How-to Install the Cohesity Helper App (Linux)

  • Updated on Apr 9, 2025
  • Published on Feb 9, 2021

Introduction

The Cloud Data Protection platform requires the installation of a Helper App to facilitate several backup configurations such as Physical Machines. This agent allows Cloud Data Protection to integrate natively with the previously mentioned software to ensure optimal backups are performed.

System Requirements

Please ensure the VM has up-to-date VMware Tools installed and network connectivity on TCP Ports 111, 443, 445, 902, 2049, 3260, 5986, 50051, and 8080. Additionally, please contact Expedient to add a static route to the Cohesity cluster you intend to register a Helper App in. By default, all external communication is blocked.

By default, the Cohesity Linux helper app requires the following lines in /etc/sudoers on Linux hosts to grant root access to the cohesityagent user (if dynamically pushing the agent for a restore, replace cohesityagent with the user account provided in the restore options page):

cohesityagent ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
Defaults:cohesityagent !requiretty

You may utilize the below script to configure the required permissions.

exp-coh-restore.sh  Expand source

On RHEL 7, for the cohesityagent user, ensure the following line is present in access.conf:

# grep cohesity /etc/security/access.conf
+ : cohesityagent : LOCAL


The following packages are required for the Cohesity helper app to operate as expected:

  • nfs-utils

  • mount/util-linux

  • umount

  • findmnt

  • cp

  • chown

  • chmod

  • mkdir

  • rm

  • tee

  • hostname

  • stat

  • timeout

  • blkid

  • lsof

  • ls

  • lvs

  • vgs

  • lvcreate

  • lvremove

  • lvchange

  • rsync

  • losetup

  • dmsetup

  • wget

Procedure

Download the Cohesity Helper App

Download via the Web Portal

  1. Log in to the Cloud Data Protection system.

  2. Select the Protection Sources tab from the navigation bar at the top of the page.

  3. Open the add sources menu and then select the Download Cohesity Agent button from the bottom of the menu.

  4. Select the Linux package Type and download via the right blue arrow.

  5. Move downloaded agent to the server requiring Cohesity Helper App.

Download via wget

  1. Login to the server to which you wish to install the agent software on

  2. Use the "wget" command to download the installer directly to your server.

    wget https://USERNAME:PASSWORD@download.expedient.com/cohesity/CURRENTINSTALLER

The login, password, and installer name will be provided by Expedient staff. If you have not already been provided with this information, please request it via an SMC ticket.

Install via the CLI

  1. Login to the server to which you wish to install the agent software on

  2. Navigate to the directory containing the Cohesity installer

    cd /directory

  3. Make the installer executable. You will need to log in as root or use sudo. For SUSE, you will need to be root.

    chmod +x cohesity_agent_6.1.1_linux_x64_installer

  4. Run the executable

  5. sudo ./cohesity_agent_6.1.1_linux_x64_installer -- --install

  6. To upgrade, complete the same steps with the updated installer

  7. The Cohesity Agent will start automatically upon completion of the install