The Question
Is there a way to mount MS scDPM filesystem with linux? Or a way to expose the data within scDPM volume with linux?
OPTIONAL READING BELOW
My question is above. The rest is extra reading & maybe it can teach you how to mount lun files (if you were curious, although that kossboss link does the same thing). if your curious on the background of my issue here you can read below.
The Situation
I have MS scDPM on an ISCSI lun (which is a file on a x86 NAS system). The ISCSI is not starting (not initiating) so I want to mount it locally on the NAS and backup the data from there (I could expose the data inside the Lun with SMB). The lun just appears like a 11 TB file. If this was NTFS or VMFS on that LUN, I could use kpartx to expose the partitions as loop devices, and ntfs-3g or vmfs-tools to mount NTFS or VMFS. However I cant use NTFS nor VMFS on a MS scDPM volume because it has its own unique filesystem it appears (It appears that MS scDPM doesnt use NTFS, but uses its own filesystem).
Basically my question is: Do we have any MS DPM mount tools for linux? And where/how do i get them?
Also Im able to run kpartx against it to expose the MS DPM 3 partitions as loop devices. It has a 3rd partition which is the biggest partition which obviously has my data (which is 11 TB). When I run "file -s /dev/mapper/loop3p2" against it, it just its "data". It doesnt say "NTFS" or anything else more useful. VMFS also says "data", however that doesnt matter because I can mount it with vmfs-tools.
Here is an article showing how I would mount an NTFS or VMFS lun file (or dd image) using kpartx and mount tools: http://ram.kossboss.com/mount-luns-with-partitions-using-losetup-and-kpartx/
More Info
When I expose an NTFS lun with KPARTX I get /dev/loop1, which has 2 partitions, the 2nd partition has the NTFS data. Here is the output of blockdev --getsize64 /dev/mapper/loop1p2 and also file -s /dev/mapper/loop1p2
/dev/mapper/loop1p2 3848154382336: /dev/mapper/loop1p2: x86 boot sector, code offset 0x52, OEM-ID "NTFS ", sectors/cluster 8, reserved sectors 0, Media descriptor 0xf8, heads 255, hidden sectors 264192, dos < 4.0 BootSector (0x80)
When I expose an MS scDPM lun with KPARTX I get /dev/loop3, which has 3 partitions, the 3rd Partition is all of the data. Here is the output of ** blockdev --getsize64 /dev/mapper/loop3p3 ** and also ** file -s /dev/mapper/loop1p2 **. Notice that it doesnt know what it is, it just knows its a 17 TB file with data (11 TB of it is used).
/dev/mapper/loop3p3 17592051792896: /dev/mapper/loop3p3: data
The Steps:
This is how I went about exposing my luns on my NAS via Samba
# get the the right apps
# kpartx analyzes files for partitions and makes loop back devices out of them
# ntfs-3g to mount ntfs-3g
apt-get update
apt-get install kpartx ntfs-3g
## these iscsi_lun_backing_store files are huge few TBs (they are like giant iso files with partition tables and filesystems on those partitions, just like a regular HDD would be)
kpartx -a /Data/DPMDATA/.iscsi/iscsi_lun_backing_store
kpartx -a /Data/SPData/.iscsi/iscsi_lun_backing_store
# here is the loop back devices that kpartx made
losetup -a
# /dev/loop1: [001d]:258 (/Data/SPData/.iscsi/iscsi_lun_backing_store)
# /dev/loop3: [001f]:258 (/Data/DPMDATA/.iscsi/iscsi_lun_backing_store)
# Here is the loop back device partitions that kpartx found in the loop devices (in the luns)
find /dev | grep mapper
# /dev/mapper/loop3p3
# /dev/mapper/loop3p2
# /dev/mapper/loop3p1 # /dev/mapper/loop1p2 # /dev/mapper/loop1p1
# preparing mnt1 mount point which will be exposed via samba mkdir /mnt1 mkdir /mnt1/ExDataLUN mkdir /mnt1/DPMDATA
# mount the NTFS lun ntfs-3g -o ro /dev/mapper/loop1p2 /mnt1/SPData/ # PROBLEM: now I dont know how to mount /dev/mapper/loop3p2 to /mnt1/DPMDATA
After this I will expose /mnt1 thru samba and I will be able to access everything
I make a tmp samba conf file like this
vi /tmp/samba.conf
With this content
[global]
host msdfs = yes
dos charset = CP1252
guest account = guest
hostname lookups = 0
idmap config * : range = 32768 - 2147483647
invalid users = root
load printers = 0
log level = 0 auth:2
map to guest = Bad User
max log size = 512
name resolve order = lmhosts host wins bcast
oplocks = 1
passdb backend = tdbsam
passwd program = "/usr/bin/passwd %u"
realm = local1.local
security = user
server string = "%h"
syslog only = 0
template homedir = /home/%U
unix charset = UTF-8
unix password sync = 1
veto files = /Network Trash Folder/Temporary Items/
workgroup = LOCAL1
[all-data]
path = /mnt1
comment = ""
guest ok = 1
admin users = "+admin","Administrator"
writeable = 1
follow symlinks = 1
And I lunch smb using
/usr/sbin/smbd -s/tmp/samba.conf
Mistake:
I originally posted my question on Ubuntu Ask. That was incorrect of me to do. I apologize: https://askubuntu.com/questions/683176/how-to-mount-a-microsoft-data-protection-manager-dpm-volume-image-in-linux