected SR is now used by sbc_proxy.

A backup of a OES NetWare resource fails

Problem

• After updating the OES cluster nodes to version 5.0.0.3, NSS backups are stopped due to NWSMTSConnectToTargetServiceEx CL3PROG_SERVER (NWSM_AUTH_UTF8_DATA - encoded).

Solution

• NSS requires use of SSL 1.0.x library.

Exchange backup fails with error a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'

Problem

• After updating SEP sesam Windows Server to version 5.0.0.3, Exchange backups may fail with ERROR: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' .

Solution

• Logic improved

Shutdown/Startup

SEP sesam on Linux gets stuck on shutdown after updating (or reinstalling) to version 5.0.0.3 Jaglion

Problem

• After updating to version 5.0.0.3, SEP sesam on Linux gets stuck when closing the sesam processes and does not shut down, but waits for sesam service to finish for the maximum allowed time of 2 hours. The problem occurs due to the missing DB access when shutting down the system.

Solution

• Start Sesam PostgreSQL server using 'setpriv' instead of 'su/runuser', because 'systemd' terminates 'su' sessions before stopping SEPsesam service

sm_shutdown instead of sm_main stop is called to stop SEP sesam on the client

Problem

• The systemd unit file calls 'sm_shutdown' instead of sm_main stop on the client. .

Solution

• Use 'sm_main stop' instead of 'sm_shutdown'.

Enhancements and changes

Nutanix AHV

With Jaglion, SEP sesam provides efficient data protection for Nutanix AHV virtual machines (VMs). The Nutanix AHV module is supported on SEP sesam Linux Server and on SEP sesam Windows Server, using a Linux Client as a data mover. You can easily back up and restore Nutanix AHV VMs, as described in Nutanix AHV Backup and Nutanix AHV Restore.

Authentication and authorization

The authentication and authorization concept is enhanced with two new user types - superuser, which replaces the previous admin role, and backup user. Now only a user with Superuser privileges can configure authentication and attach permissions (ACLs) to created users. For details, see About Authentication and Authorization and Using Access Control lists.

Certificate-based authentication

Now it is possible to authenticate users via a signed certificate instead of a user password if a database-based authentication is enabled. Note that the users from external authentication sources (LDAP/AD) cannot be authenticated using a certificate (only by using a password). For details, see Configuring Certificate-Based Authentication.

Automating backup process

To simplify backing up multiple VMs, you can automate the process by automatically generating tasks for VMs that are connected to the same host; you can also automatically create clients for VMs that can be assigned the generated tasks and ACLs. It is recommended to use these features when a new hypervisor is added and many new VMs need to be backed up. For details, see Automating Backup Process.

HPE Cloud Volumes storage

In addition to HPE StoreOnce Catalyst stores and HPE Cloud Bank storage, you can now use HPE Cloud Volumes as backup storage. The HPE Cloud Volumes solution provides efficient direct backup, replication, and restore. Although you can use HPE Cloud Volume store for direct backups, it is recommended that you use it more as a secondary target repository for replication. For details, see HPE Cloud Volumes Backup.

Resilient Change Tracking for Hyper-V

For Microsoft Windows Server 2016 or later, the Resilient Change Tracking feature (RCT) is supported to back up Hyper-V virtual machines. Similar to CBT for VMware and Citrix, incremental backup technology RCT for Hyper-V detects block-level changes and backs up only the data that has changed since the last incremental backup. This allows you to back up VMs faster while saving storage space. See RCT for Hyper-V.

Oracle-VM task type

The new Oracle-VM task type is available to perform agentless snapshot-based backups of all OLVM virtual machines, regardless of their workload or operating system. See OLVM Backup.

New and improved with web Restore Assistant

The web Restore Assistant supports new task types and offers new features and an intuitive user experience that makes restoring data online quick and easy. For details, see Restore Assistant.

Web single file restore (SFR) for VMs

In the web interface Restore assistant, you can now restore individual files from VMware, Hyper-V, RHV/OLVM, Citrix Hypervisor, KVM/QEMU, OpenNebula and Nutanix AHV virtual machines online, if you have been granted the appropriate permissions. SFR for Proxmox VE VM is currently not supported. For details, see Web Single File Restore for Virtual Machines.

Web Exchange restore

Now it is possible to restore a single Exchange mailbox database using SEP sesam Exchange Recovery Pro via the web interface Restore Assistant. Exchange Recovery Pro is only supported on Windows systems and must be installed on the system serving as SEP sesam Server or SEP sesam RDS. See Web Exchange Restore.

Web VMware sandbox restore

Enhanced VMware sandbox restore via the web Restore Assistant can be performed in advanced restore mode. It provides improved functionality and usability of the recovery options, i.e. the use of run and execution commands of the VMware guest tools. See VMware Sandbox Restore.

Web MS SQL restore

Online restore of MS SQL Server databases is supported with specific recovery state options (leave the database ready for use by rolling back uncommitted transactions, etc.) and additional execution options (overwrite existing items with newer/older items from backup and skip ACL settings during restore). See Web MS SQL Restore.

Web UI enhancements

SEP sesam Web UI now provides a more detailed overview of jobs and tasks, improved monitoring of the SEP sesam environment, and the possibility of performing different operations, e.g., running or locking the backups, restarting failed jobs, etc. For details, see SEP sesam Web UI.

GUI enhancements

• Under the Configuration -> Defaults -> General tab, two additional options are available. Now you can use Sort case insensitive option to ensure that upper- and lowercase letters are treated the same when sorting results. Additionally, new filter option allows you to set a delay for reloading data when changing the filter(s). For details, see Configuration: Defaults.
• When creating a backup task on Linux, you can now set that deleted or modified files are not reported as errors. For details, see Creating a Backup Task.
• Now you can start the replication immediately under the Activities -> Immediate Start -> Replication, see Activities.

Technical improvements

• In previous SEP sesam versions, the backup locked state (savesets of the backup cannot be deleted) is applied to the selected backup only, so you have to lock all backups of a backup chain manually. As of Jaglion, the locked state is automatically applied to all backups in the backup chain. See Backups by State.
• When backing up Citrix Hypervisor VMs, you can exclude individual virtual disk (VHD) from Full/Diff/Incr backup in the SEP sesam GUI to avoid storage occupancy. For details, see Citrix XenServer Backup.
• Expiring a tape provides a new option to delete all metadata, which erases all tape media metadata and initializes the tape (if the tape is loaded in a drive), removing access to all existing data on the tape.

End of maintenance and support

Obsolete SEP sesam Server versions

The following versions of SEP sesam are no longer supported:

• SEP sesam 4.4.3 Grolar -> October 2021
• SEP sesam 4.4.3 Tigon V2 -> December 2020
• SEP sesam 4.4.3 Tigon -> September 2020

Discontinued SEP sesam Server OS

The following table lists the last available version of SEP sesam Server or RDS components for specified operating systems. You can continue using the last available version of SEP sesam on these operating systems, but SEP AG no longer provides updates or fixes for the specified versions.

For SEP sesam Client versions, backward compatibility is maintained and the last available versions for a platform are continuously supported. On older platforms you can use older versions of SEP sesam Client component, but it is recommended to combine such clients with the latest versions of SEP sesam Server and RDS components.

SEP sesam Release Versions

Operating system	Last available version	Release	Notes
Debian 10 »Buster«	5.1.0.25 Apollon V2	5.1.0 Apollon V2
SLES 12	5.1.0.25 Apollon V2	5.1.0 Apollon V2
Windows Server 2012	5.1.0.7 Apollon	5.1.0 Apollon
RHEL 7	5.1.0.7 Apollon	5.1.0 Apollon
Debian 9 »Stretch«	5.0.0.15 Jaglion V2	5.0.0 Jaglion V2
SLES 11 SP2, SP3, SP4	4.4.3.x Beefalo V2, see notes	4.4.3 Beefalo V2	SEP announced that it would no longer support SLES 11 SP2, SP3, SP4 with SEP sesam Beefalo, but has re-established support for Beefalo V2, where all SEP sesam Beefalo V2 packages (Server, Client, etc.) can be used. However, Beefalo V2 is the last available SEP sesam release for SLES 11 SP2, SP3, SP4 .
Windows Server 2008 R2	4.4.3.x Beefalo V2, see notes	4.4.3 Beefalo V2	SEP announced that it would no longer support SEP sesam Server on Windows Server 2008 R2 with SEP sesam Beefalo, but has re-established this support already in Beefalo. This actually means that the last available SEP sesam Server release for Windows Server 2008 R2 is Beefalo V2.
Ubuntu 16.04	4.4.3.84 Beefalo V2	4.4.3 Beefalo V2
RHEL 6	4.4.3.64 Grolar	4.4.3 Grolar
Debian 8 »Jessie«	4.4.3.64 Grolar	4.4.3 Grolar
Debian 7 »Wheezy«	4.4.3.64 Grolar	4.4.3 Grolar	Version 4.4.3.64 only available for sesam-cli on amd64
Windows Server 2008	4.4.3.64 Grolar	4.4.3 Grolar
Windows 7	4.4.3.64 Grolar	4.4.3 Grolar
Ubuntu 14.04	4.4.3.48 Tigon V2	4.4.3 Tigon V2
All 32-bit operating systems	4.2.2.40	4.2.2	For some operating systems SEP sesam client is still available in 32-bit.
SLES 10	4.2.2.40	4.2.2
RHEL 5	4.2.2.40	4.2.2
Debian 6 »Squeeze«	4.2.2.40	4.2.2	sesam-cli also available in version 4.4.1.22
Windows Server 2003	4.2.2.40	4.2.2
Debian 5 »Lenny«	4.2.1.34	4.2.1
SLES 11 ≤ SP1	4.2.1.34	4.2.1	Initial SLES 11 Release and Servicepack 1

Major fixes and changes

• See changes at SEP sesam download – changes.

See also

SEP sesam Release Versions