Performing an on-demand backup

You can perform a full backup, a backup of policies only, a backup of a remote quarantine system, or a configuration backup of the items you specify at any time.
The ability to customize your backup type gives you greater flexibility. For example, assume that you want to back up and maintain messages in incident folders for compliance requirements but do not have enough storage space. You can back up policies plus content incidents and store the backup off-box. Or you may have a situation where you want to copy the policies that you have on one Control Center to another. You can backup the policies and restore them on the other Control Center.
Backups do not include the actual license files (license files have the extension .slf). So when you restore a backup, you must re-register your licenses. If you cannot locate your license files, you must request new ones.
You can restore your backup when needed; however, there are considerations you should keep in mind before you do.
In addition to the instructions provided here for the web-based SMG Control Center, you can also use the command line interface to perform backups. Details can be found in the Command Line Interface reference under
db-backup
.
  1. To perform an on-demand backup
  2. In the Control Center, click
    Administration > Hosts > Version
    .
  3. On the
    Backup
    tab, click
    Backup Now
    .
  4. Choose which system you'll be collecting the backup from in the
    Host
    drop-down menu. These choices determine the options available under
    Backup Data
    . The choices are: 
    1. Local Host
    2. Remote Quarantine Host
  5. Under
    Backup Data
    , choose from among the following backup types:
    Full Backup
    Backs up the complete database, as well as the following items:
    • Spam Quarantine messages
    • Suspect Virus Quarantine messages
    • Spam submission submitter ID
    • Spam submission submitters list
    • Content filtering messages in Informational Incidents folders that are stored on disk
    • Content filtering messages in the Quarantine Incidents folders that are stored on disk
    • Al SSL certificates and certificate authorities
    Quarantine Only Backup
    Backs up the only the following following items, either from a Control Center or a Quarantine:
    • Quarantine-specific configuration data
    • Spam Quarantine messages
    • Suspect Virus Quarantine messages
    • Content filtering messages in Informational Incidents folders that are stored on disk
    • Content filtering messages in the Quarantine Incidents folders that are stored on disk
    Custom backup
    The
    Custom backup
    option includes the following sub-options:
    • Policies only
      Backs up spam, malware, reputation, and content filtering policies, Threat Defense policies, policy groups, and all policy resources.
    • Configuration (includes policies)
      Backs up all configuration data, which includes all modifiable settings in the Control Center, the spam submission submitter ID, and the submitters list, and policies. Also backs up the additional items that you select as follows:
      • Include content incident messages
        In addition to configuration data and policies, backs up all of the messages that are in all of the content incident folders.
      • Include report data
        In addition to configuration data and policies, backs up all of the report data.
      • Include log data
        In addition to configuration data and policies, backs up all of the log data.
    This option is not present when
    Remote Quarantine Host
    is selected from the
    Host
    field.
  6. Under
    Backup To
    , select one of the following:
    Store backup on server
    This option stores backups on the local server. specify how many backup versions to keep using the
    Number of backups to store
    field.
    You only need to specify the number of backup versions that are retained when you store files locally. Enter a value between 1 and 25. The default value is 3.
    If you are performing a backup on a quarantine only system from the Control Center, the backup will be stored on the quarantine only system, not the Control Center.
    Store backup on a remote location
    Specify the following values:
    • Protocol: Select FTP, SCP, or SCPRSA from drop-down
    • Host/IP Address: example: host.symantecs.org (or 192.168.2.42)
    • Port number.
    • Enter the path. For example:
      /home/username/backups/
    • Check to indicate if the transfer requires authentication.
      If it does, specify the following:
      • User name
      • Password
    To use SCPRSA, you must first set up the RSA keys at the command line, using the
    rsa-key
    command. Once you have set up
    rsa-key
    for a particular host,
    SCP
    will no longer work. Only
    SCPRSA
    will work for that host.
  7. Click
    Backup Now
    .