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Disaster recovery

The backup of the whole server is there to rebuild it if it is lost: a failed disk, a deleted server, a provider that closes. It is different from the backups customers and resellers make of their organizations and subscriptions.

The page is Server › Disaster recovery.

What it holds

  • Always the configuration: the database of the panel, the configuration of the server, the data of each customer.
  • For each module what you choose: for CSP (Central Syslog) the searchable logs and the log archives.

The backups customers and resellers keep on the server are not included.

Making the backups

Make a copy now makes one by hand, in the background; the email tells the outcome.

Above all, set a Schedule with a remote destination (an SFTP or FTP server, or an S3 storage): a backup kept only on this server is lost with it. The schedule works like the one of the backups of the customers: frequency, time, copies to keep, incremental backups. With incremental backups only the logs are incremental; the rest is full in every backup.

Download (single file) gives a file with everything inside, encrypted as you chose.

The key of the server

The backups are encrypted with the key of the server, or with your personal age key. In Key of the server, Download the key (with your password) and keep it away from the server, for example in a password manager: without it, or without your personal key, the backups cannot be opened if the server is lost.

Restoring on this server

Restore brings back, on this server, a part of the backup:

  • the customers you choose (a reseller with their customers; none chosen means all);
  • their configuration, their searchable logs, the archives no longer present;
  • within a period.

The restore runs in the background; the email and the list tell its outcome. For a single customer or a single subscription, the backup of the customer or of the subscription is usually enough.

Rebuilding the server on a new server

  1. Prepare a new server as for the installation (see Installation), with the same name and address if you can.
  2. Install the esapanel package, of the version of the backup or newer.
  3. Copy the files of the backup into a folder of the server.
  4. As root:
esapanel-setup --restore=/root/backup --key=<key of the server>

or, with your personal key, --identity=<private key>.

The configuration comes back complete and the panel starts again with its customers, users, certificates and keys. The logs are then restored from Server › Disaster recovery, all of them or a choice.

If the new server has another name or address

esapanel-setup asks you:

  • if the name or the main address will be changed to those of before, it stops: change them and run it again;
  • with --host=adapt the panel takes the name and the address of the new server.

For the addresses added by the panel that the new server does not have: --addresses=apply moves them here, --addresses=skip leaves them Failed.

Remember that the devices and agents of the customers send to the name and ports of before: if the name changes, they must be configured again.

The license

After a restore on another machine, the license belongs to the previous machine: the panel works for 10 days, and you transfer it from the Server › License page (see The license).

A test now and then

A backup that has never been restored is not a safe backup. Now and then, try rebuilding the server on a test machine, with the key you kept: it is the only way to know that it works when it is needed.