Saving and Restoring System Preferences

On a ztC Edge system, a user who has full system administrator privileges can save the settings of the ztC Edge Console Preferences page by creating a restore file (sometimes referred to as a backup file). After saving this file to a destination folder on a local computer, you can then select the saved file to restore Preferences settings to the same node, a replacement node, or to one or more other nodes, if needed at a later time. This feature enables you to quickly set up one or more systems.

Note: Saving the system preferences of a single-node system is particularly important because a single-node system does not provide redundancy.

The following preferences settings are included, by default, in the saved file:

Owner Information

Software Updates

IP Configuration

Quorum Servers (dual-node systems, only)

Date & Time

Mail Server

Users & Groups

Secure Connection

VM Device Configuration

IPtables Security

Login Banner Notice

e-Alerts

SNMP Configuration

OPC Configuration

Support Configuration

Proxy Configuration
  1. In the left-hand navigation panel, click Preferences to open the Preferences page.
  2. Under Administrative Tools, click Save System Preferences.

  3. Enter information, as necessary, in the following fields:

    • File Name—This field displays a default file name in the format ztC_Asset_ID_preferences_yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm.zip. You can modify the default name, if necessary, after you save the file. Characters allowed in the file name are letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscore (_).
    • Description—Enter a description (optional).
    • Keywords—The keyword system_ID appears, by default. You can change the default keyword and add additional keywords, for a total of three keywords.

  4. Click one of the following buttons:

    • Save—Saves the file with the default file name and location, or you can modify the name and location, if necessary.

    • Clear—Clears the Description and Tags fields.

    The message System preferences saved. appears when the save succeeds.

After you saved the settings of system preferences and you want to restore the settings to the same system or another system, you should first prepare by becoming familiar with Cautions, Prerequisites, and Notes regarding the restore operation.

Before you restore a saved system preferences file, you should be aware of the Caution, Prerequisites, and Notes below.

Caution: If the restored system preferences change any of the following settings, the system's connection to the ztC Edge Console is lost:
  • IP Configuration
  • Secure Connections (if you are logged in with HTTP enabled, and the restore file disables HTTP)
  • Date & Time

When the connection is lost, the restore operation continues to run in the background, though you are not able to see its progress or status. If you lose the connection, log in again. (For information about setting the IP configuration, see Configuring IP Settings. For information about setting secure connections, see Configuring Secure Connections. For information about setting the date and time, see Configuring Date and Time.)

Prerequisites:
  • Active Directory (AD) settings: If restored preferences enable AD, you must provide AD credentials when logging in. For information about enabling AD, see Configuring Active Directory.
  • The Quorum Servers setting:
    • The Enabled status is restored.
    • No VMs should be using the existing quorum server; all VMs in use should be powered off, before restoring preferences. If any VMs are using the quorum server during the restore operation, the restore of Quorum Servers will fail.
    • This setting is not restored to a single-node system.

    For information about enabling quorum servers, see Configuring Quorum Servers.

Notes: Before you restore system preferences, consider the following information:

  • The system that you restore preferences to and the system whose saved preferences file you are using must be the same in the following ways:

    • The same hardware model—The system that you restore preferences to must be the same hardware model as the system whose saved preferences file is being restored.

    • The same dual-node or single-node configuration—You can restore to a dual-node system only preferences that were saved on a dual-node system. You can restore to a single-node system only preferences that were saved on a single-node system.

  • If you restore system preferences on a system running an earlier or later release than the original backup, you can restore only the preferences that are supported in the earlier release.

  • IPtables Security—To restore IPtables settings, you must select either Append (to append the restore-file settings to the existing rule set) or Overwrite (to overwrite the existing rule set with the restore-file settings). (For information about IPtables, see Managing IPtables.)
  • IP Configuration—When selected, all network configuration data is restored. (For information, see Configuring IP Settings.)

  • Date & Time—Only the setting Automatically is restored immediately. When restoring the setting Manually as well as settings with a different time zone and multiple NTP servers, the physical machines are powered off, and the restored date and time settings take effect after the system is rebooted. (For information, see Configuring Date and Time.)

  • For Users & Groups, consider the following:
    • You must provide AD credentials to restore the Users & Groups setting.
    • If a user account exists on the current system and in the restore file, the current system considers the user account to be edited.
    • If a user account exists in the restore file but not on the current system, the current system considers the user account to be added.
    • The current system skips an AD entry in the restore file in the following circumstances:
      • If an AD entry in the restore file is missing in AD configured for the current system at the time of the restore.
      • If the AD entry in the restore file has a mismatch in user type with the AD entry configured for the current system at the time of the restore.

      (For information about Users & Groups, see Configuring Users and Groups.)

After you are familiar with Cautions, Prerequisites, and Notes regarding the restore operation, you can restore system preferences.

  1. In the left-hand navigation panel, click Preferences to open the Preferences page.
  2. Under Administrative Tools, click Restore System Preferences.

  3. Under Restore System Preferences, do the following:

    1. Click Choose file to display a list of files in the default save directory, including saved zip files. If necessary, navigate to a different directory.

    2. Scroll to select the file with the Preferences settings that you want to restore, and click the file name. The following table appears:

      Restoring system preferences from:

      File Name ztC_Asset_ID_preferences_yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mm-ss.zip
      Software Version version_number

      Description

      		description

      Keywords

      keywords

      If the restored Preferences include Users & Groups, the following information also appears:

      Active Directory Credentials You need Active Directory credentials to restore Users & Groups settings.

      To restore settings in the selected file, click Next.

  4. The Select the system preferences to restore window appears with a list of preferences.

    The following preferences settings are restored, by default:

    Owner Information

    Software Updates

    Quorum Servers (dual-node systems, only)

    Mail Server

    VM Device Configuration

    Login Banner Notice

    e-Alerts

    SNMP Configuration

    OPC Configuration

    Support Configuration

    Proxy Configuration
    Note:

    The following preferences are not selected by default because the preference causes either a pop-up message to appear or the system to restart:

    • Date & Time—If the settings change, the system reboots.
    • Users & Groups—If Active Directory (AD) is enabled, a window appears for AD credentials.
    • Secure Connection—If you are logged in with HTTP and the restore file disables HTTP, the connection to the system is lost and you must log in again.
    • IPtables Security—A window appears asking if you want to either overwrite the current set of rules or append the restored rules to the current set of rules.
    • IP Configuration—If the IP configuration changes, the connection to the system is lost and you must log in again.

    Deselect the checkbox of any preference that you do not want to restore. Select any additional preferences, if not already selected.

  5. Click Restore for the system to restore the selected preferences, or click Back to return to the previous window. Once you click Restore, you cannot cancel the procedure. The restore operation takes about a minute to complete. During the restore operation, you cannot navigate to other screens in the ztC Edge Console window. You must wait for the restore operation to complete before you display another console window.

    The Restore Status column lists the restore status as In Progress, Completed, Partially completed, or Failed. When the restore operation is complete, the following message appears:

    Complete! The Preferences shown above have been successfully restored.
  6. Click Done. The initial Restore System Preferences screen reappears.

Related Topics

ztC Edge Console

Preferences Page

Using the ztC Edge Console