LiveAssurance can be set to automatically backup device configuration files regularly across multi-vendor equipment. Typically, you want to automate network device configuration backup for a group of devices. You can define a recurring task, which lets you set up a schedule and target devices. The configuration backup can be scheduled hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and also on demand. LiveAssurance uses securely managed credentials and secure transports to access each device and retrieve configurations to a central data store.
Creating a device backup job
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From the Scheduled Tasks tab, select .
The Create New Backup Job window opens.
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Configure the following fields:
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Name—Provide a meaningful name for your backup. The name cannot exceed 128 characters.
- Frequency—Choose the frequency (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Monthly Relative).
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Devices and/or labels: From the Select Devices drop-down list, select the devices you wish to backup, and then click the + button.Note: You will receive an error message if you select a device where backup is not supported.
From the Select Labels drop-down list, select the labels for the group of devices you wish to backup, and then click the + button.
You must select at least one device or a label. If you select both, the system will concatenate the list of devices from the labels along with the selected devices.
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Click Create to create the backup job.
You can see the newly created job and its details from the All/Upcoming Jobs page. After the backup job is completed, you can click the Expand icon corresponding to the job to view the generated report.
Note: You cannot schedule a backup for the same device at the same time even though the device may be in two different labels. In this case, one of the scheduled backup would fail.
There are three possible outcomes for a job: Successful, Partial Successful, and Failed. The outcome is displayed in the Status column corresponding to the job in the All Jobs page. Within the Backup Report for a job, you can view the status of the backup on a per device basis. The following image is an example.
To view previous versions of a backup job:
From within the Backup Report for a backup job, you can retrieve a previous version of the job. From the drop-down list (as highlighted in the following image), select the date and time the job was run, for which you want to retrieve the backup version. The backup report for the selected date and time is displayed.
To retrieve device configuration files:
From within the Backup Report, device configurations can be easily retrieved in case you need to restore a previous configuration. Select the version of the backup you want to view. Then, locate the device for which you want to retrieve the configuration file that was backed up. If the backup for that device was successful, a file icon appears on the left side of the start time coresponding to that device entry (as highlighted in the following image). Click the file icon to download the device configuration file to your computer.
You can store up to 10 versions of backups.
The other option to retrieve the configuration file is to select the device(s) from the Devices tab.
Select the checkbox corresponding to the device you want to retrieve backup for. The Device-Summary panel appears on the right side of the page. If there was a last successful backup associated with that device, you will see Success displayed in the Last Backup section. In this case, an F5 device had a successful backup, which has a download icon along with start and end dates noted for your convenience. You can click the download icon to download the backup file to your computer.
Removing a backup job:
From the All Jobs page, navigate to the backup job for which you want to remove the backup configuration that enabled the backup, and click the delete icon. The configuration along with the backup files will be removed from the system.
Device Backup Success and Failure Notifications:
In addition to the Dashboard based Backup reports, you have the option to send a daily digest email for all your backup jobs.
Your backup jobs can fail sometimes. When a failure occurs, you want to be notified so you can investigate when there is a problem. The issue is that at times, the backup wasn’t successful but you haven’t received a failure notification. To add a layer of protection to your automated backup routine, success and failure notifications will be sent daily.
To enable the Device Backup Daily Digest feature, navigate to the Application tab (). Then, toggle the Device Backup Daily Digest button to on.
Provide a list of email addresses of the recipients. The system will send automated email notifications every day at midnight. The email will identify if the backup jobs are successful, or if a backup failure occurs.
The following image shows a sample report:
Managing the Device Backup Datastore
cleanup {
auto-cleanup-interval = 24 hours
successful-keep-count = 10
unsuccessful-keep-count = 10
}Reduce unsuccessful-keep-count to 1 and lower the value of successful-keep-count. Change auto-cleanup-interval to 6 hours in order to get the cleanup to run sooner.
sudo service indeni-backup restart