Self-Hosted Offline Server

What is an Offline Server setup?

A server hosted in an environment whose network requests bounds is strictly within the organizational network i.e. it cannot access the internet, (or) an air-gapped server qualifies to be an offline setup. A server in such an environment cannot reach out to public cloud services for any data transactions.

Zmanda Pro supports an Offline On-Premises deployment completely managed by your infrastructure, provided the basic pre-requisites to run the server are satisfied.

Supported Operating Systems

Zmanda Pro currently supports On-premises deployment for the following Linux Distributions:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 8 or later, including distributions based on RHEL

• Debian version 12 (Bookworm) or newer, including Debian-derived distributions

• Fedora version 41 and higher (stable releases only)

System Requirements for On-Prem Zmanda Pro Server

Pre-requisites

• Docker CE (v27.3.x onwards)

  • [RHEL | Docker Docs]

  • [Debian | Docker Docs]

• containerd.io

• docker compose plugin (v2.29.x onwards)

• unzip

• jq

Network Configuration

1. DNS Configuration For the Zmanda Pro server’s FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names), create DNS A records in your organization’s DNS manager.

For example, if your server is configured to listen on backup.zmanda.com, create the following DNS records:

<ZMANDAPRO_SERVER_IP> backup.zmanda.com root-backup.zmanda.com

Purpose:

• backup.zmanda.com: Access the dashboard and manage backups.

• root-backup.zmanda.com: Internal use for patching and upgrades.

If you don't have an internal DNS server, modify the /etc/hosts file on client devices to map these FQDNs to the Zmanda Pro server's IP.

1. Additional Certificate configuration

• For production deployments, we highly recommend you use your own certificates signed by your organizations Certifying Authority.

• A Self-hosted Zmanda Pro instance can be configured to use custom certificates

• You will need an intermediate CA certificate that is trusted by all client devices.

• Generate an HTTPS certificate signed by the above CA, for the configured domain (e.g., backup.zmanda.com) and add root-backup.zmanda.com as a Subject Alternative Name (SAN).

1. Required Ports

• 443: HTTPS traffic to the Zmanda Pro server.

• (Optional) 9001: HTTPS traffic to the StorageManager service.

NOTE: Client devices must be able to reach the Zmanda Pro server.

1. [Optional] Security Configurations

The license activator is a password protected binary file which is required to activate your self-hosted Zmanda Pro instance. If you have an anti-virus software or a malware detection engine running, you might have to whitelist the license activator file

For example, you will have to whitelist the Zmanda_license_activator.run file to allow executing the license activator and prevent its deletion by your AV software or Malware detection engine.

The Zmanda Pro Server Setup Package

1. Download the zmandasetup.zip package into your Linux system which matches our Supported Operating Systems

2. Unzip the setup package:

   unzip zmandasetup.zip

This will unpack all the configuration files required to run the Zmanda Pro server. The configurations are as follows:

Zmanda Pro Server Setup Package

Package Contents

• setup.sh: The Zmanda Pro server installer

• setup.conf: Default configurations to run the setup.sh

• certs: Directory containing:

  • Self-signed CA certificate

  • HTTPS certificate

  • Respective keys

  • Note: It's highly recommended to use your own set of CA & HTTPS certificates

• Dockerfile & docker-compose.yml: Docker service files for building and running the Zmanda Pro Server

• docker-image: Contains required docker images for on-premises deployment

  • zmandapro-server-.tar will be patched for subsequent upgrades

  • Images are loaded locally, requiring no outbound requests

• scripts: Automation scripts for client device installation

• server.cfg: Custom Configurations for your Zmanda Pro Server

• storagemanager.zip (OPTIONAL): The Zmanda Pro storagemanager service and its dependents

License Activator Information

What is a License Activator?

Running the setup.sh will prepare your environment to start the Zmanda Pro server. However, to administer backups and other operations you will need a License_Activator.

To activate your 'self-hosted offline' deployment, please contact the sales team at Conact a Zmanda Sales Representative.

Important notes:

• The License Activator only activates one instance of a Zmanda Pro Server container.

• For DR strategy or replica server setup, contact the Zmanda Sales Team for additional instances.

Running the License Activator

• Requires an unlock key (shared by Zmanda Team over a secure protected channel)

• Handles:

  • Zmanda Pro Server activation

  • Server upgrades

  • Patching custom configurations

• The 'offline’ Zmanda Pro License Activator will be generated on a per container_id basis shared over a secure channel by the Zmanda Team.