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Manual Chapter : UCS Backup Management for the BIG-IQ System

Applies To:

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BIG-IQ Centralized Management

  • 5.1.0
Manual Chapter
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How do I back up and restore a BIG-IQ system's configuration?

The configuration details of the BIG-IQ® system are kept in a compressed user configuration set (UCS) file. The UCS file has all of the information you need to restore a BIG-IQ systeme's configuration, including:

  • System-specific configuration files
  • License
  • User account and password information
  • SSL certificates and keys

Creating a backup of the BIG-IQ system's UCS file

  1. Log in to F5® BIG-IQ® Centralized Management with your user name and password.
  2. At the top left of the screen, select System Management from the BIG-IQ menu.
  3. At the top of the screen, click Inventory.
  4. On the left, click BACKUP & RESTORE > Backup Files .
  5. Click the Back Up Now button.
  6. Type a name to identify this backup, and an optional description for it.
  7. If you want to include the SSL private keys in the backup file, select the Include Private Keys check box.

    If you save a copy of the SSL private key, you can reinstall it if the original one becomes corrupt.

  8. To encrypt the backup file, select the Encrypt Backup Files check box, and type and verify the passphrase.
  9. Use the Local Retention Policy setting to specify how long you want to keep the backup file on BIG-IQ.
    • In the Delete local backup copy field, select the number of days to keep the backup copy before deleting it.
    • To keep copies of the backups indefinitely, select Never Delete.
    If you configured BIG-IQ to save backup files to a remote server and that server is unavailable during a scheduled backup, BIG-IQ ignores the local retention policy and retains the local copy of the backup file. This ensures that a backup is always available. To remove those local backups, you must delete them.
  10. To keep copies of backups remotely on a SCP or SFTP server:
    1. For the Archive setting, select the Store archive copy of backup check box.
    2. For the Location setting, select SCP or SFTP.
    3. In the IP Address field, type the IP address of the remote server where you want to store the archives.
    4. In the User Name and Password fields, type the credentials to access this server.
    5. In the Directory field, type the name of the directory where you want to store the archives on the remote server.
    Storing a backup remotely means you can restore data to a BIG-IP device even if you can't access the archive in the BIG-IQ system directory.
    Tip: Archived copies of backups are kept permanently on the remote server you specify. If you want to clear space on the remote server, you have to manually delete the backups.
  11. Click the Save button
When UCS backup file is complete, you can restore the BIG-IQ system.

Scheduling BIG-IQ system's UCS file backups

  1. Log in to F5® BIG-IQ® Centralized Management with your user name and password.
  2. At the top left of the screen, select System Management from the BIG-IQ menu.
  3. At the top of the screen, click Inventory.
  4. On the left, click BACKUP & RESTORE > Backup Schedules .
  5. Click the Schedule Backup button.
  6. Type a name to identify this backup, and an optional description for it.
  7. If you want to include the SSL private keys in the backup file, select the Include Private Keys check box.

    If you save a copy of the SSL private key, you can reinstall it if the original one becomes corrupt.

  8. To encrypt the backup file, select the Encrypt Backup Files check box, and type and verify the passphrase.
  9. For the Backup Frequency setting, select Daily, Weekly, or Monthly for the Schedule Backup to specify how often backups are created. Based on the frequency, you can then specify the days and time you want to create the backups..
  10. For the Start Date setting, click the calendar and select the date you want BIG-IQ to start creating backups.
  11. Use the Local Retention Policy setting to specify how long you want to keep the backup file on BIG-IQ.
    • In the Delete local backup copy field, select the number of days to keep the backup copy before deleting it.
    • To keep copies of the backups indefinitely, select Never Delete.
    If you configured BIG-IQ to save backup files to a remote server and that server is unavailable during a scheduled backup, BIG-IQ ignores the local retention policy and retains the local copy of the backup file. This ensures that a backup is always available. To remove those local backups, you must delete them.
  12. To keep copies of backups remotely on a SCP or SFTP server:
    1. For the Archive setting, select the Store archive copy of backup check box.
    2. For the Location setting, select SCP or SFTP.
    3. In the IP Address field, type the IP address of the remote server where you want to store the archives.
    4. In the User Name and Password fields, type the credentials to access this server.
    5. In the Directory field, type the name of the directory where you want to store the archives on the remote server.
    Storing a backup remotely means you can restore data to a BIG-IP device even if you can't access the archive in the BIG-IQ system directory.
    Tip: Archived copies of backups are kept permanently on the remote server you specify. If you want to clear space on the remote server, you have to manually delete the backups.
  13. Click the Save button

Restoring the BIG-IQ system with a UCS file backup stored locally

You must create a backup of a BIG-IQ system's UCS file before you can restore it.

If you need to roll back to a previous configuration, you can use a backup UCS file to restore the BIG-IQ system without having to recreate all of the BIG-IQ system's content. Use this procedure to restore a configuration you stored locally on the BIG-IQ system.

Important: Restoration might take several minutes, during which time the system might be unavailable. Restoring the system requires a reboot.
  1. Log in to F5® BIG-IQ® Centralized Management with your user name and password.
  2. At the top left of the screen, select System Management from the BIG-IQ menu.
  3. At the top of the screen, click Inventory.
  4. On the left, click BACKUP & RESTORE > Backup Files .
  5. Select the check box next to the backup file you want to restore and click the Restore button.
The BIG-IQ system restores the saved UCS backup file to the BIG-IQ system.
Important: If you restore a BIG-IQ with a backup that is older than its current configuration, any existing backups that are more recent no longer appear in the Backup Files list. Those files, however, are still stored in the /shared/ucs_backups directory until you delete them.
After restoration is complete, you can log back into the BIG-IQ system.
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