Install or update Acronis Bootable Components, Bootable Media Builder, and Agent for Linux on a Linux system with necessary closed-source kernel modules. Add the module names to the RHEL_PREDEF_LIST list in the /usr/lib/Acronis/mkard.sh script, execute the script as root, and build a new bootable media by using Bootable Media Builder

Introduction

Acronis bootable media does not support devices that use closed-source kernel modules (mostly networking devices and RAID controllers). Such kernel modules are distributed only in binary form and are precompiled for certain Linux kernels (e.g., Red Hat, SUSE). The Linux kernel of the Acronis bootable media is not compatible with these kernel modules.

You may need to create or update the media in the following cases:

• You have a newer version of Acronis Cyber Backup with significantly changed functionality
• You have added new devices that use closed-source kernel modules and want the media to support these devices

Solution

1. Install or update the following Acronis components on the Linux machine for which you need the bootable media:
   • Bootable Components and Media Builder (AcronisBootableComponentsMediaBuilderLinux)
   • Agent for Linux (AcronisAgentLinux)
   Installing or updating on another Linux machine

   You can install or update the components on any other Linux system (RHEL 6.x and CentOS 6.x are recommended) that has:

   • All necessary closed-source kernel modules installed
   • The kernel of version 2.6.32 or later

   
   (!) Before updating the components, open the terminal and run the following command to remove old media kernel and ramdisk files:
   find /usr/lib/Acronis -name \*.orig|xargs rm -f
2. Open the /usr/lib/Acronis/mkard.sh script and find RHEL_PREDEF_LIST.
3. Add the required driver names to the list.
   For example, if you need to add hpahcisr, RHEL_PREDEF_LIST should look like:
   RHEL_PREDEF_LIST="cifs.ko des_generic.ko ecb.ko md4.ko hpahcisr.ko"

   If you want the media to support newly added devices that use closed-source kernel modules, add the names of these modules to the RHEL_PREDEF_LIST list.

4. Open the terminal and execute the script as root:
   /bin/bash /usr/lib/Acronis/mkard.sh
   The script will generate new kernel and ramdisk files that Bootable Media Builder will use for building new bootable media. The kernel file will be based on the running Linux kernel and the ramdisk file will contain all specified kernel modules. The bitness of the files will depend on the operating system bitness.
5. After mkard.sh finishes, run Bootable Media Builder and build a new bootable media.

Feel free to contact Acronis Support with the reference to this article if you have any questions or issues.