Sometimes following a kernel update / reboot, the acronis based backup can fail with an error message like this:

“snapapi kernel module not installed”

or similar.

In this case, we have to re-compile the kernel module manually (thankfully, sources are provided by acronis). Here’s how:

o make sure all the necessary packages are installed:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends linux-headers-$(uname -r) make perl gcc-13

Use another gcc-version if recommended by the supplier.

Now build the kernel modules for the running kernel version (6.8.0-101 in my case, to determine your running kernel version, use “uname -a", “uname -m” or similar):

dkms build -m snapapi26 \
-v 0.8.58 \
--config /boot/config-6.8.0-101-generic \
--arch x86_64 --kernelsourcedir /usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.0-101-generic/

Once the build completes successfully, install the kernel modules:

dkms install -m snapapi26 -v 0.8.58 --config /boot/config-6.8.0-101-generic --arch x86_64 --kernelsourcedir /usr/src/linux-headers-6.8.0-101-generic/

The acronis client services probably won’t pick up on the newly available / loaded module automatically, so it could be prudent to restart the services manually:

systemctl restart acronis_mms acronis_schedule

Now re-try the failed backup which should hopefully complete without any errors (or at least not the error mentioned above :-))

PSA: Other backup solutions are available

Also make sure to check out “Bacula” which is a great, open source and well-supported backup solution available freely (both as in speech and in beer) for all major platforms.