Restore or Backup

Warning

For performing a backup, there needs to be more than 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 with IPF CLI Config. If you lose the osadmin user password, the 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 back up data it collects with two options:

local backup
remote backup (FTP, SFTP)

Local Backup

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

Backup Disk

The backup disk is not present by default! To enable local backups, please add a new virtual disk.

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

Trigger a Backup Manually (On-Demand)

Both types of backups 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 a manual backup, follow these steps:

Log in to the System Administration UI (for example, https://ipfabric.example.com:8443).
Go to Restore or Backup.
Select Backup from the Do you wish to proceed with a backup or restore? drop-down menu.
For local backup, select Local hard drive from the Backup files destination drop-down menu.
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. If using an FQDN, make sure that your DNS client is configured and working properly.
2. Enter the Username and Password for accessing the FTP/SFTP server.
3. Specify the Directory where FTP/SFTP backup should be uploaded.
Click Next.

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, and so forth.

By default, a new full backup is created 14 days after the previous full backup. You may change this behavior by adjusting --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 include : s (seconds), m (minutes), h (hours), D (days), W (weeks), M (months), and Y (years).

By default, only two full backups are retained in the backup directory. You may modify 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

As restore does not function properly when two full backups are present, you may want to set CLEAN_UP_VARIABLE="1" (i.e., retaining only one full backup and its increments).

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

If you are unsure, please contact IP Fabric Support for assistance.

Examples

The first full backup’s files (depending on its 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

Incremental backup 1’s files (referring to / dependent 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

Incremental backup 2’s files (referring to / dependent on incremental backup 1 and also dependent 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 for the same version of IP Fabric as the backup was prepared on. This is checked automatically during restore.

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

Restore From Local Hard Drive

Log in to the System Administration UI (for example, https://ipfabric.example.com:8443).
Go to Restore or Backup.
Select Restore from the Do you wish proceed a backup or restore? drop-down menu.
Select What restore?. There are three options:
1. Restore data & all system services – This option restores the database and user and system files. It is usable for restoring from general system failures or upgrade failures.
2. Restore database – Only the database is restored. This can be sufficient in case of a database failure or accidental database drop.
3. Restore snapshot files – A particular snapshot can be restored.
Select Local hard drive from the Backup files source drop-down menu.
Click Next.
Select backup file – The backup filename includes the year, month, day, and time when the backup file was created.
Click Restore.

Restore From Remote Server

Log in to the System Administration UI (for example, https://ipfabric.example.com:8443).
Go to Restore or Backup.
Select Restore from the Do you wish proceed a backup or restore? drop-down menu.
Select What restore?. There are three options:
1. Restore data & all system services – This option restores the database and user and system files. It is usable for restoring from general system failures or upgrade failures.
2. Restore database – Only the database is restored. This can be sufficient in case of a database failure or accidental database drop.
3. Restore snapshot files – A particular snapshot can be restored.
Select FTP or SFTP from the Backup files source drop-down menu.
1. Enter the remote FTP/SFTP Server FQDN or IP address. If using an FQDN, make sure that your DNS client is configured and working properly.
2. Enter the Username and Password for accessing the FTP/SFTP server.
3. Specify the Directory where backups are located.
Click Next.
Select backup file – The backup filename includes the year, month, day, and time when the backup file was created.
Click Restore.