Network devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls have intricate configurations that are labor-intensive to set up. It is common that device configurations become corrupt or lost. For example, a network engineer might make a bad change to a device’s configuration. Or, a power surge or hardware failure might cause a device’s configuration to be corrupted or lost entirely. For situations such as this, it is critical that you backup your network device configurations so you can restore them later if necessary. Fortunately, UVexplorer has the ability to discover and backup device configurations for many (but not all) kinds of network devices. Any time UVexplorer discovers your network, you can ask it to include device configurations as part of the data it discovers. Doing this will effectively back up your device configurations in case you need to restore them later.
UVexplorer also provides a “Capture Config” tool that allows you to manually backup your device configurations without doing a full discovery of your network. Either way, UVexplorer has your back when it comes to safeguarding your network device configurations. UVexplorer can also export these device configurations to a local/network folder, PRTG, Asset Panda, IT Glue, Hudu and more.
UVexplorer not only archives the new configuration but allows you to compare differences from previous versions. The ‘Diff Tool’ enables quick identification of changes, aiding in troubleshooting and ensuring that only authorized modifications are running:
UVexplorer can backup config files as part of a one-off discovery, automated discovery, one-off tool backup and a scheduled monitoring task.
In order to backup your configurations, you will need to ensure that SSH credentials are properly set up in UVexplorer for access.
UVexplorer allows you to add multiple SSH credentials and assign credentials to designated devices. (To do this click the “Assign…” button). Assigning credentials to specific devices will speed up the UVexplorer login process.
The one-off discovery backup method utilizes the “Discover Network” button on the “Discovery” menu. This discovery is a one time scan that will backup the config files with the following steps:
Select the “Settings…” button and in the “Protocols / Credentials” tab select the SSH credentials. Then checkmark the “Capture Device Configurations”:
This method will save the device configurations into UVexplorer’s SQLite encrypted database. You can access the configs by selecting the device and going to the “Configs” tab:
The automated scheduled discovery backup method utilizes the “Scheduled Discoveries” button on the Discovery ribbon. This discovery is recurring on a set schedule that will backup the config files with the following steps:
This method will save the original device configurations and any changes into UVexplorer’s MySQL Lite encrypted database on a recurring basis – access the configs by selecting the device and going to the “Configs” tab.
This option also allows you to save the configs out to a local/network folder location, create a date or device subfolder and to save the configs only on changes to the file:
UVexplorer allows you to backup configuration files for routers/switches/firewalls at any time with the Start vs. Run backup tool. This tool is available on the “Configuration Backups” menu ribbon:
This method will update the UVexplorer’s internal SQLite encrypted database with the latest startup and running configuration files from the selected devices:
This method will save the device configurations into UVexplorer’s SQLite encrypted database. You can access the configs by selecting a device in UVexplorer and going to the “Configs” tab:
UVexplorer allows you to schedule recurring backups of your configuration files without running a full asset scan/discovery.
This method is run from the “Monitors” -> “Configs” monitor:
Rename the monitor and select “Capture Startup Config” and/or “Capture Running Config”. Then select the local/network folder to save the files to (the files are saved internally to UVexplorer as well) and whether you’d prefer a Date/Device subfolder and saving on changes only:
Select the devices to backup and the SSH credential to be used:
Select the scheduled backup time period. UVexplorer will notify you of changes to the config files. For this notification, update the notification events and email/slack details in the “Events” tab:
UVexplorer provides multiple methods to backup and archive startup and running configuration scripts. It also integrates into multiple documentation platforms to back these scripts up to 3rd party platforms.
For more information on configuration backup, please contact Sales@UVexplorer.com.
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