System > Backups

You can use the Virtual Traffic Manager’s Backup Management capability to make backups of your configuration, compare backups with each other and with the current configuration, and restore configuration from a previous backup.

To manage your configuration backups, click System > Backups.

You can also use the “zconf” command-line utility to perform a more fine-grained backup/import/export of individual configuration objects. For more details, see Granular Configuration Import/Export with zconf.

Ivanti recommends you make a backup of your configuration before making a large configuration change, so that you can:

This feature also enables you to copy configuration backups from one Virtual Traffic Manager machine to another if, for example, you want to replace an older virtual machine or cloud instance with a newer version.

ATTENTION Configuration backup files are specific to the Virtual Traffic Manager on which they are created, and as such are not part of the configuration automatically replicated between Virtual Traffic Managers in a cluster. If you terminate or delete a particular cluster member, any configuration backups stored on it are lost.

Use the “Create a Backup” form to make a backup of your configuration. This backup is stored on the local Virtual Traffic Manager machine.

If the Web Application Firewall is licensed and enabled in your Virtual Traffic Manager deployment, you can optionally include the Application Firewall configuration in your backup by ticking the App Firewall box.

Click a backup name from the table on the Backup Management page. Use the Restore Configuration option to replace the current configuration with the contents of the configuration backup.

A configuration backup will contain machine-specific information from the Virtual Traffic Manager it was taken from, such as Traffic IP Groups. Therefore, at this point you must decide whether or not to replace the current Virtual Traffic Manager’s local machine configuration. You have two options:

If the Web Application Firewall is licensed and enabled in your Virtual Traffic Manager deployment, you can optionally choose to also restore the Web Application Firewall configuration from your backup, if one exists, by clicking Include Application Firewall configuration.

Configuration backups are stored on the local Virtual Traffic Manager machine. You can export a configuration backup for safekeeping.

Click a backup name from the table on the Backup Management page. Use the Export Configuration option to download the configuration backup to your local machine.

ATTENTION Store this backup securely. It contains sensitive information, including SSL certificates.

The Virtual Traffic Manager includes a tool called the Configuration Importer, used to import a complete system configuration into a Virtual Traffic Manager instance from a previously-created definition - typically within an orchestration tool such as Docker or Kubernetes. Such definitions are contained within text files called configuration documents and the Configuration Importer uses these documents to construct the definitions on the local Virtual Traffic Manager, replacing its previous running configuration.

Click a backup name from the table on the Backup Management page and use the "Export Configuration document" section to create and export a configuration document based on the configuration contained within the backup.

For a complete description of this functionality, see the Virtual Traffic Manager: Configuration Importer Guide.

You can import a previously exported configuration backup. Use the “Import a Backup” section to upload a configuration backup from your local machine.

When you import a backup, it is added to the list of configuration backups on the Virtual Traffic Manager machine. It does not replace the current configuration. You can then restore the backup you have just uploaded to replace the current configuration if desired.

This section provides the same backup/restore functionality of a full backup, yet allows you to tailor the contents of the backup to contain only a subset of a full configuration. It can be accessed from the link on the System > Backups page.

This feature provides similar functionality to the “zconf” command-line utility described in Granular Configuration Import/Export with zconf, and can be useful when trying to copy specific services to other Virtual Traffic Manager clusters. Unlike a regular import, the configuration being imported is merged with the existing one instead of replacing it.

The page is separated into two main sections, one to handle the import and merge process, and another to enable exporting of partial backups.

This section of the page allows you to import a partial or full backup. To facilitate a partial import from the uploaded backup file, you can provide a suitable filter in the Include Only text box provided. The system will import any objects that match this filter, along with any objects upon which the selected objects depend. For example, the pools used by a selected virtual server will also be imported. For more details about the format used, see Filter Formats.

After uploading a backup file, and optionally specifying a filter, you will be presented with a “Diff” (a list of differences) showing the changes that will be made to the system. You should review the Diff and satisfy yourself that everything is correct. Click Apply Partial Backup to commit the changes.

ATTENTION Importing partial backups can lead to an inconsistent configuration if not handled correctly. Always review the Diffs presented when importing a partial backup. As with all backup and restore operations, it is strongly recommended that you create a full backup point before applying a partial backup.

This section is used to download partial or full configuration backups. To facilitate a partial backup, you can set a suitable filter in the Include Only text box provided. The system will then export only the configuration objects that match this filter, along with their dependencies. For more details about the format used, see Filter Formats.

The Include Only filter is a space separated list of entries according to one of the following formats:

The filter allows the use of an asterisk (*) as a wildcard to represent zero or more characters. For example, typing "net*" matches "net", "net.cfg", and "network".

For example, to import all virtual servers, the monitor "Primary Database Monitor" and your global settings, enter the following filter:

The following table lists the configuration identifiers you can choose to include:

To include the Web Application Firewall (WAF) in a partial backup, you must also include the Global Settings file. In addition, WAF must be enabled in your Virtual Traffic Manager configuration before you create the backup.

In other words, with WAF enabled, add the following to the Include Only filter in the “Export” section:

Equally, to import WAF configuration through the Partial Backups page, ensure you add both files to the Include Only filter in the “Import” section.

ATTENTION Restoring the “settings.cfg” file to your active Virtual Traffic Manager configuration in this way overrides all Global Settings configuration, not just WAF-specific key values. Ivanti recommends creating a backup of this file before restoring a copy of it through a partial backup.