Backup and Restore Concepts
Backup Types: Application and Appliance
Cisco EPN Manager supports two types of backups:
- Application backups—Contain Cisco EPN Manager application data but do not include platform data (host-specific settings, such as the server hostname and IP address). Application backup should be used during Cisco EPN Manager upgrade, when you want to move only application data and not the platform/host specific configurations.
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Appliance backups—Contain all application data and platform data (host-specific settings, including the hostname, IP address, subnet mask, default gateway, and so on). Appliance backup should be used for disaster recovery (or to recover from platform hardware or software failures). For example, to recover from any disk or filesystem failure, the standard recovery process would be to re-install Cisco EPN Manager and then restore from the appliance backup in order to restore all data as well as platform-specific configurations. You would then need to manually reconstruct the HA configurations as they are not included in the appliance backup.
Note |
For details on what is considered application data and what is considered platform data, see Information That Is Backed Up. |
Note the following about application and appliance backups.
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Application and appliance backups can be restored to the same or a new host, as long as the new host has the same hardware and software configuration as the host from which the backup was taken.
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You can only restore an appliance backup to a host running the same version of the Cisco EPN Manager server software as the server from which the backup was taken.
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When upgrading to a later version of Cisco EPN Manager, application backup and restore can run across different releases, as long as the upgrade path is supported.
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You cannot restore an application backup using the appliance restore command, nor can you restore an appliance backup using the application restore command.
We recommend the following best practices:
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If you are evaluating Cisco EPN Manager, use the default automatic application backup to the local repository.
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If you are running Cisco EPN Manager in a production environment as a virtual appliance, take regular application backups to a remote backup server. You can use the application backups to restore your server for all failures except complete failure of the server hardware.
Backup Scheduling
Cisco EPN Manager performs automatic scheduled application backups. This feature is enabled by default and creates one application backup file every day in the default local backup repository.
You can change this schedule as needed. You can also take an automatic application backup at any time from the web GUI. Appliance backups can only be taken from the command line.
Automatic application backups can create storage space problems if the backup repository is local to the Cisco EPN Manager server. While this is usually acceptable in test implementations, it is not intended to substitute for routine scheduled backups to remote servers in a production environment.
We recommend the following for production environments:
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Set up remote repositories to store the backup files.
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Use the automatic schedule application backup to create backups on the remote repositories on a regular schedule.
Note |
By default, two minutes are added to the job execution time for job creation. |
Backup Repositories
By default, automatic application backup feature stores backup files in the local backup repository /localdisk/defaultRepo. You can use the web GUI to create a new local backup repository and then choose it when you set up automatic application backups. You can also specify a remote repository but you must create the repository first as described in Set Up and Manage Repositories.
When taking application or appliance backups using the command line, you must specify the local or remote repository you want the backup to be stored in. In a production environment, this is normally a remote repository that is accessed via NFS, SFTP, or FTP. We recommend you use NFS because it is typically much faster and more reliable than other protocols.
There is no difference between performing an application backup from the command line or performing it from the web GUI. Both actions create the same backup file.
Whenever you use NFS to take backups or restore data from a remote backup, make sure the mounted NFS server remains active throughout the backup or restore operation. If the NFS server shuts down at any point in the process, the backup or restore operation will hang without warning or an error message.
Backup Filenames
Application backups launched from the web GUI—either automatically or manually—are assigned a filename with the following format:
host-yymmdd-hhmm_VERver_BKSZsize_CPUcpus_MEMtarget_RAMram_SWAPswap_APP_CKchecksum.tar.gpg
Application backups launched from the CLI use the same format, except that the file starts with the user-specified filename rather than the server name.
filename-yymmdd-hhmm_VERver_BKSZsize_CPUcpus_MEMtarget_RAMram_SWAPswap_APP_CKchecksum.tar.gpg
Appliance backups launched from the CLI have files that also start with the user-specified filename, but the type is indicated as SYS, not APP.
filename-yymmdd-hhmm_VERver_BKSZsize_CPUcpus_MEMtarget_RAMram_SWAPswap_SYS_CKchecksum.tar.gpg
The following table describes the variables used by the backup files.
Variable |
Description |
host |
Host name of the server from which the backup was taken (for application backups launched from web GUI). |
filename | Filename specified by user in command line (for application backups launched from CLI, and for appliance backups) |
yymmdd-hhmm |
Date and time the backup was taken |
ver |
Internal version. |
size |
Total size of the backup |
cpus |
Total number of CPUs in the server from which the backup was taken |
target |
Total amount of system memory in the server from which the backup was taken |
ram |
Total amount of RAM in the server from which the backup was taken |
swap |
Total size of the swap disk on the server from which the backup was taken |
checksum |
Backup file checksum |
Backup Validation Process
Cisco EPN Manager performs the following steps to validate the backup files:
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Before starting the backup process, validates disk size, fast-recovery area, and control files.
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Validates the created backup database to ensure that it can be restored.
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Validates the zipped application data against the files that were backed up.
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Validates the TAR file to make sure it is correct and complete.
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Validates the GPG file to ensure that it is correct.
If you manually transfer the backup file, or if you want to verify that the backup file transfer is completed, view the file's md5CheckSum and file size.
Another best practice for validating a backup is to restore it to a standalone "test" installation of Cisco EPN Manager.
Information That Is Backed Up
The following table describes the information that is contained in backup files. This information is restored to the server from backups.
See Information That Is Not Backed Up for details about data that is not saved by the backup mechanism.
Note |
The /opt/CSCOlumos/conf/Migration.xml file contains all configuration files and reports that are backed up. This file is included in the backup and is restored. |
Data Type |
Feature |
Information Saved and Restored |
Application Data |
Background job settings |
Data in the database |
Configuration archive (device configuration files) |
Data in the database |
|
Configuration templates |
|
|
Credentials |
Data in the database |
|
Device inventory data |
Data in the database |
|
Licenses |
Files in /opt/CSCOlumos/licenses |
|
Maps |
|
|
Reports |
|
|
Managed device software image files |
Data in the database |
|
System settings |
Data in the database |
|
User preferences |
|
|
CEPNM users, groups, and roles |
Data in the database |
|
Virtual domains |
Data in the database |
|
Platform Data |
CLI settings |
All CLI information and settings are preserved. This includes the list of backup repositories, the FTP user name, users created using the CLI, AAA information specified via the CLI, and other CLI settings (such as the terminal timeout). |
Credentials |
Linux OS credentials file |
|
Network settings |
Files in /opt/CSCOlumos/conf/rfm/classes/com/cisco/packaging/PortResources.xml |
|
Linux user preferences |
Linux data structure |
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Linux users, groups, and roles |
Linux data structure |
Information That Is Not Backed Up
Before performing a backup, make sure that you manually note the following information because it is not saved as part of the backup process. You will need to reconfigure these settings after the data has been restored.
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High availability configurations
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Local customization (for example, report heap size)
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Patch history information
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Certificates
If you have configured a server with a web certificate and set it up to authenticate clients with client certificates, you need to repeat the same configuration on the new server again after you have completed the backup and restore procedure.
For a list of information that is backed up, see Information That Is Backed Up.