Backup And Restore

Introduction

This section presents the configuration backup and restore systems which are used to save and import Syneto configurations. Because configurations can grow quite complex they cannot be readily reproduces, especially if they aren’t documented. This is the reason why someone would like to save and keep progressive copies of the configuration.
The configurations can be saved and restored either manually or automatically, using the remote configuration backup service.

Manually Managing the Configuration Backups

To manually save the current configuration (in this context save means downloading a file containing the configuration which can later be used to recreate that configuration) navigate to System -> Manage UTM Configuration and enter the ‘Local configuration’ tab (Figure 12-1). There are three operations that are offered to Syneto’s administrator:

load a previously saved configuration: you have to choose a file from the management station (the computer you use to connect to Syneto using a web browser) and then press ‘Upload’ to load the configuration to Syneto
save the current configuration by pressing on the ‘Download’ button; this will open the save file dialog of your browser to save the configuration under the desired name
restore the default configuration: if you want to restore the default configuration (factory default) press ‘Restore default configuration’ button

Take care when you are restoring a configuration because the connectivity with that machine may stop if the configuration isn’t suited for that network environment. If this happens the only way to remedy the situation is to physically access the machine’s console and change the necessary items to have network connectivity again.
This is especially true when restoring the default configuration.

The configuration backups can be managed from command line too using the config command. To save the configuration use the following command:

# config file export <some_name>

Give a meaningful name to the configuration. The configuration will be saved with that name in the current directory (if it is writable). Once saved it can be scp-ed somewhere else. To import a configuration uploaded to Syneto or from an url, use this command:

# config file import <file/url>

To restore the factory defaults use:

# config file restore

Figure 12-1

Remote Configuration Backup Service

The remote configuration backup service is geared to help the system administrator to save the configuration in an orderly fashion without having to worry about hardware failures anymore. This service also helps in maintaining a chronology of the past configurations which may help tracking problems within your networking environment.
To use this service, navigate to System -> Manage UTM Configuration, ‘Remote backups’ tab and press the ‘Enable’ button under the ‘Automatic backup service’ heading. Once the service has been enabled, it will backup regularly the UTM configuration if it changed.
A manual backup can be made at any time by pressing the ‘New backup’ button; you must insert the The backups are stored on a remote Syneto server. They can be accessed when the Syneto appliance has a working connection to this Syneto server. Whenever the administrator enters the remote configuration backup service page, the ‘Remote backup list’ is populated with the past configurations that have been saved on the server. The configurations that have been saved automatically are labeled ‘automatic’ while the configuration that are manually saved are labeled with the custom label entered when the backup was generated.

Figure 12-2

To restore a configuration, press the green round arrow to start the process of restoring that particular configuration. The same warning still stands: do not restore an improper configuration or you may have to gain physical access to the machine to correct the problem.

From console, you can start or stop the service with:

# config backup start/stop

The show parameter will list the saved backups:

# config backup show
Automatic remote configuration backup service is active
2 backup slots used out of a total of 10
ID Date Name
101090 2009-04-21 14:48:01 Test 1
101101 2009-04-22 12:58:24 automatic

It is possible to restore a given backup using the ID of the backup:

# config backup restore 101101
Do you really want to restore this configuration? You may
not beable to access the machine if you restore the wrong
one [y/N] y
Restoring configuration with id 101101

Removing a backup from the server can be done by using the delete parameter and the backup’s ID:

# config backup remove ID
Do you really want to remove this configuration? [y/N]y
Deleting configuration with id 101090
Configuration deleted