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Restore or Backup

Warning

For performing a backup, there needs to be > 50 % free space on the root filesystem.

You can check the free space with the df -h command in the IP Fabric VM’s shell.

Important

Backups are encrypted with the osadmin user password configured during the First Boot Wizard. When you lose the osadmin user password, backups are also lost!

Username and Password character restrictions

Username must match the following regular expression: /^[A-Za-z0-9_][A-Za-z0-9\._-]*\$?$/

  • it must start with one of these characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 _
  • it may contain any of these characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 ._-
  • $ is only allowed once at the very end

Password must match the following regular expression: /^[A-Za-z0-9\.,\/_@%^:=+ -]*$/

  • it must contain only these characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 .,/_@%^:=+ -

Backup

IP Fabric allows you to backup data it collects with two options:

  • local backup
  • remote backup (FTP, SFTP)

Local Backup

Local backup saves database, user and system files locally on a dedicated backup volume. It’s highly recommended placing the backup volume on a different datastore, ideally on a separate physical storage.

Backup Disk

The backup disk is not present by default! Please add a new virtual disk to enable local backups.

To add a new backup drive, follow the instructions in Local Backup Disk.

Trigger a Backup Manually (On-Demand)

Both types of backup can be triggered manually. This is useful for example before a system update. (For automatic backups, see Schedule System Backup.)

Warning

For FTP and SFTP backups, a directory must be specified . It must exist on the remote side. If it does not, you will get an error.

For FTP, the directory path must be specified as a relative path.

For SFTP, the directory path must be specified as an absolute path.

To proceed with manual backup, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to the System Administration interface (for example https://ipfabric.example.com:8443).

  2. Go to Restore or Backup.

  3. Select Backup from the Do you wish to proceed with a backup or restore? drop-down menu.

  4. For local backup, select Local hard drive from the Backup files destination drop-down menu.

  5. For remote backup, select FTP or SFTP from the Backup files destination drop-down menu.

    1. Enter the remote FTP/SFTP Server FQDN or IP address. Make sure that your DNS client is configured and working properly in case of FQDN.

    2. Enter Username and Password for accessing the FTP/SFTP server.

    3. Specify the Directory where FTP/SFTP backup should be uploaded.

  6. Click Next.

Username and Password character restrictions

Username must match the following regular expression: /^[A-Za-z0-9_][A-Za-z0-9\._-]*\$?$/

  • it must start with one of these characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 _
  • it may contain any of these characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 ._-
  • $ is only allowed once at the very end

Password must match the following regular expression: /^[A-Za-z0-9\.,\/_@%^:=+ -]*$/

  • it must contain only these characters: A-Z a-z 0-9 .,/_@%^:=+ -

Full vs Incremental Backups

The first backup is a full backup. Additional backups are incremental backups. Incremental backup 1 depends on the full backup, incremental backup 2 depends on incremental backup 1 and the full backup etc.

By default, a new full backup is created after 14 days since the previous full backup. You may change this behavior by changing --full-if-older-than 14D in the following line in /opt/nimpee/conf.d/backup/duplicity-backup.conf (for example with sudo vi /opt/nimpee/conf.d/backup/duplicity-backup.conf):

STATIC_OPTIONS="--full-if-older-than 14D --allow-source-mismatch --ssl-no-check-certificate"
  • possible time values: s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours), D (days), W (weeks), M (months), Y (years)

By default, only 2 full backups are kept in the backup directory. You may change this behavior by amending the value in the following line in /opt/nimpee/conf.d/backup/duplicity-backup.conf (for example with sudo vi /opt/nimpee/conf.d/backup/duplicity-backup.conf):

CLEAN_UP_VARIABLE="2"

Tip

Due to Restore is not working when 2 full backups are present, you may consider setting CLEAN_UP_VARIABLE="1" (i.e. keeping only 1 full backup and its increments).

Please note that this has a downside – when a new full backup is created, all previous backup files will be removed from the backup directory.

If unsure, please contact IP Fabric Support for assistance.

Examples

First full backup’s files (depending on the backup’s size, you may have vol1, vol2 … volX instead of just vol1):

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  54M Sep 27 11:14 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-full.20230927T111440Z.vol1.difftar.gpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3.3M Sep 27 11:14 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-full-signatures.20230927T111440Z.sigtar.gpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  62K Sep 27 11:14 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-full.20230927T111440Z.manifest.gpg

First incremental backup’s files (they refer to/depend on the full backup):

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  28M Sep 27 11:17 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-inc.20230927T111440Z.to.20230927T111735Z.vol1.difftar.gpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.6M Sep 27 11:17 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-new-signatures.20230927T111440Z.to.20230927T111735Z.sigtar.gpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11K Sep 27 11:17 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-inc.20230927T111440Z.to.20230927T111735Z.manifest.gpg

Second incremental backup’s files (they refer to/depend on the first incremental backup and also depend on the full backup):

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  28M Sep 27 11:20 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-inc.20230927T111735Z.to.20230927T112005Z.vol1.difftar.gpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1.6M Sep 27 11:20 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-new-signatures.20230927T111735Z.to.20230927T112005Z.sigtar.gpg
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11K Sep 27 11:20 ipfabric-94c370c9-duplicity-inc.20230927T111735Z.to.20230927T112005Z.manifest.gpg

The recommended command for sorting all backup files from oldest to newest:

ls -lahtr <path_to_backup_directory>

Restore

In case of a database or system corruption, IP Fabric can be restored from a backup.

Info

Restore is supported only to the same version of IP Fabric as the backup was prepared on. This is checked automatically during restore.

The only exception are snapshots which can be restored to any version of the IP Fabric appliance.

Restore From Local Hard Drive

  1. Log in to the System Administration interface (for example https://ipfabric.example.com:8443).

  2. Go to Restore or Backup.

  3. Select Restore from the Do you wish proceed a backup or restore? drop-down menu.

  4. Select What restore?. There are three options:

    1. Restore data & all system services - This option restores database and system files. It is usable for restoring from general system failures or upgrade failures.

    2. Restore database - It means that only database data are restored. It can be sufficient in case of a database failure or accidental database drop.

    3. Restore snapshot files - A particular snapshot can be restored.

  5. Choose Local hard drive from the Backup files source drop-down menu.

  6. Click Next.

  7. Select backup file - There is year, month, day, and time when a backup file was created in a backup filename.

  8. Click Restore.

Restore From Remote Server

  1. Log in to the System Administration interface (for example https://ipfabric.example.com:8443).

  2. Go to Restore or Backup.

  3. Select Restore from the Do you wish proceed a backup or restore? drop down menu.

  4. Select What restore?. There are three options:

    1. Restore data & all system services - This option restores database and system files. It is usable for restoring from general system failures or upgrade failures.

    2. Restore database - It means that only database data are restored. It can be sufficient in case of a database failure or accidental database drop.

    3. Restore snapshot files - A particular snapshot can be restored.

  5. Choose FTP or SFTP from the Backup files source drop-down menu.

    1. Enter the remote FTP/SFTP Server FQDN or IP address. Make sure that your DNS client is configured and working properly in case of FQDN.

    2. Enter Username and Password for accessing the FTP/SFTP server.

    3. Specify the Directory where backups are located.

  6. Click Next.

  7. Select backup file - There is year, month, day, and time when a backup file was created in a backup filename.

  8. Click Restore.