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Configuring backups for Socialcast On Premise (2008677)
Purpose
This article provides information about the Socialcast backup and restoration tool.
Socialcast provides a backup and restoration tool that saves the database, search index, and user uploaded assets to a compressed and encrypted file to a location of your choosing. Currently, it supports saving the backup to a local hard drive, Network File Store, or Samba mount.
Resolution
Configuring remote backups
To have the backups stored separately from the Socialcast drive, configure a remote backup location.
Go to https://<scmcdomain>:8003/backup_config/edit.
On Scheduled Backup Configuration panel, configure the remote backup location. The three options are:
Mountable File System (Label)
Network File System Share (NFS)
Windows File System Share (CIFS or SMB)
You can only choose one remote backup location. For the remote configuration to work, you have to select Enable remote backup storage?. When you select this option, you must decide the number of backups that should be kept. When you have reached your limit the oldest backup is deleted to make room for the new one.
Mountable File System
The mountable file system works by finding a drive configured with the label provided and saving backups on that drive at the location specified. This configuration requires a pre-formatted ext3 drive to be attached to the main configuration node. When attached, it needs to be configured with the label you want to use.
To set the label for the drive:
SSH into the main configuration node, replacing node.example.com with the IP address or hostname of the main configuration node. For example:
ssh maintainer@node.example.com
Set the drive label with the command:
sudo /sbin/e2label /dev/<devicename> <labelname>
Where:
<labelname> is the label you want to use.
<devicename> is the device name for the disk on which you want to save backups
Network File System Share
If you use NFS, the appliance mounts the NFS server specified in this configuration section. Make sure to check with your NFS team to ensure that the Socialcast appliance has access to the NFS system. This may require having them whitelist the main configuration node’s IP address. The Backup Host is the hostname or IP address of the NFS share the Socialcast appliance will be connecting to. The Backup path is the location on the NFS share that the Socialcast backup will be stored.
Windows File System Share
You need to talk with your CIFS/SMB team to get credentials and a share allocated for Socialcast. It uses the connection information provided to mount a CIFS/SMB share onto the filesystem. The Backup host is the hostname or IP address of the CIFS/SMB share the Socialcast appliance will be connecting to. The Backup path is where on the CIFS/SMB share the Socialcast backup will be stored. The username and password should be provided by the CIFS/SMB team and is used for authentication with the CIFS/SMB system.
Creating a backup
After configuring your remote backup location, you can start creating backups.
Go to https://<scmcdomain>:8003/backups.
Click Create a backup now. This kicks off the backup job and should take about 10-15 minutes to finish.
When complete, you see a link to the backup under the Available Backups heading. Click this link to download the backup to your computer.
Backup encryption key
All Socialcast appliance backups are encrypted using aes-256-cbc encryption technology. This encryption requires a backup key that you can downloade. VMware recommends keeping a secure copy of that encryption key on hand in case of an emergency. Without the key, Socialcast cannot restore its backups. If that key is compromised, VMware recommends deleting all backups generated with that key.
To upload a new encryption key:
Click the file chooser button under Upload backup encryption key.
Select the new encryption key.
Click Upload.
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