AhsayUBS (Ahsay Universal Backup System) is a low price yet powerful operating system for a backup appliance to operate with. It has been optimized for AhsayCBS to run smoothly on it. With AhsayUBS, you can get AhsayCBS deployed onto a bare server hardware within a few minutes.

It is a customized version of FreeNAS firmware with AhsayCBS bundled and is specifically optimized to run AhsayCBS. Apart from AhsayCBS, it also contains some basic features that system administrator require, e.g. SSH and system monitoring tools.

1. AhsayUBS is bundled with the latest version of AhsayCBS. Starting from AhsayCBS v8.1.0.0 onwards:
   
   All AhsayCBS installations will have the Ahsay Cloud Backup Suite NFS services installed and running by default listening on port s 111, 1058, and 2049. The NFS service is to facilitate VM Run Direct on AhsayCBS by allowing VMware vCentre/ESXi hosts to directly access the backed up VM files on AhsayCBS User Home as an NFS mount to access the guest VM for recovery.
2. AhsayUBS 8 runs only on machines installed with 64bit CPU
3. FreeBSD 11.2 is used by AhsayUBS v8.1.0.0 onwards.
4. OpenJDK8 is used by Ahsay v8.1.0.0 onwards.
5. The upgrade of AhsayUBS installations running on both the UFS storage model and the previous ZFS storage model.
6. Supports both iSCSI and Additional Storage features.
7. AhsayUBS 8 supports upgrade from AhsayUBS 2.29 (OBSR v6.29) or AhsayUBS 7.17 (CBS v7.17). It is advised you first upgrade your server to these latest released, and update your clients to matching versions; before upgrading to v8.

For backwards compatibility with older AhsayUBS versions, the UFS storage model is also supported. After upgrade, the 'geom_concat.ko', 'geom_stripe.ko', and 'geom_raid5.ko' module will be loaded by the FreeBSD to support the UFS storage model. To check if these kernel modules have been loaded correctly you can run the “kldstat” command, which will return the following output.

The 'Master Storage Device' on AhsayUBS is preserved in UFS format which is mounted on '/ubs/mnt/eslsfw' upon system boot time. The following example shows a UFS filesystem mount as '/ubs/mnt/eslsfw'.

The Optional Labelled Device in the legacy AhsayUBS will migrated in this version of AhsayUBS which is one of the storage types called “Optional Storage” inside the “Additional Storage”. Volume status and UFS filesystem integrity checking (fsck) are also available in this AhsayUBS version. For details, please refer to the section [Storage].

AhsayUBS is implemented with ZFS v5 and ZPOOL v28. The existing ZPOOL(s) will not be upgraded and only newly created ZPOOL will be applied with the ZIL (ZFS Intent Log).

As the ZFS storage model is based on a GMIRROR and ZFS design, therefore the 'geom_mirror.ko', 'opensolaris.ko', and 'zfs.ko' kernel modules will be loaded by the FreeBSD. The GEOM kernel modules used previously for UFS support 'geom_concat.ko', 'geom_stripe.ko', and 'geom_raid5.ko' will also be loaded. To check if these kernel modules have been loaded correctly you can run the “kldstat” command, which will return the following output.

The 'Master Storage Device' on AhsayUBS is configured as a ZPOOL with the following pool name 'eslsfwx{UID}' format. The ZFS pool will be mounted on '/ubs/mnt/eslsfw' upon system boot time. The following example shows a zpool volume of size 191GB “eslsfwx839830C2” mount as '/ubs/mnt/eslsfw'

For volume status and ZFS filesystem integrity checking, please refer to the section [Storage] for details

The other “esgpbt”, “esosfw”, and “esfmfw” System Firmware Devices are still mounted from the /etc/fstab file.

The ZFS storage model is used for the following AhsayCBS locations:

1. %USER_HOME%
2. %SYSTEM_HOME%
3. %POLICY_HOME%
4. %CONF_HOME%
5. %WEBAPPS_HOME%
6. %RECEIVER_HOME%

The other “System Firmware Devices” such as “esgpbt”, “esosfw”, and “esfmfw” will remain unchanged as GEOM MIRROR based UFS volumes. The GEOM device names are in the following formats:

1. GPT Boot - {UID}xesgpbt
2. Operating System Framework - {UID}xesosfw
3. Firmware Module Framework - {UID}xesfmfw

In order to safeguard the data integrity of the files on the ZFS volume, a weekly “zpool scrub” (zpool volume data integrity check) is performed starting at 00:00 every Sunday morning, to verify the checksums of all the data in the specified ZFS pools are correct.

The scheduled started time of the “zpool scrub” is currently not user configurable and it cannot be disabled in this version of AhsayUBS.

Once the “zpool scrub” job has started it is not possible to stop it.

To check the status of the “zpool scrub”, you can use the “zpool status” command which will return the following output. For the following example the “zpool scrub” has checked 56.33% of the pool: eslsfwx839830C2

If an additional data integrity check is required in between the scheduled weekly checks. It is possible to initiate a manual “zpool scrub” using the “zpool scrub {% POOL_NAME%}” command.

As with the weekly “zpool scrub”, the AhsayCBS service and backup/restore operations can continue to run as normal.

The ZFS version 5 and ZPOOL v28 on AhsayUBS has undergone an extended period of intensive performance and load testing, which has consistently delivered superior performance and data integrity results in comparison to UFS.

For legacy AhsayUBS environments who wish to migrate from UFS to ZFS storage model, only a manual migration method is available where you need to offload your locally stored User Home data, AhsayUBS setting, and AhsayCBS settings; to another temporary storage device, then reinstall AhsayUBS from new, then reload your data and settings back.

The migration process will generally involve:

1. Copying the existing user data from AhsayUBS server to another storage device.
   • This refers to the data in all locally stored User Homes stored on the filesystem
     
     
2. Backup your AhsayUBS configuration via the AhsayUBS Management Console
   • [System] | [Backup/Restore] | [Backup Configuration]
     
     
3. Backup of your AhsayCBS configuration (conf/*), policies (system/obs/policies/*), export your branding properties, and any non-standard customizations. If you need to retain logs (logs/*) and (system/*), exclude (system/cbs/Installers/*) which contain old branded builds.
   
   
4. Use the latest AhsayUBS installer to install a new version of AhsayUBS on the existing machine, which will overwrite all existing data, returning your server to bare state.
   
   
5. Set the AhsayUBS IP, so that you can login to the management console.
   
   
6. Restore your AhsayUBS configuration
   
   
7. Stop AhsayCBS service
   
   
8. Restore your AhsayCBS configuration
   
   
9. Copy the user data from the temporary storage device back to the AhsayUBS server.
   
   
10. Startup the AhsayCBS service, and verify AhsayCBS state is normal.

The process to setup AhsayUBS firmware onto a machine is done in four stages:

1. Installer Image Deployment, installation to physical server. Deploys Ahsay Universal Backup System Installer image (ubs-installer.img) on a removable USB storage device.

2. Firmware Installation/Upgrade. Install/upgrade Ahsay Universal Backup System Firmware onto the machine.

3. Ahsay Universal Backup System Configuration. Configure the Ahsay Universal Backup System Firmware (FreeBSD).

4. Backup Server Configuration. Configure the Backup Server, Redirectors, or Replication Server (AhsayCBS)

There are different software/hardware requirements for each stage. Please ensure that all the requirements are met before deploying the AhsayUBS to the machine.

AhsayUBS Firmware is based on a customized version of FreeNAS firmware with AhsayCBS bundled and is specifically optimized to run AhsayCBS. Apart from AhsayCBS, it also contains some basic features that system administrator require, e.g. SSH and system monitoring tools.