How to: Back up and restore BIG-IP Next Central Manager¶

Overview¶

The back up process creates a compressed and encrypted file that you can use to restore your BIG-IP Next Central Manager settings. The BIG-IP Next Central Manager on which you perform the restore can use either the same or a newer version of the software than was used to generate the BIG-IP Next Central Manager backup.

Here’s a list of what gets backed up:

The repository that stores the secrets and certificates that BIG-IP Next Central Manager uses to access services.
The database that stores configuration data.
The audit logs that track each action a user can perform (including login).
The monitoring service that collects health and traffic metrics for BIG-IP Next instances, as well as health and system metrics for BIG-IP Next Central Manager.

A back up is a very useful tool to restore your configuration and seamlessly start managing your BIG-IP Next instances again after an upgrade or re-installation of BIG-IP Next Central Manager.

Prerequisites¶

You need to know the management IP address and CLI admin credentials for the BIG-IP Next Central Manager that you want to back up from and restore to.

Summary¶

Create a BIG-IP Next Central Manager backup
Restore a BIG-IP Next Central Manager backup
BIG-IP Next Central Manager version-to-version backup and restore

Create a BIG-IP Next Central Manager backup¶

To create a backup of a BIG-IP Next Central Manager, you run a CLI script and specify the backup parameter. The script saves all of the configuration data to a compressed and encrypted archive file.

Log in as admin to the CLI for the BIG-IP Next Central Manager that you want to back up.
Determine whether you need to run a full or partial backup.

If you do not have external storage setup, you must use the partial backup option.
- Full backup
  The following command stores all information for BIG-IP Next Central Manager and all your managed BIG-IP Next instances (including analytics) to the external storage you configured when you set up BIG-IP Next Central Manager.
```
/opt/cm-bundle/cm backup -a
```
- Partial backup
  If you did not configure external storage for BIG-IP Next Central Manager, you have the option to skip backing up the analytics for managed BIG-IP Next instances and BIG-IP Next Central Manager using the following command. This command backs up everything locally to BIG-IP Next Central Manager, except for analytics.
```
/opt/cm-bundle/cm backup
```
BIG-IP Next Central Manager prompts you for a password that will encrypt the data in the backup file.
Type a password to encrypt the backup file data.

The password must be at least 8 characters in length.

Note: There are a couple of things to point out in regard to the backup password you use:
- Store the backup password in a secure location. Anyone with access to this password will have access to the data in your applications.
- Make sure you don’t lose this password. If you forget the backup password, there is no way to recover the content encrypted in your backup.
  
  BIG-IP Next Central Manager creates a compressed, encrypted archive that contains the backed up data.
  If the backup attempt is successful, you’ll see a prompt similar to this:
```
info: Backup bundle created at /opt/cm-backup/backup.20220321-181700.tgz.enc
```
Make a note of the file name for future reference, and then save the backup file to a secure location that you can access conveniently when it’s time to restore the data.

Restore a BIG-IP Next Central Manager backup¶

Complete the following steps to restore a backup onto a BIG-IP Next Central Manager.

Copy the backup file from its secure location to the BIG-IP Next Central Manager you want to restore.
Make note of the directory location to which you copy the file.
Log in as admin to the CLI for the BIG-IP Next Central Manager that you want to restore.
Run the BIG-IP Next Central Manager script and use the restore parameter along with the name of the backup file to restore the backup onto the BIG-IP Next Central Manager you are logged into. For example, you would submit the following command for a backup file named backup.20220321-181700.tgz.enc that you’ve copied to the /home/admin folder.
```
   /opt/cm-bundle/cm restore /home/admin/backup.20220321-181700.tgz.enc
```
BIG-IP Next Central Manager prompts you for a password that you must supply to decrypt the data in the backup file.
Type the password for the backup file so that BIG-IP Next Central Manager can decrypt the backup file data.
BIG-IP Next Central Manager displays a message indicating the status of the restore attempt. The message begins with a flag (info, error, or warning) that signals the status of the restore attempt.
- If the attempt is successful, the message reads:
```
info: Successfully restored the backup from backup.20220321-181700.tgz.enc
```
- If the restore was at least partially successful, but there are issues remaining that need your attention, the message explains what you need to do next. Here is a typical example:
```
warning: There was a problem starting Loki. Please start Loki manually to restore functionality. Continuing restore.
```
- If the attempt fails, you get an error message. For example, if you specified the wrong password, you’ll see a message similar to this:
```
error: Wrong password? | bad decrypt
```
If your restore was unsuccessful, correct the issue and try again. Otherwise, log in to the restored BIG-IP Next Central Manager and confirm that everything is as expected.

BIG-IP Next Central Manager version-to-version backup and restore¶

You can back up a BIG-IP Next Central Manager running one version of the software and restore that backup onto another BIG-IP Next Central Manager running a newer version.

However, if the BIG-IP Next Central Manager that you are backing up is running BIG-IP Next Central Manager version 0.7.0 or previous, and you plan to restore it onto a BIG-IP Next Central Manager running version 0.8.0 or later, you must use the following process when you create the backup file:

Open a command line terminal on BIG-IP Next Central Manager 1.
Make a copy of the original backup script, in case you need this version of the script later:
```
cd /opt/cm-bundle
cp backup backup.original
```

Replace the backup script with the one from BIG-IP Next Central Manager 2:

scp admin@<BIG-IP-Next-Central-Manager-2-IP-address>:/opt/cm-bundle/backup .

Run the new backup script on BIG-IP Next Central Manager 1.
```
/opt/cm-bundle/cm backup
```
BIG-IP Next Central Manager creates a compressed, encrypted archive that contains the backed up data.
If the backup attempt is successful, you’ll see a prompt similar to this:
```
   info: Backup bundle created at /opt/cm-backup/backup.20220321-181700.tgz.enc
```
You can now use this archive to restore onto a BIG-IP Next Central Manager running version 0.8.0 or later.

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