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Backup and restore

July 8, 2020
Contributed by:  S S

When your appliance gets corrupted or needs an upgrade, you can back up your system configuration. The procedure is done either through the Citrix CLI or GUI interface. The appliance also enables you to import the backup file from an external source. However, you can do this only through the GUI interface and there is no support through the CLI interface.

Points to remember:

  • Sysid and Interfaces are the same.
  • Network configuration is supported on new platform.
  • new platform build is either same of backup file or higher version than it.

Back up a NetScaler appliance

Depending on the type of data to be backed up and the frequency at which you create a backup, you can take a basic backup or a full backup.

  • Basic backup. Backs up only configuration files. You might want to perform the backup type frequently, because the files it backs up change constantly. The files that are backed up are:

For more information about the basic backup details, see the Table topic.

  • Full backup. In addition to the files that are backed up by a basic backup, a full backup backs up some less frequently updated files. The files that are backed up when using the full backup option are:
Directory Sub-Directory or Files
nsconfig ssl, license, fips*
/var/ netscaler/ssl/, wi/java_home/jre/lib/security/cacerts/, wi/java_home/lib/security/cacerts/*

The backup is stored as a compressed TAR file in the /var/ns_sys_backup/ directory. To avoid issues due to non-availability of disk space, you can store a maximum of 50 backup files in this directory. You can use the rm system backup command to delete existing backup files so that you can create more backups.

Note:

While the backup operation is in progress, do not execute commands that affect the configuration.

If a file that is required to be backed up is not available, the operation skips that file.

To back up a NetScaler appliance

To back up the NetScaler by using the NetScaler command line interface

At the command prompt, do the following:

  1. Save the NetScaler configurations.

save ns config

  1. Create the backup file.

create system backup [<fileName>] -level <basic ¦ full> -comment <string>

Note:

If the file name is not specified, the appliance creates a TAR file with the following naming convention:backup_<level>_<nsip_address>_<date-timestamp>.tgz.

Example: To back up the full appliance using the default naming convention for the backup file.

> create system backup -level full

  1. Verify that the backup file was created.

show system backup

You can view properties of a specific backup file by using the file name parameter.

To back up the appliance by using the NetScaler GUI

Navigate to System > Backup and Restore, click Backup and then specify the details of the backup.

Restore a NetScaler appliance

Important

The restore operation does not succeed if the backup file is renamed or if the contents of the file are modified.

When you restore the appliance from a backup file, the restore operation untars the backup file into the /var/ns_sys_backup/ directory. Once the untar operation is complete, the files are copied to their respective directories.

To restore the NetScaler from a local backup file by using the command line interface

Note: Citrix recommends backing up the current configuration before restoring a previous configuration. However, if you do not want the restore command to automatically create a backup of the current configuration, use the –skipBackup parameter.

At the command prompt, do the following:

  1. Obtain a list of the backup files available on the appliance.

    show system backup

  2. Restore the appliance by specifying one of the backup files.

    restore system backup <filename> [-skipBackup]

    Example: To restore by using a full backup of an appliance

    > restore system backup backup_full_<nsip_address>_<date-timestamp>.tgz

  3. Reboot the appliance.

    reboot

To backup and restore an appliance by using the NetScaler GUI

  1. Navigate to System > Backup and Restore.

    Back up details page

  2. Click Backup/Import to start the process.
  3. In the Backup/Import page, select Create and set the following parameters.
    1. File name. Name of the backup file.
    2. Level. Select a backup level as basic or full.
    3. Comment. Provide a brief description for the backup.

  4. Click Backup.

    Back up import page

  5. If you want to import a backup, you must select Import.

    import procedure

  6. Once backup is complete, you can select the file and click Download.

  7. To restore, select the backup file and click Restore.

    Restore section

  8. In the Restore page, verify backup file details and click Restore.

    Restore section

For more information on how to backup and restore an SDX appliance, see Backup and restore SDX appliance

For information about operations performed on system backup, see System Backup topic.

Backup and restore

July 8, 2020
Contributed by:  S S

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