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Andy_Herrman_22's avatar
Andy_Herrman_22
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Jul 30, 2007

BIG-IP Configuration backup/restore

What's the correct way to backup the BIG-IP configuration and restore it? Is backing up the *.conf files from the /config directory enough, or should I backup the entire /config directory?

 

 

Specifically, I need to come up with a process for our Operations people to follow so that they can backup the configuration before doing a deployment and restore the backed up config in case the deployment goes bad and they need to roll back.

 

 

Are there any automated tools I can use for this?
config
design

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  • Diego_19194's avatar
    Diego_19194
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jul 30, 2007
    Hi,

     

    You can collect and archive the version 9.x configuration files, by typing the following command: "bigpipe config save /config.ucs" or copy /config directory that you say.

     

     

    Depend what do you want to do.

     

     

    Remember that technical information and, basic configuration do you find in "ask.f5.com"

     

     

  • Andy_Herrman_22's avatar
    Andy_Herrman_22
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Jul 31, 2007
    That's easy enough. Thanks.

     

     

    I looked on ask.f5 (and have grabbed all the manuals I could find). They referenced that you should back up configuration in a number of places, but I could never find documentation on how to actually do it. Never thought to look at the bigpipe commands.
  • Jeff_Silverman_'s avatar
    Jeff_Silverman_
    Historic F5 Account
    Aug 23, 2007
    There is more than one way to do it. I am paranoid about configuration changes and the need to revert to a known good configuration. So I have set up a server so that I can ssh into the server from the BigIP without using a password. This is as safe as the root account on the BigIP is safe.

    Then I have a cron job that fires once a day which generates a backup and then copies the resulting file to the server.

    
!/bin/bash
 backup the configuration
b config save /config.ucs
 Copy the configuration to the server
scp /config.ucs USERNAME@SERVER:/PATH/`hostname`-`date +%Y%m%d%H%m%S`.ucs

    The `hostname` and `date +%Y%m%d%H%m%S` are some UNIXisms which creates a file with the hostname and a timestamp in the filename. The format of the time stamp makes it easy to sort lexigraphically.

    Note that it is not enough to rely on the partner of a pair to save the configuration because there are configuration items which are common and some configuration items which are specific.

    Jeff Silverman

    j.silverman@f5.com