Please read this document carefully

December 8, 2023

This document contains information about the limitations to the use of the product.
It is highly recommended to read through this document before using this product.

For system requirements, please visit System Requirements.

Notes on upgrading/updating ActiveImage Protector

• The upgrade process consists of the complete uninstallation of the previous ActiveImage Protector version and the subsequent installation of the new version. In the event of an error occurring during the upgrade process, it’s essential to run the installer again, as ActiveImage Protector would have been removed from your computer.

• For versions earlier than 7.0.1, grant the user execute permission using the following command after copying the patch to a local folder:

  # chmod +x AIP2022_patch.bin

• Applying the patch program for 7.0.1 or an earlier version overwrites the AIP configuration file. This initializes proxy settings and email notification settings. Reconfigure these settings again if need be.

Upgrading from Version 2018

• You will be prompted to enter the product key for version 2022 when upgrading from version 2018.

• Installation of version 2022 in the system environment where version 2018 is already installed, version 2018 is automatically uninstalled and then version 2022 is installed. By selecting “Yes” for “Do you want to keep current configuration?” message, the profiles, schedules and other settings configured with version 2018 will be migrated; however, folder-path access history will not be migrated. By selecting “No”, this configuration information will be deleted from the system and not migrated.

• In order to uninstall version 2018 and then install Version 2022, please use the installer from version 2022 rather than the installer of Version 2018.

• After upgrading / migrating from version 2018, a system restart is not required.

• The version 2022 console does not provide the view of Detail Log of the task executed with Version 2018.

• The credentials information for network shared folder remembered on version 2018 console is not migrated to the upgraded version (2022). When you try to establish the connection from the console of version 2022 to the shared folder, it’s required to re-enter the credentials information.
  • If backup schedules are migrated to version 2022, the credentials information is included in schedule settings and re-entering the credentials information is not required.

• When a schedule is configured and the post-backup process is enabled, please edit and update the schedule or reconfigure the schedule settings after upgrading to ActiveImage Protector 2022.

• While upgrading/updating the product, please make sure no backup and other tasks are running. If any images are mounted, then unmount those images.

• Upgrading by entering an off-line product key of version 2018 is not supported.

Activation Information

• For product license activation in an off-line network environment, please use a Windows or Linux machine on which Docker is installed and deploy Actiphy Authentication Service (AAS). For more detailed information about AAS, please refer [here](https://webhelp.actiphy.com/AAS/v2/.

Compatibility of Backup Images

• Version 2022 supports the backup images created by using ActiveImage Protector Version 4.0 or later.

Overview

• Optical media such as CD-R/DVD-R and tape devices are not supported as the destination storage to directly save backup image files.

• Mount Image, Consolidate Image Files and Archive Backup Image Files features do not support images written on optical media such as CD-R/DVD-R.

• The tracking information is purged whenever the computer is restarted. After rebooting system, the first scheduled backup is full backup instead of incremental, if this option is enabled. Thereafter, incremental backup files are created according to the specified schedule, associated to the firstly created full backup.

• Multiple schedules configured for the same backup source is not supported.

• Backup images cannot be restored to the disk of which sector size is different from backup source.

• If numerous storage devices are connected to the system, start-up of ActiveImage console may be delayed.

• When selecting to display ActiveImage console in Japanese, the default font “IPA P Gothic” is selected. If the settings are not configured in advance, please use the ActiveImage console after configuring the settings

• AIP service runs using port 48236, 48238, 48239, 55238, 55239, 58238, 58239. Please exclude those ports from using by other programs on the system.

• The maximum number of device path is determined in accordance with the limitation for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. https://access.redhat.com/en/articles/1271503

• Up to the maximum number of 24 volumes per disk are supported.
  • If there are a number of disks, the response time after a GUI operation takes quite long.

• Please do not select the backup image file of which file version is not supported, as an unsupported image file may be displayed in console.

• When booting up generation 2 Hyper-V virtual machine, please make sure [Enable secure boot] option is disabled in Firmware settings for virtual machine.

• When running a backup task, please ensure that the system’s memory usage is less than 80%. If there is not sufficient available memory on the system, the backup task fails with Exit Code -314.

Backup

• Due to the specifications of the snapshot driver, AIP supports backup of the maximum number of 24 volumes.

• If the schedule is defined and applied within five minutes or less before the first scheduled start time, the first task will not be executed according to the schedule.

• If your machine is restarted while backup process is in progress, restart of the machine does not resume the aborted backup process. The same backup task needs to be re-started.

• If a removable disk such as external USB HDD is specified as backup destination, please make sure you do not disconnect the removable disk while execution of the task is suspended. The resumed task after reconnecting the USB HDD will fail.

• Please specify HDD other than backup source or a network shared location as the destination to save backup image files.

• Read-only volumes cannot be backed up.

• If selecting a volume that is intentionally unmounted for the backup source volume, the volume is mounted to a specific directory in backup process. If this causes any problem, please do not select the unmounted volume as the backup source volume.

• If you select FAT32 file system volume for the backup target, the backup file is split into 4GB image files. However, FAT32 file system volume is not correctly recognized over the network, and the backup image is not successfully created. If you encounter the problem, please specify “4000” or less for [Split image into multiple files of xx MB] in [Step 2: Select Destination] - [Advanced Option].

• RDX Eject option is available with Tandberg’s RDX only.
  • This feature supports weekly schedule only. (You are not allowed to configure additional schedule setting.)

• Backup feature does not support RAW partition.

• If on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 / CentOS 7.4 or earlier, because of the outdated version of samba-client, authentication fails for a shared folder in Windows 2019 / Windows 10 which SMB1.0 is disabled. If you encounter this problem, please upgrade samba-client to 4.7.x or later.

• If using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.x or clone OS of the equivalent OS, because of the specifications of samba-client, authentication fails for a shared folder (Windows 2003) which SMB1.0 is enabled.

Deduplication Compression

• “/tmp” is by default used as the temporary work folder for backup with Deduplication Compression option enabled. In the event that the size of duplicate data grows to exceed the available space in “/tmp” folder, you can change the location of temporary work folder for backup with Deduplication Compression by using the procedures of Step 2 [Select Destination] in Backup Wizard.

• [Continue operation with [Standard] Compression] option cannot be selected when [Deduplication Compression] is selected to back up.

• To use the Deduplication Compression feature, please select a folder on local volume as the temporary work folder but make sure the folder is not included in backup source. A locally mounted (cifs) share folder cannot be used.

Post-backup Process

• If you specify Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure as the destination for saving the backup, the post backup process is not supported.

• The post-backup processes run sequentially. For example, if a replication task is configured for the target that can deliver only slow write speed, the subsequent tasks will run only after the replication task completes. In this case, you need to shift the replication task to a later schedule.

• The multiple post-backup tasks configured for one backup task will run in the following order:

  • Immediately / When new xx image files are created: 1 Verify Image, 2 Replication, 3 Consolidation

  • At xx:xx: The tasks run at the specified time.

    • To run the tasks in a specific order, please schedule them with an optimum interval.

• Using Destination Isolation option with a Post Backup Process is not support.

Replication

• Please specify the path for the destination storage for backup image files and the replication target only with single-byte alphanumeric characters.

• When selecting a replication target other than a local folder or network shared folder, the detailed process size is not logged in Task Log.

• Replication task is cancelled, if you cancel, upon completion of the running process replicating the backup files to the replication targets, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV.

• When you selected WebDAV for the replication target, please be aware of the following limitations:

  • The progress percentage of the task does not increase since the start until the completion of the task. If Replication task is configured to replicate multiple files, when the task completes, the progress percentage increases for the percentage of the total amount of processed files.

  • Pause/Resume does not work for the task. When the task is cancelled, the file in process will be replicated. When there are more Replication source files, the subsequent source files will not be replicated.

  • When equipped with 8GB RAM 8GB or more, [Use network throttle] option does not work.

• While you are configuring the replication target setting and you select Amazon S3 or Wasabi, you are not allowed to newly create a bucket.

• Only east-2 region of object storage of Amazon S3 compatible storage “NIFCLOUD” is supported.

• The backup image file replicated to WebDAV or cloud storage is time-stamped with process run-time.

• When selecting StorageServer as backup destination, Replication of the backup files is not supported.

Restore

• The backup images created by using HyperAgent in Windows Edition are not supported.

Volume Recovery

• To restore and overwrite LV except for the rear most in VG where multiple LV’s exist, the restored LV will be displayed at the end of the disk map after restore process is completed.

• Restoring a logical volume in extended partition allows restore by disk only.

• After recreating virtual environment or exchanging mother board, you need to create boot entry again.

• Hot restore of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other clone OS is specific to the respective distributions and not supported.

• When performing hot restore for other distributions, you need to unmount and then restore the volume.

• Restore feature does not support RAW partition.

• The split backup image created by using AIP 2022 and written to optical media is not supported to use.

Image Manager

• The backup images created by using HyperAgent in Windows Edition are not supported.

• If an incremental file in an image set is lost, you cannot use any image in the image set for operation.

• If you specify a network shared folder as the backup destination, please mount (network shared folder) or use mount command (cifs) from the terminal.

Quick Verify, Deep Verify

• When running Quick Verify task by using 7.0.1 or earlier Versions for the backup image files created by using 7.0.2 or later versions, the task fails in -440 error.

• When the backup image files created by using Version 7.0.2 or later are consolidated by using the product version that does not support the Version 7.0.2 or later image files, Quick Verify / Deep Verify task for the consolidated backup image files fails in -413 error.

  • Version 7.0.1 or earlier ActiveImage Protector
  • Version 5.0.2 or earlier ImageCenter

Consolidation and Archiving Incremental Backup Files

• Before running consolidation tasks, please make sure that the storage of the source image files has at least the same or more available space than the size of the consolidated image file.

• While executing an incremental backup task on the backup source host machine, a consolidation task for the image file set cannot be executed from another host. Please execute the consolidation task only after the incremental backup task has completed on the backup source host machine.

• If any of the following conditions are met in the system environment or consolidation source, even if some data are deleted from incremental image files up to the latest one, the processed image size is not decreased by the deleted data size but may increase.

  • Mount driver is not configured in the system environment.

  • Source volume is formatted with file system other than NTFS.

Mount Backup Image

• Up to the maximum number of 24 volumes are supported to mount in the product. Other than this feature, [File Recovery] feature allows to mount the volumes included in an image.

  • The entire volumes included in the image are mounted, when you proceeded with [2. File Recovery] in File Recovery Wizard.

  • While File Recovery is in progress, the volume including the items to restore is mounted.

Connect to Remote Computer

• Remote connection only to Version 2022 agents is supported.

• Remote Connection to AIP Windows edition is not supported.

• To connect to a remote host using ActiveImage console, the following settings need to be configured.

Remote Host (Managed)

• Check in the checkbox for [Set firewall exception] option when installing the product and the following ports are automatically opened.

  • TCP port 48236 (to connect to a remote computer)

  • UDP port 48238 (Agent local browse)

  • UDP port 48239 (Agent browse networked computers)

  • UDP port 55238 (Actiphy Authentication Service, activation server)

  • UDP port 55239 (Actiphy Authentication Service, activation server)

  • UDP port 58238 (Actiphy StorageServer)

  • UDP port 58239 (Actiphy StorageServer)

    • For security purpose, you may open port 48236, 55238, 55239, 58238, 58239. However, please be aware of the following limitations.

    • The host name list on which AIP service is installed cannot be displayed (since port 48238, 48239 are closed.)

ActiveImage console (Managing)

• Select [Set firewall exception] option when installing the program, and settings are automatically configured to automatically open the following port.

  • TCP port 48236 (To connect to a remote computer)

  • UDP port 48239 (Agent browse networked computers)

• To install Windows management console, the required settings must be configured by using the program’s installer.

• In the event that remote host for connection target in different segment is not listed in [Computer List], you can directly enter IP address of the remote host for connection target.

• (7988) In the event that Windows Manager console is uninstalled, the information of remote connection history or console settings is not migrated.

• When adding host on which ActiveImage Protector Boot Environment is live to the list, please enter “root” for user name and leave password blank.

Boot Environment Builder (Linux) RescueBoot environment

• ISO Boot Environment and RescueBoot Environment are not supported to build on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x and clone OS of the equivalent OS.

• Boot Environment is not supported to build on CUI environment.

• When building RescueBoot Environment, “/opt” has to be located in disk 0.

Boot Environment

• VolGroup in encrypted system environment is not properly recognized.

• Enhanced Discover network computers for Mount (Network) feature, however, in the event of network latency, the computer list may not be displayed. In this case, enter IP address for [Specify IP address to add network computer] to add the computer to the list.

Others

• When the product is installed on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.x or an equivalent OS of clone OS, GUI does not support Japanese to define comments etc., for backup task.

• With accumulation of a large volume of task log, launching console may take longer.

• (6583) Launching GUI on virtual client in XEN environment fails.