Backing Up Configurations and Databases

Aspera strongly recommends backing up your IBM Aspera Faspex on Demand configuration and database as a precaution in case of system failure. You may also want to restore your Faspex configuration folder and database on a new machine where you've installed Faspex. To learn more about restoring Faspex, refer to (xref here).

Note: This topic demonstrates the backup process for Faspex versions 2.0.1+. If you are running a version older than 2.0.1, please refer to http://www.asperasoft.com/en/documentation/6 for your specific version's upgrade procedures. If your current installation of Faspex is older than version 1.6, please contact Technical Support for assistance.

Back up your Faspex configuration and database via the Web UI.
If you are running Faspex on a Linux machine, you can use the Faspex Web UI to back up your files.
Within the Faspex Web UI, go to Server > Configuration > Save/Restore to save your current Faspex configuration and database.

Click the Download button to save your current Faspex configuration folder and database in the format *.tar.gz. From this screen, you may also restore your Faspex configuration folder and database on a new machine by uploading the backup file and selecting the Restore button. Then, follow the steps in the topic Restoring your Faspex Database to finish restoring Faspex on a new machine.

Important: If you use the Safari web browser, you need to make sure the Open "safe" files after downloading option is unchecked in Safari's general settings, before downloading the backup file. Otherwise, the file will be downloaded as a .tar file, rather than a .tar.gz file, and will not work when the user attempts to restore the server with this file.

Tip: Alternatively, you may back up your files manually following the commands below.

Back up your Faspex MySQL database using asctl.

To back up your Faspex MySQL database, run the following command in a Terminal:

$ asctl faspex:backup_database

The preceding asctl command uses mysqldump to backup Faspex's three MySQL databases to the following directory:

/opt/aspera/faspex/backup/(time stamp)

In this directory, you will find the following file outputs:

Faspex Version	Backup File Output
2.5+	faspex.sql
2.0.1+	central.sql faspex.sql user_service.sql

Back up your Faspex, Apache and MySQL application files.

Aspera also recommends that you back up your Faspex, Apache and MySQL application files, which--in addition to the database backup--will yield a full backup of the applications required to run Faspex. You can find the application files in the following directories:

Application	Location of Application Files	Files to Back Up
Faspex	/opt/aspera/faspex	faspex.rb.yml /config/.yml /config/mongrel_cluster/mongrel_cluster.yml /config/aspera.faspex..aspera-license
Apache	/opt/aspera/common/apache	apache.rb.yml /conf/.key /conf/.crt /conf/extra/httpd-ssl_template.conf /custom/
MySQL	/opt/aspera/common/mysql	database.rb.yml