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Backing up
This page is under intensive preparation, thus count on incomplete texts, mistakes, older screenshots and sometimes not corresponding links. The changes might be traced on the page of Recent changes.
The most essential thing which without any doubts belongs among the main tasks for running your system is backing-up. It is important to realize that the whole business of your ISP firm will now be really dependent on availability of the ISPadmin system. Refreshing the system from the backups may be done within several minutes which, in case of a sudden breakdown of the system, is very essential for a firm providing hundreds of households and tens of companies the connectivity.
The backups are thus the real basis for running any system of such an extent as the ISPadmin, that is why you should not underestimate backing up.
For this reason the ISPadmin system has functions for automatic backups. The backups may be stored locally (SW/HW RAID) as well as remotedly (FTP, NFS). The local backups are good to be stored on another compartment than the system one. If the system disc is filled by backups, the system might be damaged. System backups may also be stored to the FTP server, NFS storage and so on.
Backing up setup
Settings / System settings / Public
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backup_configuration backup_configuration_binary backup_count backup_system backup_system_count backup_system_exclude_directory backup_system_extra_directory backup_system_ftp backup_system_ftp_dir backup_system_ftp_pass backup_system_ftp_server backup_system_ftp_user |
Make backups of the routers configurations Make binary backups of the Mikrotik routers configurations The number of archived routers configurations System backups The number of archived system backups Directories not to be backed-up Other backed-up directories Send a backup to the FTP The directory for storing the backup to the FTP server the variable of $DATE$ will be replaced by the current date User password for bakcups on the FTP FTP server for backups User name for backups on the FTP |
Note: ? In the course of the time there will be service (module) NETbackup integrated as a remoted storage with granted line, availability, security, etc... ?
System backup
Menu: Others / Backups / System Location: /data/backup
Regular and fully automatical system backups are created every day at night when the load on the server is at its lowest. The system backup is always complete, there are no distance or accession files used. We, however, recommend to maintain at least five backups a day retroactively so that there is not only one system backup rewritten all the time.
Ideally it is useful to enable copying of the backups to the FTP server. In the worst case when the hardware fails (switch failure, server burnout), or when the whole installation has been damaged by human error (disc format, indeliberate removal of a backup), the only thing which you save things is remote backups saved outside of the running server. It is not possible to rely on the RAID. RAID1 is not a backup but only a technical solution to the system accessability when the disc has failed. That is also why it is advisable to have backups saved safely in a remoted storage.
Manual system backup
Another option is running a script:
/usr/local/script/ispadmin. .pl ....make alias to ispadmin_backup backup_system
Restoring the system backup
At this moment the process of restoring the system from backups is only in maintenance of the tech support. In the future it will be possible to run the restoration of the system from backups by giving an command in a command line.
/usr/local/script/ispadmin. .pl ....make alias to ispadmin_recovery restore_system
This should list an overview if backups /data/backup
Routers configurations backups
Menu: Others / Backups / Routers Location: /data/support/ispadmin/mk_backup
The MikroTik or Flash Linux routers configurations backups. The MikroTik backups are comprised of configuration commands (export command) and possibly also from the binary backup (backup command). The Flash Linux router backups keep the settings of the network interfaces, routering table and firewall settings. Regular router bakcups are made every day at 02:00 am.
Further information on router backups to be found in this article on Others / Backups / Routers.
Manual router backup
Automatic backups are made during the night hours. If you need to make a specific router backup immediately, you can also do so by means of the script and router identifier:
/usr/local/script/ispadmin/backup_conf.pl ROUTER_ID
Possible problems
In every case it is useful to activate a record of rules in the log, in the menu of Settings / System settings / Mikrotik the item of mikrotik_qt_debug. Stored records may be later broowsed in the file of /var/log/ispadmin_*.log.
- Mikrotik ERR: Failed to save system configuration backup
- Mikrotik ERR command: /system backup save name="ispadmin"
- If there occurs a problem when the binary backups do not save, check first that the account under which the ISPadmin system administrates the router configuration has flashdisc routerboard recording allowed. If not, it is of course not possible to create binary backups even on the router itself. A backup is made by the command (mk shell): /system backup save name="ispadmin"
- Problem performing scp: Host key verification failed.
- scp timed out while trying to connect to ip_address
- In both cases the ISPadmin cannot correctly log in to the router using the SSH access manually.
- If the manual login to the router SSH runs smoothly and the binary backup is still not made, the problem will be presumably with the connection through SCP on some Debian versions. After you have reinstalled openssh client, the binary backups will be made correctly. It is thus necessary to reinstall the openssh server by the command:
apt-get remove openss-client; apt-get install openssh-client openssh-server ssh
Restore router backup
A) Text backup
The MikroTik router configuration allows backing up the router settings in a text form. The final backup is thus a readable text in which you can orient easily and in which you can edit the values. Restoring the router configuration from a text backup goes as follows: you mark the whole text right in the browser window and by using copy&paste, you paste it into the terminal in Winbox; this way all the backed-up items will be set.
B) Binary backup
You can also download a binary configuration backups which are easily useful when restoring the system. For saving the binary backup, there will be an icon 
. By clicking on the icon, you can save this backup to the local disc. The backup may later be easily uploaded to the MikroTik by "dragging" it from the local disc through the Winbox window into the bookmark of "Files". If you cut the backup from the Winbox and click on the "restore" button, the full router configuration will restore.
NETflow data backup
Menu: Others / Backups / NETflow Location: /data/support/flow/default
The NETflow module files, storing the data collected by a boundary router. The directory structure of the collected data may be browsed directky from the administration interface. You thus can check the files time to time, or you can watch the file sizes in the course of the time.
According to the data location in the directory structure of the file system, you can manually unpack on a remoted storage (FTP, NFS, poaaibl by means of the WinSCP application on the laptop).
More information on the NETflow module to be found in this article on Modul NETflow.