Self-Hosted Online Server

About Online Server Deployments

Zmanda Pro servers deployed in environments with public internet access can reach the Zmanda Pro Licensing server for activation, automatic license count updates, and automatic license renewal.

Backup data is never sent to or from Zmanda servers.

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)

Prerequisites for On-Prem Zmanda Pro Server

Dependencies

• 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. Internet Access

2. [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 to your Linux system

2. Unzip the setup package:

   unzip zmandasetup.zip

This will unpack all the configuration files required to run the Zmanda Pro server. Included files are shown below:

Zmanda Pro Server Setup Package

Package Contents

• setup.sh: The Zmanda Pro server installer

• setup.conf: Default configurations to run 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 storage manager service and its dependencies

License Activator Information

What is a License Activator? Running the setup.sh script prepares your environment to start the Zmanda Pro server. However, to administer backups and perform other operations, you will need a License Activator.

Important Notes:

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

• For disaster recovery (DR) or replica server setups, please contact the Zmanda Sales Team for additional instances.

Running the License Activator The License Activator requires an unlock key, which is provided by Zmanda.