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Back up Information Governance Server database

You can back up your IG Server database by running a script from the system console or an SSH terminal session. The script will back up data held in the database.

Tell me about...

• What I need to consider before running the backup

  You need to consider where you want the backup to be placed. As the database has the potential to grow, you will need to ensure that suitable space is available. You can back up to:

  • A locally mounted partition with dedicated space for backups.
  • Remote storage, which has been mounted locally to the server.

  You should never back up to an IG Server system partition, for example root, /var, /tmp. Unpredictable results might occur.

  You also need to decide on the best time to run the backup. The size of the database dictates how long the process will take, but note that key services, including Gateway processing requests and usage of the Administration UI, may be slow or unavailable while the backup is being performed. We recommend that you perform backups when there is low system activity.

• What I do with the backup files after the backup has completed

  The backup script places a copy of the database in the current working directory as a compressed gzip file. The IG Server administrator and your company policy dictate what happens to the data after it has been backed up. For example you could:

  • Archive the data.
  • Write the data to a cloud backup server.

  Consider using one of the many dedicated tools available for managing your backed up data.

• Backup automation

  Your IG Server does not provide tools for automated backup. To provide automation to the process, consider creating a cron job, or use another tool to manage automation.

  As an example, here's how you might set up a scheduled backup everyday at 2am:

  1. Open a terminal console on your IG Server.

  2. Enter the following:

     $ sudo crontab -e 

  3. Enter the following:

     0 2 * * * cd <BACKUP-TARGET-LOCATION>;/opt/clearswift/igp/bin/igp-backup-database.sh

  4. Save your changes.

How do I...

• Run the backup script?

  If you have access to the system console of your IG Server, you can follow the steps as described below to complete this task. If you only have remote access, you should enable an SSH session first. Show me how

  To enable an SSH session:

  1. From the Home page, click System > Security > SSH Access.

     SSH configuration options are displayed.

  2. Click Edit.
  3. Select the Enable SSH access check box, and type the IP or hostname of the SSH client you want to use to connect to your IG Server.
  4. Click Save.

  5. From the SSH client, connect to your IG Server.

  Leaving SSH access enabled for extended periods might represent a security risk. You should consider disabling SSH when not using it.

  1. From your server command line, log in using the system account credentials that were created during installation.

  2. To start the backup, change directory to where the backup file is to be stored and type the following from the command line:

     $ sudo su -
     # mkdir -p <BACKUP-TARGET-LOCATION>
     # cd <BACKUP-TARGET-LOCATION>
     # igp-backup-database.sh 

     where <BACKUP-TARGET-LOCATION> is where you want the database backup to be stored.

  3. The script creates the backup in the current directory in a file called:

     database-backup-<YYYY>_<MM>_<DD>_pg_bck.gz

     where <YYYY>_<MM>_<DD> is the date of the backup.

See also...

• Restore Information Governance Server database
• Install Information Governance Server updates
• Monitor Information Governance Server

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