Backing up and restoring the appliance configuration

Configuration backups help during disaster recovery

Although data saved in the cache is transitory and does not need to be backed up, the Appliance Manager enables you to save one or more backup copies of the system configuration to be restored in case of a configuration error or disaster. You provide the name of the backup image where the configuration is saved.

You can also download a backup configuration file to a host machine, then upload the backup configuration file to the appliance later so it can be restored. This enables you to save the backup off site for disaster recovery.

About system configuration files

Two appliance system configuration files exist by default:

default.cfg--Contains all the default appliance configuration settings. This file is automatically generated by the system when the appliance is installed. This file must never be edited.
local.cfg--Contains all the configuration settings that differ from the default settings listed in the default.cfg file. This file records all local changes from default that are made to the appliance during installation and configuration (through both the Appliance Manager and CLI).
You can also create one or more arbitrarily named global configuration file containing appliance settings to be uniformly applied to other appliances. The administrator can then configure those appliances to periodically read the settings in the global file and pulled into the local configuration.

The appliance backs up the local.cfg and global configuration files into a single backup file. The default.cfg file is never modified and does not need to be backed up or restored.

Backup configuration file names

By default, the backup configuration files are named backup.date, where date takes the format mmddyy. For example, backup.100200 is the appliance configuration file saved on October 2, 2000.

Using configuration backup files to restore the configuration

You can use the Appliance Manager to restore the system configuration files in the following ways:

Restore the configuration locally
Selecting this option restores the local configuration and any global configuration files to the local appliance. This option does not restore global configurations to their original source.
Restore the configuration independently
Selecting this option restores the local.cfg file locally and writes all the settings contained in any global configuration file into the local.cfg file. This makes all global settings part of the local configuration. These settings override any global configuration file changes.